vi METAPHYSICS OF TIME-PROCESS 103 



draw in favour of abstract metaphysics, and must not be 

 allowed to prejudice the inquiry into the proper method 

 of discovering an ultimate theory of the universe. For in 

 the first place the treatment of its initial assumption by 

 science differs widely from that of metaphysics. Science 

 does not refuse to interpret the symbols with which it 

 operates ; on the contrary, it is only their applicability to 

 the concrete facts originally abstracted from that is held 

 to justify their use and to establish their truth. The 

 mathematical abstractions which enable astronomers to 

 calculate the path of a star are justified by their ap 

 proximate correspondence with its observed position, and 

 if there were any extensive or persistent divergence between 

 the calculation and experience, astronomers would be quite 

 ready to revise their assumptions to the extent even of 

 changing their fundamental notions concerning the nature 

 of space. But in the case of metaphysics the same 

 principle is not, apparently, to apply. If the Dialectic of 

 the Absolute Idea does not accord in its results with the 

 facts of life, we are not to suspect the Dialectic. It 

 possesses an intrinsic certainty by right divine which no 

 failure can be admitted to impair. If the logical (or 

 rather psychological} development of the Idea fails to 

 account for the development in time, we may at the 

 utmost postulate an unknown synthesis. This may be 

 philosophy, but it does not look like science. 



In the second place, let us ask why science abstracts 

 from the particularity of reality. Not, certainly, because 

 it does not observe it. Nor yet because it ascribes to 

 the deductions from its universal laws a precision which 

 they do not possess. On the contrary, it cheerfully admits 

 that all the laws of nature are hypotheses, represent not 

 the facts but tendencies, and are to be used merely as 

 formulas for calculating the facts. But why should we 

 want to calculate the facts by such universal formulas ? 

 The answer to this question brings us to the roots of the 

 matter. We make the fundamental assumption of science 

 that there are universal and eternal laws, i.e. that the 

 individuality of things together with their spatial and 



