THE RATIONALE OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 771 



and destroys the unity of his picture. He commits 

 what Aristotle termed a juerajSacne eic aXXo jivug. This 

 is being more and more recognised at the present day 

 by natural philosophers of the first order. 



This growing conviction constitutes one of the real 

 advances in philosophical thought in the course of the 

 nineteenth century. But though not so clearly under- 

 stood as it is at the present time, it has, in a less definite 

 form, been present to the minds of thinkers ever since 

 the time of Plato in antiquity, and many efforts have 

 been made to get out of this impasse. A successful 

 beginning to find a way out of it was made in this 

 country by Locke, and has been continued ever since, 

 latterly also by prominent thinkers abroad ; it may 

 be termed the introspective method. 



Without entering into details it will suffice to point 

 out that this method depends upon the recognition 

 of the fact that whatever the phenomena of the outer 

 world may be, they have, for us human beings, existence 

 only in so far as they, in some way or other, enter into 

 our consciousness in the form of what Locke and his 

 followers termed Ideas, more recent thinkers, Presenta- 

 tions, or, perhaps even more correctly, Experience. For 

 this school of thought the universe is known only to the 

 extent that it is, as it were, mirrored in human con- 

 sciousness. A unification of thought and knowledge 35. 



Introspec- 



would thus depend upon an exploration and description n | e 

 of the whole field of consciousness. unification. 



Now the fact that at the time of life at which any 

 thinker starts upon this search or exploration he is 

 aware and fully convinced that the field he is exploring 



