150 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 



planatlon of the world can be successful which for- 

 gets that the world Is essentially one and Indivisible, 

 and that its parts cannot be explained In Isolation, 

 but only in conjunction. Man is the microcosm™| 

 and cannot be understood except In the context ot 

 the macrocosm which environs him and with which 

 he Interacts. Hence it is a fruitless waste of labour 

 to give isolated explanations of this faculty or that^B 

 to trace the genesis of this sense or that, for they 

 all can be assigned their proper place only by 

 reference to the whole. 



§ 2. The method of philosophy, therefore, mu 

 be either physical or metaphysical. 



I. Of these, the physical may more properly b 

 called the pseudo-metaphysical, because It attempt 

 to extend the method of the physical sciences to the 

 solution of ultimate questions, i.e., to metaphysics. 



II. The second method may be called the ab- 

 stract metaphysical, because it attempts to state the 

 whole truth of all reality in terms of thought ab- 

 stractions. 



III. Thirdly, the true method may be called the 

 concrete metaphysical, as combining the advantages 

 and avoiding the defects of the other two. 



Thus, e.g., the first explains the higher by the 

 lower, since the objects of the physical sciences rank 

 lower in the hierarchy of existence than the mind 

 while the other two agree In explaining the low 

 by the higher. But in very different ways. F 

 while the higher of abstract metaphysics is a me 

 abstraction, selected at random out of the plenitu 

 of existence with which it has no intrinsic connect- 

 ion, the higher of the concrete metaphysical method 

 .is organically connected with the lower. Thus 

 -escapes the constant temptation of the first to de 



