to be worth mentioning, but the ignoring of which causes much confusion in Science; viz. that whereas he who is teaching a Law of things must illustrate his remarks by reference to actual facts, or his whole argument falls to the ground, a principle of Algebraization can just as well be illustrated by reference to imaginary as to real occurrences. When the law of circularity has once been suggested to the mind, it matters nothing whether the object which suggested it was a real or a painted fruit; nor does it matter how nearly it approximated to the circular form. In the same way, the spiral law of thought-progress is equally well illustrated by the narrative of Abraham, whether it be a narration of actual facts or an imaginary tale.
The kind of confusion which is caused in literature by this principle not being understood, will be described in a future Chapter.
There was a time when even mathematical algebraization was considered impious and dangerous. We have grown accustomed to it now. But the algebraizers of the moral world are still the objects of the hatred of other classes of men (and that is by no means the worst part of their destiny, as we shall presently see). Ordinarily a tolerably strong antagonism is kept up between three classes : the supporters of convention, who desire to make some sort of practical life possible, and who object to whatever disturbs popular ideas; the so-called Free-thinkers, who refuse to acknowledge the validity of convention, and who do not believe in the possibility of knowing the true Law of any human relation; the Idealists, who create an ideal moral code according to some standard agreeable to their feelings.
