Confluence of Opposites

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 98

80
SCIENCE
ledge is what is implied by the term. According to some writers there are certain limits on human knowledge which are imposed by a thing or things termed, in a spirit of more or less subdued awe, 'the unknown.' But this is merely begging the question. Actually there can be no such thing as the unknown in the empire of nature. For we have a right to ask whether in talking of an unknown, you be talking of things which you know of or not. Now, if you reply that you know that there is an unknown thing existing which will never be known to any one, then, my dear sir, your own admission that you know that such a thing existsfalsifies your proposition; but if you say that you do not, then you should take my advice and say no more about it, because then you will be babbling like babes of things which you know nothing about and which you have absolutely no reason to suppose exist! You may now seek shelter behind the plea that your unknowable is a paragon of virtues some of which will ever remain impervious to the obtruding gaze of an explorer. But here again you are merely repeating your early error. Have you any reason to suppose the existence of those attributes that can never be known by any one, or are you only talking for talking's sake? In the one case you already know the thing, since you have inferential or reasonable knowledge of it, like that of ether and space, but in the other you have no right to be in the arena of metaphysics and should retire from it at once, The argument that if living