626 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



47. 



Critical 

 methods. 



The instru- 

 ment of 



search. 



all recent philosophical thought the methods of 



criticism. 



And yet, before taking leave of science and entering 

 on a comprehensive appreciation of the workings of 

 the Critical Spirit with which all our thought seems 

 to be permeated, I owe to my readers the attempt 

 to answer one remaining question. If it be true, 

 as the foregoing narrative has abundantly insisted, 

 that through the increasing application of mathematical 

 methods of measuring and calculating, our thought has 

 become truly scientific and our knowledge accurate and 

 useful for describing and predicting phenomena, as also 

 for manifold practical applications, we may be curious to 

 know whether the refined instrument, mathematical 

 thought itself, has been subject to such change and 

 development as has been undergone by the various 

 branches of science to which it has been applied. In 

 fact, we have to ask the question, How has mathe- 

 matical thought itself fared in the course of the nine- 

 teenth century ? The concluding chapter of the present 

 volume will try to give a reply to this question. 



