88 The Concept of Method 



dental. This process is not only the method of experience but it 

 is that by which we develop, for it is through the progressive 

 reconciliation of the partial and the particular with the perma- 

 nent that we realise in ourselves this very permanence that under- 

 lies all things, and therefore become ourselves more and more 

 identified with the organic unity which we conceive the universe 

 to be. It is this progressive self-development through interaction 

 with different aspects of the fundamental unity of the world that 

 forms the ideal, not only of a philosophy of education, but also 

 of psychology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and theology. 



In addition to these presuppositions of control from the point 

 of view of Idealism, there are certain fundamental condition^ in- 

 volved by the evolutionary method which also underlies this con- 

 sideration of the elements of experience. In the actual process 

 of control these aspects are not apparent in a consciously differ- 

 entiated manner, but when the method of this control is realised 

 as an idea, then it becomes evident that we have on the one hand 

 a multitude of immature forms, of embryonic organisms, of par- 

 tial manifestations, and on the other hand the ideal of the fully 

 developed organism, the standard or ideal to be realised, the prin- 

 ciple that is organising the diversity of manifestations into a 

 unity, either in the phenomena of nature or in the realm of indi- 

 vidual thought or social experience. There is the physical em- 

 bryo in the process of evolution, gradually approximating the 

 form of its highest organisation. — there is the feeblest evanescent 

 impulse and instinct of the child flashing forth momentarily, op- 

 portunely seized upon, made a habit, and raised to consciousness 

 through encouragement, direction, and control by those who are 

 more mature ; and there are all the social phases of the child's 

 experience which require reinforcement and development through 

 association with, and organisation in, the institutionalised life of 

 the community and the race. The concept of control, therefore, 

 from the evolutionary point of view, involves the interaction of 

 the immature and the mature, of the lower with the higher, of 

 the manifold and diversified possibilities of the developing indi- 

 vidual organism with those habitual methods of control which 

 form the standards of social activity. 



When we ask what anything is, we can be answered in a variety 

 of wavs. We may have the object of phenomenon or process 

 described to us, we may be told of what parts and elements it 



