246 CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE 



cursion into ultimates, into that never-ending pan 

 orama of new questions and new possibilities that 

 seems to be the fate of the philosopher. While no 

 temperate mind can do other than sympathize with 

 this view, it is hardly more than an expedient. 

 For, as Mr. James remarks, after disposing of the 

 question of free-will by relegating it to the domain 

 of the metaphysician : &quot; Metaphysics means only 

 an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and 

 consistently &quot; and clearness and consistency are 

 not things to be put off beyond a certain point. 

 When the metaphysician chimes in with this new 

 found modesty of the psychologist, so different 

 from the disposition of Locke and Hume and the 

 Mills, salving his metaphysical conscience with the 

 remark it hardly possesses the dignity of a con 

 viction that the partial sciences, just because they 

 are partial, are not expected to be coherent with 

 themselves nor with one another; when the meta 

 physician, I say, praises the psychologist for stick 

 ing to his last, we are reminded that another mo 

 tive is also at work. There is a half-conscious 

 irony in this abnegation of psychology. It is not 

 the first time that science has assumed the work 

 of Cinderella ; and, since Mr. Huxley has happily 

 reminded her, she is not altogether oblivious, in her 

 modesty, of a possible future check to the pride 

 of her haughty sister, and of a certain coronation 

 that shall mark her coming to her own. 



