1 68 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 



inexplicable ; like scientific theories also it will be 

 ratified by the way it works and stands the test of 

 experience. Finality, completeness, and perfection 

 are as impossible at present in a true system of 

 philosophy as in any of the sciences, and if this lack 

 is censured by the admirers of spick and span sys- 

 tems which have a glib response for every question, 

 we must admit that as yet philosophy can do little 

 more than keep alive the sacred fire of hope, than 

 throw a light upon the path of progress. But we 

 may be more than consoled by the reflection that 

 such philosophy, though it is imperfect, is at least 

 alive, and that its potentialities of progress render it 

 immensely superior to the most artful and artificial 

 system, the symmetry of which forbids the slightest 

 change. 



§ 14. But little as philosophy can as yet achieve, 

 it could nevertheless have achieved far more than 

 it has done if it had kept in touch with science. 

 Ought it not to have profited immensely by the 

 unparalleled advance of the sciences in the course 

 of the present century ? Ought it not to have 

 gathered from this advance data of primary interest 

 and principles of surpassing importance ? But the 

 traditional metaphysics have known so little to 

 profit by the teaching of science that, even in 

 purely metaphysical matters, scientific theories are 

 now often far in advance of philosophical ones, and 

 involve metaphysical principles which philosophy 

 has either not yet realized at all, or only grudgingly 

 recognized, and failed to apply generally to the 

 solution of its own problems.^ And yet it is the 



1 Like the metaphysical principles of Evolution (ch. vii.) and 

 the impossibility of infinity (ch. vii. § 20; ch. ix. §§ 2-1 1), and of 

 Interaction (ch. xii. § 10; ch. vii. § i) respectively. 



4, 



I 

 i 



