30 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



which he dissects. In pre-scientific ages this was not the 

 case. Astronomy, for example, was studied because 

 men believed in astrology : it was thought that the 

 movements of the planets had the most direct and im 

 portant bearing upon the lives of human beings. Pre 

 sumably, when this belief decayed and the disinterested 

 study of astronomy began, many who had found astrology 

 absorbingly interesting decided that astronomy had too 

 little human interest to be worthy of study. Physics, as 

 it appears in Plato s Timaeus for example, is full of ethical 

 notions : it is an essential part of its purpose to show 

 that the earth is worthy of admiration. The modern 

 physicist, on the contrary, though he has no wish to deny 

 that the earth is admirable, is not concerned, as physicist, 

 with its ethical attributes : he is merely concerned to 

 find out facts, not to consider whether they are good or 

 bad. In psychology, the scientific attitude is even more 

 recent and more difficult than in the physical sciences : 

 it is natural to consider that human nature is either good 

 or bad, and to suppose that the difference between good 

 and bad, so all-important in practice, must be important 

 in theory also. It is only during the last century that an 

 ethically neutral psychology has grown up ; and here 

 too, ethical neutrality has been essential to scientific 

 success. 



In philosophy, hitherto, ethical neutrality has been 

 seldom sought and hardly ever achieved. Men have 

 remembered their wishes, and have judged philosophies 

 in relation to their wishes. Driven from the particular 

 sciences, the belief that the notions of good and evil must 

 afford a key to the understanding of the world has sought 

 a refuge in philosophy. But even from this last refuge, if 

 philosophy is not to remain a set of pleasing dreams, this 

 belief must be driven forth. It is a commonplace that 



