The Function of Method 85 



each of these three fundamental points of view. There is, there- 

 fore, this objective unity which is characteristic of anything 

 which conforms to the principle of evolution, quite independent' 

 of relationship to human experience. 



This objective unity has its subjective aspect in the fact that 

 these three possible ways of interpreting experience are in reality 

 phases of the method of the mind's operation. Once the funda- 

 mental psychic unity of mental processes is realised, it follows 

 that there can be no ultimate opposition between these phases as 

 special branches of method, whether or not we use the terms 

 Feeling, Thought, and Volition in Psychology, or Genesis, 

 Function, and Teleology in Epistemology. As our thought de- 

 velopes, they will be seen more and more to be in organic rela- 

 tion and ultimately to be in complete unity. If we could at one 

 and the same time see the manifold of experience from this three- 

 fold point of view, we would approach the realisation of that 

 vision of the universe suh specie aeternitatis towards which 

 Spinoza was unconsciously working. 



This threefold character of the process of the mind's organisa- 

 tion of experience constitutes a subjective unity which is the 

 counterpart of the objective unity found in the material of ex- 

 perience. The correspondence between the course of nature and 

 the mind of man is here seen from the point of view of method. 

 The method of experience consists in the progressive inter- 

 action of these two unities, in their conscious organisation in the 

 process of experience, and in their subsequent elevation through 

 the conceptual power of the mind, to the level of idea, concept, 

 law, or principle. 



Control as a Function of Method 



In every branch of human knowledge or other department of 

 thought that we break off from its organic connection for pur- 

 poses of closer examination, we find certain specific things that 

 inevitably suggest the relationship of this particular branch with 

 the parent trunk to which it properly belongs. But in addition 

 to these special close connections there are to be found in any part 

 of the universe of thought certain general similarities and great 

 underlying uniformities which necessarily characterise whatever 

 in its constitution is organic. Consequently in attempting any 



