SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



more important than the possession of sound 

 doctrine, since it is only through the former 

 that the latter can be attained. Clearly we shall 

 never reach Truth if we begin by mistaking our 

 guide-post, and start on the road that leads to 

 error. A false method leads to false doctrine 

 which, reacting on the mind, confirms it in the 

 employment of the false method. Hence the 

 supreme importance which the history of phi- 

 losophy attaches to those thinkers — like Aris- 

 totle, Bacon, Descartes, and Comte — who have 

 signalized themselves as the founders of new 

 methods. And hence the immense influence, 

 for good or for ill, which such thinkers have 

 exerted. 



The two general views of philosophy which 

 it has been the aim of the previous chapters to 

 exhibit in radical opposition and contrast, are 

 still farther distinguished by the adoption of 

 two very different methods of inquiry. That 

 metaphysical philosophy, which exhausts its 

 energies in the vain attempt to frame tenable 

 hypotheses concerning the objective order of 

 things, reaches its ephemeral conclusions by 

 the use of a method which, on grounds that 

 will presently appear, is called the Subjective 

 Method. The Cosmic Philosophy, which aims 

 only to organize into a universal body of truth 

 the sum of general conclusions obtained by sci- 

 ence, adopts as the only trustworthy guide for 



