INTRODUCTORY 17 



of the scientific method ought to lead their professors to 

 a practically identical system. Now one of the idiosyn- 

 crasies of metaphysicians lies in this : that each meta- 

 physician has his own system, which to a large extent 

 excludes that of his predecessors and colleagues. Hence 

 we must conclude that metaphysics are built either on air 

 or on quicksands — either they start from no foundation 

 in facts at all, or the superstructure has been raised before 

 a basis has been found in the accurate classification of 

 facts. I want to lay special stress on this point. There 

 is no short cut to truth, no way to gain a knowledge of 

 the universe except through the gateway of scientific 

 method. The hard and stony path of classifying facts 

 and reasoning upon them is the only way to ascertain 

 truth> It is the reason and not the imagination which 

 must ultimately be appealed to. The poet may give us 

 in sublime language an account of the origin and purport 

 of the universe, but in the end it will not satisfy our 

 aesthetic judgment, our idea of harmony and beauty, like 

 the few facts which the scientist may venture to tell us 

 in the same field. The one will agree with all our ex- 

 periences past and present, the other is sure, sooner or 

 later, to contradict our observation because it propounds a 

 dogma, where we are yet far from knowing the whole truth. 

 Our aesthetic judgment demands harmony between the 

 representation and the represented, and in this sense 

 science is often more artistic than modern art. 



The poet is a valued member of the community, for 

 he is known to be a poet ; his value will increase as he 

 grows to recognise the deeper insight into nature with 

 which modern science provides him. The metaphysician 

 is a poet, often a very great one, but unfortunately he is 

 not known to be a poet, because he strives to clothe his 

 poetry in the language of reason, and hence it follows 

 that he is liable to be a dangerous member of the com- 

 munity. The danger at the present time that meta- 

 physical dogmas may check scientific research is, perhaps, 

 not very great. The day has gone by when the Hegelian 

 philosophy threatened to strangle infant science in Ger- 



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