12 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



For my present purpose it is sufficient to say that, 

 starting with language and words, two roads are open for 

 our reflection i.e., for finding their underlying meaning : 

 the one leads outside, the other inside ; the precept of 

 the first was, as we have seen, circumspice, look around 

 you ; the precept of the other is introspice, look inside 

 7. you. Broadly speaking, the former is the precept of 



The precept J . J 



of science science, the principle of scientific thought and progress ; 



philosophy. the i a tter is the precept of philosophy, the principle of 

 philosophical thought and insight. 



This distinction between the two ways, which are 

 those of scientific thought on the one side and of philo- 

 sophical thought on the other, also helps us to realise the 

 great difficulty which besets all philosophical reasoning. 

 The way outside leads us into the world of the many things 

 that exist not only for ourselves but also for our fellow- 

 men whom we address. The scientific thinker, in appeal- 

 ing to the things and phenomena of nature, can invite 

 the student or the reader to follow him into the observ- 

 atory, the laboratory, the museum, the dissecting-room, 

 or the world of nature herself, there to seek and find the 

 same things as he describes, to repeat the observations 

 which he has made, or to go through the experiments 

 which he has instituted. Even the mathematical formula 

 furnishes the same starting-point for him who first wrote 

 it down as for him who follows. Thus the scientific 

 thinker appeals to something that under certain conditions 

 is accessible to others, being the common object of thought 

 and investigation. 

 s. It will at once be seen that this is not the case if we 



External 



object com- turn our thoughts inside, if we have to look for the mean- 



