VI. 



Professor Lloyd Morgan on the " Grammar 

 of Science." 



PROFESSOR PEARSON'S " Grammar of Science " occupies an 

 almost unique position among English books which treat of the 

 nature, scope, and limitations of Scientific Method. Whereas most 

 other writers have treated the subject descriptively and historically, as 

 did Whewell, Herschel, and Baden-Powell, or have busied themselves 

 with the logical processes employed, as did Jevons, Professor Pearson 

 has tried to bring about a more accurate use of scientific terminology 

 by a criticism of the fundamental concepts of modern science. In 

 this criticism he has endeavoured to co-ordinate the concepts of the 

 sciences with those of the theory of knowledge. 



Professor Lloyd Morgan is fully alive to this feature of Professor 

 Pearson's work ; but to a careful reader of the latter it must appear 

 that in many respects the reviewer has either misunderstood the 

 doctrines which he criticises, or has failed to establish a consistent 

 ground for his rejection of them. Professor Pearson adopts a 

 philosophical position which may be fairly described as thoroughly 

 idealistic. In this respect, indeed, he is at one with most writers of 

 text-books on Physics. Only with a difference. The text-book 

 writers are generally as idealistic as Hume or Mill in their opening 

 paragraphs, but they fail to show their faith by their works in the 

 chapters which follow. "The Grammar of Science," however, gives 

 in a clear but concise manner the author's own grounds for the 

 position he has taken up, and, what is even more to the point, the 

 actual bearing of this theory of human experience upon the thought 

 and language of science is illustrated by abundant example as well as 

 by precept. 



Thus, even if the book had no other value, it would at least be 

 of service to abate the assurance of those writers who suppose that 

 though Idealism sounds well in the lecture room, it is nevertheless 

 doomed to inevitable scientific bankruptcy in the fields of practical 

 research. 



Now the odd thing about Professor Lloyd Morgan's position is 

 that, although he is himself, as he tells us, fully impressed with the 

 general truth and value of these idealistic results in their proper 

 place, he yet seems to think that their proper place is on the shelf. 



