Preface 



of life and consciousness, all collective and individual 

 evolution, and even the meaning of the universe, can 

 be understood. 



By the analytical and ascending method, on the 

 contrary, we reach nothing but the serious errors in 

 generalisation which have vitiated all contemporary 

 philosophy, if, indeed, we do not lose ourselves in an 

 unmeaning verbalism. 



In seeking to draw general conclusions from elemen- 

 tary phenomena we are driven to deny sensibility to 

 animals and to reduce consciousness to an epiphenom- 

 enon. By taking minor hypnotoid or hysteriform 

 manifestations as our starting point in the study of 

 psychological facts, we end by reducing the whole of 

 subconscious psychology, even the highest, to automatism 

 or suggestibility. 



Worse still, by blind fidelity to a barren method, 

 some very fine minds are doomed to impotence, and 

 waste their time and trouble in inventing or changing 

 mere labels; and failing to capture the general idea 

 they fall back on the invention of * Pythiatism * or 

 'Metagnomy '* . . . 



The method here chosen offers two essential criteria 

 as guides one critical, the other practical. 



The critical criterion will permit us to consider as 

 false and to reject without further examination, every 

 explanation or hypothesis which in a connected order 

 of facts, is adapted to a part only of these facts, and not 

 to all, especially to the more complex. 



The practical criterion will prescribe the systematic 

 and immediate study of the highest and most complex 

 in any given order of connected facts. 



Whether the matter in hand be universal evolution 

 and naturalistic theories, physiological or psychological 

 individuality, or even questions of high philosophy, we 



1 Pythiatism : pertaining to the Pythian Apollo. Metagnomy : (from 

 Gr. yvtipi), thought) = beyond thought. 



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