SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 99 



mere relic of pre-Copernican astronomy : and I believe 

 the question of optimism and pessimism to be one which 

 the philosopher will regard as outside his scope, except, 

 possibly, to the extent of maintaining that it is insoluble. 



In the days before Copernicus, the conception of the 

 " universe " was defensible on scientific grounds : the 

 diurnal revolution of the heavenly bodies bound them 

 together as all parts of one system, of which the earth 

 was the centre. Round this apparent scientific fact, 

 many human desires rallied : the wish to believe Man 

 important in the scheme of things, the theoretical desire 

 for a comprehensive understanding of the Whole, the 

 hope that the course of nature might be guided by some 

 sympathy with our wishes. In this way, an ethically 

 inspired system of metaphysics grew up, whose anthro- 

 pocentrism was apparently warranted by the geocentrism 

 of astronomy. When Copernicus swept away the astrono- 

 mical basis of this system of thought, it had grown so 

 familiar, and had associated itself so intimately with men's 

 aspirations, that it survived with scarcely diminished 

 force survived even Kant's *' Copernican revolution," 

 and is still now the unconscious premiss of most meta- 

 physical systems. 



The oneness of the world is an almost undiscussed 

 postulate of most metaphysics. " Reality is not merely 

 one and self -consistent, but is a system of reciprocally 

 determinate parts''^ such a statement would pass almost 

 unnoticed as a mere truism. Yet I believe that it em- 

 bodies a failure to effect thoroughly the " Copernican 

 revolution," and that the apparent oneness of the world 

 is merely the oneness of what is seen by a single spectator 

 or apprehended by a single mind. The Critical Philosophy, 

 although it intended to emphasise the subjective element 



^ Bosanquet, Logic, ii, p. 211. 



