TRUE METAPHYSIC BASED ON SCIENCE. 1 63 



like the first, It must explain the less known and 

 less intelligible lower, i.e., the more remote from 

 human nature by the more known and more in- 

 telligible, i.e. that w^hlch Is nearer to human nature. 

 Unlike the second, it must avoid the x^po-yuo? of 

 phenomenal and real, the abstract opposition of 

 ideal and actual. Unlike the second, too, its 

 principles must be organically connected with the 

 sciences, aided by them, and reciprocating their 

 assistance. 



How can this be ? Simply by basing our meta- 

 physics 071 our science. Our metaphysics must be 

 concrete, and not abstract ; they must be the inquiry 

 into the ultimate nature of concrete realities, and 

 not of thought abstractions. In other words, they 

 must proceed from the phenomenally real to the 

 ultimately real, from science to metaphysics. And 

 ^H so the method of philosophy must utilize the results 

 ^Bof science ; metaphysical theories must be suggested 

 ^Hby scientific researches, and must approve themselves 

 ^Bby In their turn suggesting scientific advances. 

 ^B Their principles of explanation must be systematic- 

 al ally based on the sciences, and not picked up at 

 ^■random, and their function must be to systematize 

 ^Hthe fundamental principles of the various sciences. 

 Metaphysic, In short, must again become what it 

 I once was in the time of Aristotle — the science of 

 ultimate existence, the science of the first principles 

 of the physical sciences. 



§ 10. But Is such a method more than the vision 

 of an imagination which has soared too far above 

 the region of the actual ? Is such a reconciliation 

 of science and metaphysics possible at all ? 

 It is certainly extremely difficult. 



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