152 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 



scientific point of view no objection can be taken to 

 the use of serviceable fictions, however discordant 

 and contradictory they may be, so long as they are 

 really useful to the particular sciences. On the 

 other hand, it is just the business of philosophy to 

 reinterpret these fundamental assum.ptions of the 

 sciences, and to reconcile their conflicts, by showing 

 that they are not ultimate truths but convenient 

 formulae for special purposes. But for this very 

 reason they cannot form the basis of philosophy. 

 It is philosophy alone which renders them capable 

 of forming parts of a single and consistent system 

 of knowledge. 



And the data supplied by the physical sciences 

 are intractable, because they are data of a lower 

 order than the facts they are to explain. 



The objects of the physical sciences form the 

 lower orders in the hierarchy of existence, more 

 extensive but less significant. Thus the atoms of 

 the physicists may Indeed be found in the organizat- 

 ion of conscious beings, but they are subordinate : 

 a living organism exhibits actions which cannot be 

 formulated by the laws of physics alone ; man is 

 material, but he is also a great deal more. Again, 

 all bodies gravitate, but the activities of living, to 

 say nothing of rational, bodies cannot be explained 

 by the action of gravitation alone. So chemical 

 affinities are presupposed in biological actions, but 

 yet life is something more than and beyond chemical 

 affinity. And it is the same Inherent flaw of the 

 method which is displayed, not only In the palpable 

 absurdity of explaining biological facts by chemical, 

 or mechanical facts, but also in that of explaining] 

 the rational or moral by mere biology. 



The pseudo- metaphysical method of physical 



