CHAPTER VI 



THE EMPIRICAL ORDER 



IN the development summarised in the last chapter the two 

 final stages were treated as the work not of one mind but 

 of many. From the dawn of language onwards the action 

 of mind on mind is the leading factor in development, and 

 henceforward every phase of thought may be regarded as 

 a social product and as a cause of further social effects. Our 

 next task is to describe these latter stages in some further 

 detail, to examine the steps by which in human society the 

 thought-order is evolved, criticised and reconstructed. As 

 before we shall find that every phase has its distinct method 

 and its peculiar scope. It brings us into contact with a 

 new stratum of reality in virtue of a new method of corre- 

 lating experience, and it enlarges and clarifies human 

 purposes in the same ratio. Our object then will be to 

 distinguish the main phases of development experienced 

 by the social mind in point of the characteristic methods 

 used, and the scope of thought and purpose achieved. We 

 shall find that particularly in the later stages a third question 

 arises, that of the ultimate validity of the processes em- 

 ployed and the results attained. This question carries us 

 outside our immediate task of recording the simple facts 

 of the development of thought, but we shall find it so 

 closely interwoven with the questions of scope and method 

 that it will be impossible to eliminate it from the discussion. 

 We shall, moreover, as explained in Chapter I., have to 

 form a definite conclusion upon questions of validity in 

 order to a just interpretation of the meaning and trend 

 of development as a whole. 



