ii SCIENTIFIC RECONSTRUCTION 275 



work in the mind of the individual to cause divergence of 

 opinion from this standard is included in the conception of 

 the subjective factor in judgment, and it is in this sense that 

 a rational order requires the elimination of the subjective 

 factor. 



We may, in fact, take the conception of objective Reality 

 as the central point towards which all our distinctions of 

 Rational and Irrational lead us. The principle underlying 

 all reasoning, that is to say, is that Reality is a single system 

 of interconnected parts, which it is the function of thought 

 to apprehend. Hence all known facts must ultimately 

 stand in connection with one another ; none must conflict 

 with another ; no way of interpreting reality that is true 

 can ultimately conflict with another that is true ; and diver- 

 gence of view, arising from the constitution of the mind 

 itself, involves error to be removed by eliminating this 

 subjective factor. This being the nature of Reality, it 

 follows that its rational interpretation will take the form of 

 a connected system of judgments. It does not, unfor- 

 tunately for human knowledge, follow that any connected 

 system of judgments must contain final truth. What 

 does follow is that we know the goal of rational endeavour 

 and the norm which distinguishes rational from irrational 

 processes. 



The ideal of the reason then is a system of consilient 

 thought, interconnected by methods which themselves, as 

 shown above, form a consilient system. But actual thought 

 falls short of this ideal. We constantly find that the har- 

 mony arrived at from certain data is disturbed by contra- 

 dictory results, and that some readjustment becomes 

 necessary, in the process of which we often discover that 

 our original system was insecurely founded. Thus con- 

 struction constantly involves criticism, correction and 

 reconstruction. The general principle of such reconstruc- 

 tion is simple enough. It is simply that of the impartial 

 application of the idea of consilience. That reconstruction 

 which will overcome contradiction and reintroduce not 

 merely consistency but consilience is rational. But the 

 difficulty that arises is this. If a body of thought which 

 is internally harmonious may yet in contact with fresh data 



