GENERAL OUTLINE OF METHOD 13 



wish that everything offered them should be based on certitude, 

 that is, as the fruit of diligent rational inquiry. This is the atti 

 tude of a sound understanding in judging, and of sound reason in 

 investigating : provided always that [such certitude] be not sought 

 in matters where it cannot possibly be found&quot; * 



IV. We must keep before us, as dearly as we can, the end to 

 be attained in our inquiry or argument, and suit our method to the 

 attainment of this end. Of course, when the end in view is the 

 discovery of new knowledge, as distinct from the communication 

 of knowledge already possessed, to others, we cannot have a clear 

 or definite conception of what we are looking for : if we had, our 

 inquiry would be superfluous. Still, we must have some general 

 suspicion of it : otherwise we should not think of looking for 

 it at all. Discoveries are, no doubt, sometimes made haphazard, 

 by groping in the dark ; but this is the exception. As a rule, 

 our progress in knowledge is guided by hypotheses, based on 

 analogies with what we already know. 



Besides those general canons of method, special rules are sometimes 

 formulated for the synthetic method, and special rules for the analytic. In the 

 chapters dealing with Induction we shall examine the latter method at some 

 length, and we shall there see that although the process by which we rise 

 from the perception of concrete, individual facts of sense, to the apprehension 

 of general truths, is one of very great importance, yet it is scarcely possible 

 to formulate any mechanical set of guiding rules for it. 



It is the synthetic method that systematizes the truths discovered by 

 analysis, and explains concrete reality by applying to the latter analytically dis 

 covered laws. The rules laid down by some logicians for its employment are 

 almost too obvious to need special statement. For instance, we are reminded 

 that we must start either from axioms that are indisputably self-evident, or 

 from general truths already proved. The usual error here is by defect, by 

 taking for granted what is neither sufficiently simple to be self-evident, nor 

 has been clearly proved the fallacy known as Undue Assumption of Axioms. 

 But philosophers, nowadays, not unfrequently err by excess, by demanding 

 proof for what is so clearly self-evident as to be indemonstrable. They call 

 into question the claim of any principles, however self-evident, to our uncon 

 ditional intellectual assent. They doubt or deny that such abstract, self-evid 

 ent axioms give us any insight into the real nature of things, confining the 

 validity of such axioms to the sphere of subjective mental appearances, and 

 according them at most a merely provisional acceptance as &quot; assumptions &quot; 

 or &quot; postulates &quot; which may perhaps be some day verified as objectively 

 valid, or may perhaps be destined to remain as mere &quot; directive &quot; or 

 &quot; regulative &quot; principles of our thought-processes. It is, of course, a grave 

 mistake thus to confound self-evident truths about the data of our ex 

 perience with those mere &quot; working hypotheses &quot; and &quot; methodological 



1 Lect. V. in Metaph. 2. 



