THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 47 



which the scientist and the native (if he is intelligent enough) 

 . can see that their " animistic " or " scientific " interpretations 

 are simply embroideries. If (remembering at this point that 

 there exists a science of psychology) we say that the " things " 

 before our travellers the fire, the pot, the lukewarm yet 

 boiling water, the unsoftened potatoes are all of . them 

 " constructs," we must admit at the same time that they are 

 inevitable or primary syntheses which mankind everywhere 

 would make from the same sensational data, while the whole 

 situation as it exists for the two men is a secondary synthesis 

 which, when one's attention is called to the matter, is seen 

 not to be inevitable. Wherever the " objects " of attention 

 dealt with in the former chapter must be held to have a 

 synthetic character, only these primary syntheses were 

 intended. Adopting this distinction we may say that the 

 scientific process is one out of several possible alternative 

 processes by means of which primary facts may be submitted 

 to further construction ; and it will be recognised as true that 

 the object of this secondary synthesis is to make the primary 

 facts intelligible. But this characteristic, though of funda- 

 mental importance, does not suffice to distinguish the scientific 

 from all the alternative processes contemplated. To assert 

 that a thing is intelligible or that it has meaning is to imply 

 / that it forms aft element in a system of terms in relation. 

 Thus a word for example the word " button " standing alone 

 has meaning chiefly in so far as it is recognised as belonging to 

 the English vocabulary within which it may be either a verb 

 or a noun. When I say, " Pray you, undo this button," the 

 fact that the word is now brought into relation with other 

 words in a definite system gives it a fuller but still incomplete 

 meaning : I may mean a coat button or a door button. The 

 doubt can be resolved only by the context, that is, by the 

 position of the sentence in a still wider synthesis. In this 

 way the request, " Pray you, undo this button," may have all 

 manner of meanings from the trivial one which a common 



