THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 123 



particularly upon that of Willard Gibbs so great a theoretical 

 fabric has been erected in recent years that chemistry is 

 rapidly becoming absorbed into the circle of the mathematical 



sciences. 



58. 



The results of the last two chapters may now conveniently 

 be summarised. Starting from the concept of Science as a 

 conative process, which aims at rendering Objective facts intelli- 

 gible to an individual consciousness, and reaches that end by 

 building up those primary facts into secondary constructions or 

 apperceptive systems, by means of ideas drawn from other 

 contexts of experience, we took up the positions (1) that no 

 concept is to be deemed essentially incapable of rendering 

 primary facts intelligible on the ground of the context of 

 experience from which it is drawn ; and (2) that in no case is 

 the concept or hypothesis to replace, in the sense of accounting 

 for the "reality" of, the Objective facts which it has been 

 employed to render intelligible. 



With regard to the first position, we came, in effect, to the 

 conclusion that each science must be (to use an expression 

 employed somewhat similarly by Professor Bosanquet) " self- 

 normative " with respect to the hypotheses it ~ uses; certain 

 hypotheses being ancillary to progress at one stage, or in one 

 sub-province of the science, others at another stage, or in another 

 sub^provincey The only general statements of a normative 

 character that we could make are that the secondary con- 

 struction must be a genuine reaction upon the primary facts, 

 and must not be forced upon those facts cCb extra ; and that, 

 while such concepts as " end " are, or may be, appropriate at 

 certain stages of the science, progress will show itself in the 

 adoption of hypotheses which suggest and make possible " a 

 complete synoptic view " of the primary facts, that is of hypo- 

 theses which can subserve a mathematical treatment. 



With regard to the second position, we examined in the 

 present chapter, of course very briefly, though, it may be hoped 



