x PREFACE 



case. Hence, they themselves, should be constantly 

 summoned before the bar, and required to justify 

 themselves. 



The demand that the philosopher whose main business 

 is amongst principles should apply them to facts is 

 altogether fair. When his turn comes, as Plato tells 

 us, he must come out of the sunlight, and "go down 

 to the general under-ground abode, and get the habit 

 of seeing in the dark." 



I have attempted little of that in this book. But I 

 shall not consider that my labour has been altogether 

 lost if anything I have said will stimulate reflexion on 

 the part of those men whose experience of affairs is richer 

 than my own. I know nothing, for instance, better cal- 

 culated to moderate both the alarm and the hope which 

 the mere word " Socialism " evokes than a serious attempt 

 to examine prejudices whose very existence often escapes 

 our notice. The social profit that would accrue from 

 bringing the philosopher down to facts is altogether 

 insignificant when compared to the good that would 

 ensue from bringing the practical man to consider 

 principles. 



Ihaye no hope except in the truth, and truth is not 

 given to men in their sleep. It is embedded in the facts 

 of social life as it is embedded in the material universe ; 

 but it cannot be set free by mere Empiricism in the one 

 case any more than in the other, nor be gained without 

 that labour of research amongst universal principles which 

 has created the physical sciences. 



HENRY JONES. 

 THE UNIVERSITY, 

 GLASGOW, January, 1910. 



