26 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



civilised pursuit, demanding, for its success, a certain 

 liberation from the life of instinct, and even, at times, a 

 certain aloofness from all mundane hopes and fears. It 

 is not in philosophy, therefore, that we can hope to see 

 intuition at its best. On the contrary, since the true 

 objects of philosophy, and the habits of thought de- 

 manded for their apprehension, are strange, unusual, 

 and remote, it is here, more almost than anywhere else, 

 that intellect proves superior to intuition, and that quick 

 unanalysed convictions are least deserving of uncritical 

 acceptance. 



Before embarking upon the somewhat difficult and 

 abstract discussions which lie before us, it will be well 

 to take a survey of the hopes we may retain and the 

 hopes we must abandon. The hope of satisfaction to 

 our more human desires the hope of demonstrating 

 that the world has this or that desirable ethical character- 

 istic is not one which, so far as I can see, philosophy 

 can do anything whatever to satisfy. The difference 

 between a good world and a bad one is a difference in 

 the particular characteristics of the particular things that 

 exist in these worlds : it is not a sufficiently abstract 

 difference to come within the province of philosophy. 

 Love and hate, for example, are ethical opposites, but to 

 philosophy they are closely analogous attitudes towards 

 objects. The general form and structure of those 

 attitudes towards objects which constitute mental pheno- 

 mena is a problem for philosophy ; but the difference 

 between love and hate is not a difference of form or 

 structure, and therefore belongs rather to the special 

 science of psychology than to philosophy. Thus the 

 ethical interests which have often inspired philosophers 

 must remain in the background : some kind of ethical 

 interest may inspire the whole study, but none must 



