196 SSA YS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



It remains, then, that we frankly recognize the 

 truth, that the development of the reason, and the 

 problems which successively present themselves for 

 solution, follow certain laws, which are only slightly 

 modified by the circumstances of the various 

 countries and civilizations. Nothing can well be 

 more unlike than life in China and in Greece in 

 the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., yet we find 

 reason dealing with the same problems, and follow- 

 ing the same laws of evolution in its attempted 

 solutions. 



2. The other conclusion which seems to me to 

 follow from the comparison I have drawn between 

 Greek and Chinese thought, is that the attempt to 

 separate the practical from the speculative, to 

 banish metaphysics and limit man to what he can 

 touch and taste and handle, results not in the 

 paralysis of the speculative reason, for reason will 

 speculate in defiance of such attempted limitations, 

 but in the paralysis of the system which professes 

 itself independent of metaphysics and theology. 

 When such a separation exists, reason will sooner 

 take refuge in a dreary philosophy of inaction than 

 acquiesce in a mere system of conduct which is 

 too stagnant to give the stimulus necessary for 

 producing the action which it enjoins. 



