INTRODUCTION 9 



this that even if, conceivably, value could be discovered 

 by scientific methods, we are unable, in the present con 

 ditions of knowledge, to apply those methods to the facts 

 with which we are dealing that is, to the internal pheno 

 mena of the consciousness a disability which is suggested 

 by, and accounts for, the vast difference in range and certainty 

 between predictions which refer to events in external nature 

 and those which refer to human action and its consequences. 

 This limitation of our powers is generally recognized, and 

 variously explained. Either the greater complexity of the 

 phenomena of the human mind, or the obstacles in the way 

 of isolating them for purposes of experiment, or both com 

 bined, may be sufficient reasons ; but a still more conclusive 

 reason appears to be that they do not admit of being defined 

 in terms of space. The application of the law of uniformity 

 to external nature is conditioned by the possession of 

 measurements of a high degree of exactness, and a slight 

 initial error will completely falsify remote conclusions. 

 Exact measurements cannot be obtained except for dimen 

 sions in space and time. Of these, the first are entirely 

 wanting in the case of mental processes, and the second, if 

 obtainable at all, which may be doubted, are of no practical 

 use. All that we have to rely on are rough comparisons 

 which never approach the degree of accuracy demanded by 

 scientific methods. In this there is no cause for regret. 

 The triumph of scientific method in all departments of 

 knowledge would, by crippling the emotions and the imagina 

 tion, bring about a dislocation of our present relations with 

 the environment which it is difficult to suppose we should 

 survive. 



Our method, then, must be teleological, and our classifica 

 tion of objects as good or bad must be with reference to 

 a final end which we locate in the future, and not with 

 reference to the chain of past events. When a final end is 

 regarded as the determinant of action, it is called a purpose. 

 Each series of actions begins with a purpose. The universal 

 purpose, and that is what we are in search of, is a single 

 final end to which all separate purposes converge, and to 



