36 INTRODUCTION 



trouble to look for them. She does not require them 

 to be secretly manufactured upstairs and credited to 

 her account. By that process mistakes might arise 

 in the reckoning. The philosophers upstairs might 

 differ about the figures, or at least in equating them. 

 The philosopher requires fact, phenomenon, natural 

 law, at every turn to keep him right; and without 

 at least some glimpse of these, he may travel far 

 afield. So long as Schopenhauer sees one thing 

 in the course of Nature and Rousseau another, it 

 will always be well to have Nature herself to act 

 as referee. The end as read in Nature, and the end 

 as re-read in, and interpreted by, the higher Nature 

 of Man may be very different things ; but nothing 

 can be dene till the End-in-the-phenomenon clears 

 the way for the End-in-itself — till science overtakes 

 philosophy with facts. When that is done, every- 

 thing can be done. With the finding of the other 

 half of the ladder, even Agnosticism may retire. 

 Science cannot permanently pronounce itself " not 

 knowing," till it has exhausted the possibilities of 

 knowing. And in this case the Agnosticism is 

 premature, for science has only to look again, and 

 it will discover that the missing facts are there. 



Seldom has there been an instance on so large 

 a scale of a biological error corrupting a whole 

 philosophy. Bacon's aphorism was never more 



