The Scientific Method. 69 



cording to the known facts and laws of a known real uni- 

 verse ? 



Now, if knowledge is nothing but self-observation, ideal- 

 ism is right ; but, if knowledge is both self -observation and 

 world-observation, science is right. Since they directly con- 

 tradict each other, both can not be right. The issue is 

 simply one of fact ; for, if science plants itself upon world- 

 observation as a fact, idealism plants itself upon self -obser- 

 vation, not only as a fact, but also as the only possible fact. 

 Despite its lofty claims and its affected contempt for science 

 as founded on a "mere brute fact" or a "mere physical 

 fact," idealism, just as much as science, rests on a fact of 

 precisely the same nature ; for how is the individual ever to 

 prove that he knows his own conscious states ? If he does 

 not know his own consciousness without proof by reason, 

 proof by reason will not help him in the least. To attempt, 

 to prove consciousness by reason is merely to beg the ques- 

 tion, for reason presupposes consciousness. Hence it is an 

 amusing affectation for idealism to claim an ultimate ground 

 in reason ; its ultimate ground, just like that of science, is a 

 mere fact and nothing but a fact. 



The real question, therefore, is simply whether self-obser- 

 vation, which nobody disputes, is the whole fact or only half 

 the fact. This question can not be settled by argument 

 directly. But we have at least one direct and decisive test 

 to apply to all possible answers to it namely, the true an- 

 swer, whatever it may be, must be consistent with itself, and 

 not self -contradictory. This is the test of logic, of reason, 

 of all thought ; and this test idealism, which professes to 

 build upon thought alone, can not reject. 



Now, it is the application of the logical test which proves 

 absolutely fatal to idealism, for it shows that idealism, when 

 (as it always does) it rejects absolute individualism or solip- 

 sism, commits logical suicide. Plainly, if I say that I know 

 nothing whatever except my own thoughts or conscious 

 states, I do but say in other words that whatever I know, 

 whether Nature, Man, or God, is nothing more than my own 

 thoughts or conscious states can exist only in myself can 

 not exist outside of myself ; I do but say in other words that 

 I myself, in my poor little individuality, am the whole real 

 universe. Idealism and solipsism can not be separated logic- 

 ally, for they are one and the same thought. Yet idealism 

 as it is presented by all idealists undertakes to separate them, 

 and rejects solipsism. It thus says yes and no in one breath, 



