1 8 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



intellectual bewilderment. It offers, in its own domain, 

 the kind of satisfaction which the other sciences offer. 

 But it does not offer, or attempt to offer, a solution of 

 the problem of human destiny, or of the destiny of the 

 universe. 



Evolutionism, if what has been said is true, is to be 

 regarded as a hasty generalisation from certain rather 

 special facts, accompanied by a dogmatic rejection of all 

 attempts at analysis, and inspired by interests which are 

 practical rather than theoretical. In spite, therefore, of 

 its appeal to detailed results in various sciences, it cannot 

 be regarded as any more genuinely scientific than the 

 classical tradition which it has replaced. How philosophy 

 is to be rendered scientific, and what is the true subject- 

 matter of philosophy, I shall try to show first by examples 

 of certain achieved results, and then more generally. 

 We will begin with the problem of the physical con- 

 ceptions of space and time and matter, which, as we have 

 seen, are challenged by the contentions of the evolutionists. 

 That these conceptions stand in need of reconstruction 

 will be admitted, and is indeed increasingly urged by 

 physicists themselves. It will also be admitted that the 

 reconstruction must take more account of change and 

 the universal flux than is done in the older mechanics 

 with its fundamental conception of an indestructible 

 matter. But I do not think the reconstruction required 

 is on Bergsonian lines, nor do I think that his rejection 

 of logic can be anything but harmful. I shall not, how- 

 ever, adopt the method of explicit controversy, but rather 

 the method of independent inquiry, starting from what, 

 in a pre-philosophic stage, appear to be facts, and keeping 

 always as close to these initial data as the requirements of 

 consistency will permit. 



Although explicit controversy is almost always fruitless 



