394 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



but are presumed to have by virtue of their similarity to 

 those which do; this permits inference to a realm of the 

 superrational. (c) The inferred fact is a realm of Reality, 

 which is presumed to lie beneath, behind, or above the data 

 of science. Often this is identified with God, though it need 

 not be; an atheistic materialism is frequently adopted as 

 the solution to the problem of the nature of Reality. The 

 solutions to be offered for examination may be called Spirit- 

 ual Idealism (Eddington), Mathematical Idealism (Jeans), 

 Logical Realism (Keyser), and Creative Evolution (Berg- 

 son). They must be considered as a very limited selection 

 from a wide range of metaphysical positions claiming to be 

 founded on science. 



CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF SPECULATIVE PROBLEMS 



An examination of the typical solutions to these three 

 main speculative problems discloses certain features which 

 may be considered as characteristic of them. In the first 

 place, they are not such as to require solution for science 

 itself; hence they are pursued by the investigator not as 

 scientist but as philosopher. This does not, of course, make 

 the pursuit of the problems unimportant. Sir James Jeans 

 says, for example, with reference to the general speculative 

 problem of the nature of reality, "I believe, in common 

 with most scientific workers, that without a background of 

 this kind we can neither see our new knowledge as a con- 

 sistent whole, nor appreciate its significance to the full." l 

 Eddington insists that such excursions into extra-scientific 

 territory afford the scientist a better view of his own domain. 2 

 But the search for the view of the whole, and the apprecia- 

 tion of significance, are not strictly part of science in the 

 narrow sense. Accordingly, one may say that these problems 

 are of interest not to the critical philosopher who is con- 

 cerned with the foundations of science, but to the specula- 

 tive philosopher interested in the larger issues of life. As 



1 New Background of Science (New York: Macraillan, 1933), p. vii. 



2 Nature of the Physical World, p. vi. 



