SCIENTIFIC SYMBOLS 249 



be in some fundamental respects like materials or forces 

 familiar in the workshop — that all we have got to do is 

 to imagine the usual kind of thing on an infinitely smaller 

 scale. It must be our aim to avoid such prejudgments, 

 which are surely illogical; and since we must cease to 

 employ familiar concepts, symbols have become the only 

 possible alternative. 



The synthetic method by which we build up from 

 its own symbolic elements a world which will imitate 

 the actual behaviour of the world of familiar experience 

 is adopted almost universally in scientific theories. Any 

 ordinary theoretical paper in the scientific journals 

 tacitly assumes that this approach is adopted. It has 

 proved to be the most successful procedure; and it is the 

 actual procedure underlying the advances set forth in 

 the scientific part of this book. But I would not claim 

 that no other way of working is admissible. We agree 

 that at the end of the synthesis there must be a linkage 

 to the familiar world of consciousness, and we are not 

 necessarily opposed to attempts to reach the physical 

 world from that end. From the point of view of philo- 

 sophy it is desirable that this entrance should be 

 explored, and it is conceivable that it may be fruitful 

 scientifically. If I have rightly understood Dr. White- 

 head's philosophy, that is the course which he takes. It 

 involves a certain amount of working backwards (as 

 we should ordinarily describe it) ; but his method of 

 "extensive abstraction" is intended to overcome some 

 of the difficulties of such a procedure. I am not qualified 

 to form a critical judgment of this work, but in principle 

 it appears highly interesting. Although this book may 

 in most respects seem diametrically opposed to Dr. 

 Whitehead's widely read philosophy of Nature, I think 

 it would be truer to regard him as an ally who from the 



