THE AIM .AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 87 



between what is " pragmatically " and what is Objectively 

 true; between elements which are " the same for all" because 

 th^y are " relevant to purpose " and not because they are 

 Objective ; and elements whose sameness for all and relevance 

 to pui-pose are co-ordinate consequences of their Objectivity. 

 It is, I would further surmise, to "pragmatic truth" that 

 the maxim " Simplex sigillum veri " properly applies. Since 

 Lotze uttered his protest against its erection into a universal 

 logical principle* the progress of science has done much to 

 make more and more doubtful Keppler's early opinion that 

 " amat Natura simplicitatem " ;f while it has made the con- 

 ceptual simplification of the data a more and more essential 

 condition of theoretic success.^ 



To return to the case under consideration, we may make one 

 or two observations which throw light upon the readiness with 

 which the suggestion of u a same representative value " is 

 accepted. As we have seen, the commonsense view of a 

 " thing " must, when subjected to philosophical rectification, 

 include the notion of an indefinite number of hotnesses which 

 are bound in one nexus of Objective relations. These 

 hotnesses undoubtedly have an identical reference to some- 

 thing, namely, to the " thing " or whole composed of qualities 

 and relational nexus to which they belong or, rather, to what 

 may be called the cross-section of this whole at the moment 

 of observation. It is not difficult to understand that by the 

 plain man, whose keen interest in the practical efficiency of an 

 idea is unequally yoked with a very poorly developed disposi- 

 tion to criticism of its philosophical adequacy, they come to be 

 thought of as having reference to an identical hotness, much as 

 the qualities of individual Englishmen are thought of as having 

 reference to a " typical Englishman." Finally, the acceptance 

 of the recurrence of the thermometer index to the same point 



* Logic, ii, p. 88. 



t Poincare, Science et Hypothec, p. 173. 



| See Larmor, B.A. Report, 1900, pp. 617-8. 



