THE AIM 'AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



Recent psychology, recent logic, and recent speculation are 

 at one in laying stress upon the solidarity between man's 

 " theoretical " and " practical " activities. Without the impli- 

 cation of acceptance or rejection of the metaphysical con- 

 tentions of " Pragmatism " we may usefully fall in with the 

 / prevailing fashion in Thought so far as to replace the current 

 / static conception of Science as a body of truths by a dynamic 

 (^conception of it as a definite pursuit. Such a conception of it 

 is adopted in this essay. Science is here conceived as a definite 

 secular conative process which may be distinguished in and 

 traced through the conscious life of civilisation. Only when a 

 scientific " result " is thus considered in connection with the 

 whole conscious process of which it is the " end " can we 

 hope (as Mach taught us lon^ago) to submit it to profitable 

 criticism^/ Since some such criticism is aimed at in this 

 paper, it follows that either an attempt must be made to 

 characterise that process or some current characterisation must 

 be adopted as satisfactory. As I do not know one which 

 I can accept as altogether suitable for my purpose, the 

 former alternative must be embraced. 



The statement that the conative process with which Science 

 is identified reaches its end only in the enunciation of 

 judgments of a certain class will probably be received without 

 demur. Nor, if I say that these judgments refer to the 

 Objective in experience will it be complained that I am 

 ungenerously narrowing their field. The whole " furniture of 

 earth and choir of heaven," " the starry heavens without an 

 the moral law within " are but items in the inventory of the 

 Objective. At the same time, although the Objective is here 

 conceived as containing much more than " physical nature," 

 it has its limits, and does not include everything that (in 

 Mr. Bradley's phrase) can be set over against the self, and so 

 become an "object" of attention; not everything that (because it 



