774 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



to the use of such terms as subjective and objective, 

 inner and outer, mental and physical. It has been 

 found impossible to throw a bridge across the appar- 

 ent chasm which divides these two worlds. But from 

 the introspective point of view this opposition disappears, 

 the outer world is for us comprised in the whole cir- 

 cumference of consciousness, and so is likewise the 

 inner world. Both exist, not on different planes, but on 

 the same plane ; and, in fact, the experiences belonging 

 to the two different orders which we distinguish in 

 actual life and emphasise in science are continually 

 intermingled. It is only by a lengthy process of edu- 

 cation in our infancy and early childhood that we 

 learn to separate the totality of our experience into 

 two more or less distinct regions, that the continuum 

 of presentations or consciousness is divided into two 

 continua, the stream of thought into two streams which 

 we with difficulty keep apart. In scientific research this 

 differentiation is carried to an extreme, and is known 

 as the elimination from our observations of the sub- 

 jective factor. Only in mathematical reasoning, and 

 then probably only through the help of geometrical 

 location, is this separation carried out to perfection. 

 Some minds, even of a high order, are quite incapable 

 of carrying out this mental operation so indispensable 

 in scientific research. 



In the foregoing chapters of this section we have had 

 repeated and, as we progressed, more frequent oppor- 

 tunities of showing how recent philosophical thought is 

 3s. revealing a distinct tendency to take what I have 

 iic\ilw?^ termed the " Synoptic view," to look at things as a 



