THE PSEUDO-METAPHYSICAL METHOD. 151 



the higher, and of the second to ignore the lower. 

 Again, the pseudo-metaphysical and the concrete 

 metaphysical agree in rejecting the doctrine of the 

 abstract metaphysical as to the difference in kind 

 between the higher and the lower, but with very 

 different motives. The one asserts the connection 

 of higher and lower in order to degrade the higher, 

 the other in order to redeem the lower. 



But it is necessary to consider the strength and 

 the weakness of each method in detail. 



§ 3. I. The pseudo-metaphysical method puts 

 forward the method of science as the method of 

 philosophy. But it is doomed to perpetual failure. 

 It is not merely that, as we saw (ch. ii. § 2), the 

 mental attitude required in science and in philo- 

 sophy is different, but that the scientific material it 

 uses is both inadequate and intractable. 



It is inadequate because the physical sciences are 

 all based on all sorts of assumed first principles, 

 often of the confused anthropomorphic order (ch. v. 

 § 8), which are only valid within the limits of each 

 science, and are often mutually conflicting, like the 

 assumption of the theory of gravitation that all 

 matter gravitates, and that of the undulatory theory 

 that luminiferous ether does not (ch. iii. § 9), or as 

 completely devoid of ultimate validity as the mathe- 

 matical use of impossible quantities.^ And from a 



1 The use of graphic formulas in chemistry may be instanced. 

 ,To represent simple and indivisible atoms as equipped with all 

 [sorts of hooks and bonds for grappling with their neighbours (or 

 themselves) is impossible mythology, especially when we reflect 

 ithat multiplicity of parts seems excluded by the conception of 

 an atom. Or again, what are we to say of ^' negative elements " 

 diminishing the atomic weight of the bodies with which they com- 

 bine? Such a dematerializing agency is surely a mere symbol, 

 and cannot possibly correspond to any actual fact. 



