442 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



Science does not prove God, though the religious experience 

 does; and the problem is to fit God into a scientific scheme 

 in which he is not obviously present. This makes the specu- 

 lative problem less an inference from the facts of science 

 and more an inference from the facts of religion or intuition. 

 There is probably something of this in all of the writers to 

 be examined. It does not necessarily invalidate their results, 

 but it makes their conclusions somewhat less directly depend- 

 ent on science. 



In considering the various solutions to the problem of the 

 nature of reality it will be well to follow the outline suggested 

 in Chapter XVII. Accordingly, an attempt will be made in 

 each case to show (a) what the initial data are, (b) what the 

 character of the inference is, and (c) what the nature of the 

 inferred realm is. 



SPIRITUAL IDEALISM 



The data with which Eddington starts are such as con- 

 stitute the world-view of the sophisticated common sense 

 man, who proves to be really the scientist himself. For such 

 an individual the world consists of two kinds of objects, 

 with an important relation between them. On the one hand 

 there are the objects of everyday experience. Eddington 

 suggests that every conscious being is involved in a story, 

 which the perceiving part of his mind tells him of a world in 

 which he lives. This world contains familiar objects such as 

 colors, sounds, and scents, which are located in a boundless 

 space and in a stream of time. 1 Consider, for example, such 

 a thing as a table. It would ordinarily be described as having 

 extension, as being comparatively permanent and colored, 

 and especially as being substantial. 2 But there is another 

 world — the world of scientific objects. Physics contradicts 

 the story-teller. Science tells us that the table is not a sub- 

 stantial desk, not the continuous substance which it is sup- 

 posed to be according to the story. On the contrary it is a 

 mass of electrical charges in rapid motion. It is more like 



1 New Pathways in Science, p. 1. 2 Nature of the Physical World, p. ix. 



