16 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



analogue in words for that which they attempt to express 

 by other signs or symbols. 1 



But, whether we start with language or with our 

 bodily sensations which according to a now generally 

 accepted view furnish all the material of our thoughts, 

 it is clear that two roads present themselves, by follow- 

 ing which we may hope to bring some order into our 

 discussions : these are the way outside into what we call 

 nature in the largest sense of the word, and the way 

 inside into what common language calls the mind. And 

 accordingly we can distinguish two great currents of 

 thought which govern all modern science and philosophy : 

 the course of scientific thought with which we have 

 become acquainted in the first part of this history, and 

 the way of philosophical thought which will form the 

 subject of the second part. The fact, however, that 

 neither an analysis of our sensations nor language itself 

 is able to draw a definite line of demarcation has given 

 rise to hopes on both sides that, starting on either 

 course, both regions, the outer and the inner, can be 

 ultimately reached and understood. We have seen, 

 notably in the eleventh chapter of the first part of this 

 work, how scientific thought has, within the last fifty 

 years, made great advances into the region of the inner, 

 mental, phenomena; how special devices have been in- 

 troduced by which these phenomena can be subjected to 

 the same exact scrutiny which has proved so successful 



1 A recent Italian philosopher, 

 Signor Benedetto Croce, has made 

 this view the foundation of his 

 treatise on '^Esthetics,' which he 

 considers to be "Science of Ex- 

 pression and General Linguistic." 



According to this view language is 

 an art, and the arts are special 

 forms of general language. See 

 B. Croce, ' Esthetique.' French 

 translation by H. Bigot (1904). 



