PART III. 

 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 



Having set out to examine the applicability of the method 

 used in the theory of evolution to the problems of ethics, and 

 having reached the conclusion in the examination of the appli- 

 cation of such a method to a psychical content, that it is not 

 satisfactory, one might be disposed to regard the conclusion 

 reached as wholly negative, and, so far as the form goes, this 

 would be quite correct. But, the investigation of such a par- 

 ticular question must inevitably lead to a discussion of many 

 questions which are not explicitly identical with our main pro- 

 position, however fundamental they may be in the investi- 

 gation of it. Hence we regard our conclusion as strongly 

 positive in content, though negative in form, when the real 

 basis upon which the conclusion is reached is considered. 



We regard the main result of the first part of this discussion 

 as being the conclusion that psychology as the science which 

 investigates the facts of conscious experience must, in its 

 method of procedure, determine what the facts of conscious- 

 ness actually are, before it can logically utilize the facts of 

 physiology either to construct a theory of parallelism, or, in 

 fact, any other theory by means of them. Closely related to 

 this result is another, involving broader considerations from 

 the standpoint of mere method. That is, a scientific explana- 

 tion can only be found in the analysis of facts into the elements, 

 or ultimate conceptions, accepted by the science concerned. 

 From this point of view, it is quite clear that physiology could 

 express, and so explain, the facts of consciousness in terms of 

 physiological elements, provided that it, at the same time, 

 holds that, as a matter of fact, it is never going outside the 

 explicit realm of physiology. But it can neither express nor 

 explain the facts of consciousness if it be admitted, that while 

 the facts of physiology belong to the material order, the facts 

 of consciousness belong to a mental or spiritual, in any event 

 another, order of being. 



A third conclusion follows these two very closely, namely, 

 when the existence of psychology as a science independent of 

 physiology is granted, and when the results of such a psy- 

 chology are considered (for we regard such a science as already 



