INTKODUCTION. 85 



I shall try to answer as concisely as possible. This 

 selection does not commit me to any theory on the 

 value of the scientific view as compared with other 

 aspects. Such theories will have to be dealt with in a 

 later portion of the work. They have sprung up in the 

 course of the last hundred years, partly as the inevitable 

 outcome of scientific progress itself, partly in the educa- 

 tional world, where a reaction has set in against the 

 undue importance which former generations attached to 

 classical learning and training. I need not at present 

 do more than note these opinions, nor need I define 

 my position with regard to Comte's celebrated positivist 

 theory on the advancing stages of the human intellect. 

 Curiosity and the consensus of popular opinion suffice 

 for the moment to make me take up the scientific side 

 of the thought of the age. As we proceed, other directions 

 and movements will present themselves, and the inter- 

 dependence of all human interests will reveal and explain ^^ 

 what truth attaches to Hegel's celebrated doctrine of the umloffhe 

 inherent dialectic of ideas, the spontaneous development deveiop-'^"'^'' 



meut of 

 of thought. thought. 



