GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 103 



with difficulty divest ourselves of the notion that the 

 single phenomenon with which we are dealing is the 

 transient appearance or experience of some underlying 

 reality, subject, or person. Now it is quite true that, 

 when dealing with external or natural phenomena, we 

 are equally in the habit of introducing a fictitious unity 

 or whole which we call nature, the outer world, or the 

 universe. This reference, however, to nature as a whole 

 or a unity has little or no meaning for by far the greater 

 part of all scientific work. In fact, the progress of 

 science and of its applications is marked by an increasing 

 tendency to restrict the field of observation and research, 

 and leave out of sight the position which the special 

 subject under review has to the whole. Indeed, we can 

 say that the whole or totality is for the scientific worker 

 simply the sum of its parts, and that, as the number of 

 these parts is continually and rapidly increasing, the 

 whole or comprehensive unity is more and more receding 

 into the background and into a shadowy distance. But 

 the unity or whole of mental phenomena which we 9. 



Contrast 



term our mind, soul, or consciousness is always before us, between 



unities to 



accompanies all our reflections, and cannot be got rid of. ^e 



The process of isolation and abstraction so fruitful in f n a neHif 

 scientific research and in the acquisition of natural a 

 knowledge is inapplicable to the phenomena of inner 

 life. 



Thus, though the attempt has frequently been made 

 in modern times to deal after the manner of exact 

 science with the phenomena of the inner or mental 

 world, this attempt has succeeded only to a very small 

 extent; we may, moreover, truly say that wherever it 



