CHAPTER XIX 



The Theory of Genetic Modes 



On the basis of the conchisions of the preceding chapter 

 we may take up a question which concerns the method of 

 positive science and the nature of the formulations which 

 science is able to make. If it be of the nature of all 

 ' things ' that they are in process of change, and if the 

 growth of experience be such that two aspects of reality 

 alike engender mental attitudes, called respectively the 

 ' prospective ' and the * retrospective,' then it becomes 

 of great importance to determine, so far as may be, the 

 relation of the mhid to its objects, in the body of knowledge 

 called scieitce. There are two general positions, held more 

 or less explicitly by different writers, with reference to 

 which the following discussion may be conducted. 



§ I. Agenetic Science 



In the first place, the processes or events with which 

 science deals may be considered under certain mental 

 rules or conditions, which represent an ideal of regularity 

 in a series of transformations which run their course in 

 a finished and traceable form. The ' shorthand ' descrip- 

 tions of such processes state the * laws ' which, if these 

 ideals or rules be conformed to, phenomena, broken in 

 upon — cut in cross-section, as it were — at any point of 

 their development for purposes of observation, will be 

 found to illustrate. An adjunct to this method is the 



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