INTRODUCTORY 19 



facts followed by the recognition of their relationship and 

 recurring sequences. The scientific judgment is the judg- 

 ment based upon this recognition and free from personal 

 bias. If this were the philosophical method there would 

 be no need of further discussion, but as we are told the 

 subject-matter of philosophy is not the " legitimate problem 

 of science," the two methods are presumably not identical. 

 Indeed the philosophical method seems based upon an 

 analysis which does not start with the classification of 

 facts, but reaches its judgments by some obscure process of 

 internal cogitation. It is therefore dangerously liable to 

 the influence of individual bias ; it results, as experience 

 shows us, in an endless number of competing and contra- 

 dictory systems. It is because the so-called philosophical 

 method does not, when different individuals approach the 

 same range of facts,^ lead, like the scientific, to practical 

 unanimity of judgment, that science, rather than philo- 

 sophy, offers the better training for modern citizenship. 



8 7. — The Ignora7tce of Science 



It must not be supposed that science for a moment 

 denies the existence of some of the problems which have 

 hitherto been classed as philosophical or metaphysical. 

 On the contrary, it recognises that a great variety of 

 physical and biological phenomena lead directly to these 

 problems. But it asserts that the methods hitherto 

 applied to these problems have been futile, because they 

 have been unscientific. The classifications of facts hitherto 

 made by the system-mongers have been hopelessly in- 

 adequate or hopelessly prejudiced. Until the scientific 

 study of psychology, both by observation and experiment, 

 has advanced immensely beyond its present limits — and 

 this may take generations of work — science can only 

 answer to the great majority of " metaphysical " problems, 



1 This statement by no means denies the existence of many moot points, 

 unsettled problems in science ; but the genuine scientist admits that they are 

 unsolved. As a rule they lie just on the frontier line between knowledge and 

 ignorance, where the pioneers of science are pushing forward into unoccupied 

 and difficult country. 



