100 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



T. It may already have occurred to some of my readers 



Attempts to * . . 



apply exact to a sk the question : If it is true that the critical spirit 



methods to 



philosophy, j^g (j one so mu ch to unsettle the philosophical mind as 

 is the case according to the view I have taken above, 

 and if, on the other side, the scientific or exact methods 

 have been so successful in producing definiteness and 

 assurance, how is it that the latter methods have not 



been applied to philosophical subjects in the same way 

 jg 



as they have been applied to the exploration of nature ? 



With this question we strike upon one of the cardinal 

 points which have been brought out in the course of the 

 nineteenth century. For only towards the end of that 

 *. period has the thinking mind awakened to a conscious- 

 ness of the weakness and limitations of the scientific 

 methods, points which have not even partially been 

 settled without much controversy and many abortive 

 trials. Ever since the exact methods of research have 

 been fully recognised in their power and fruitfulness, a 

 tendency has set in to apply them, not only to scientific 

 but to every kind of knowledge. This tendency is 

 already clearly expressed in some of the writings of the 

 great French mathematicians at the end of the eighteenth 

 century ; 1 it became very marked m the middle of the 

 nineteenth century in Germany, 2 where periodicals were 



1 It was notably through Con- 

 dorcet and Laplace that an ex- 

 aggerated opinion as to the value 

 and fruitfulnesa of the theory of 

 probabilities in the realm of moral 

 and social questions was spread. 

 This was noted by John Stuart 

 Mill, who, on his part, aimed 

 at introducing into Economics 

 that spirit of precision which 

 belonged to what has been termed 



in this country natural know- 

 ledge. 



2 I do not here refer to the 

 illegitimate use, in quasi - philo- 

 sophical writings, some of which 

 have attained to great popularity, 

 of such scientific terms as Matter, 

 Force, Energy, Substance. &c., 

 even if used by scientific authorities 

 like Carl Vogt, Ernst Haeckel, or 

 Wilhelm Ostwald. 



