110 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



by herself is neither true nor unti'ue, neither good nor 

 bad, neither beautiful nor the reverse, neither useful nor 

 useless. 



Our statements and observations of nature may be 

 true or false, the things of nature may be beautiful to 

 us, the beholders, natural things and events may be good 

 and useful for our purposes or the reverse ; but all such 

 considerations import into our reflections a foreign, sub- 

 jective, or personal element which the purely scientific 

 view must get rid of. Although therefore the writings 

 of scientific authorities have been subjected to severe 

 criticism, this criticism does not affect nature herself — 

 that is, the object with which science has to do — but 

 only the methods of the human mind, which subjects 

 nature and natural things to the mental processes of 

 observation, registration, measurement, and calculation. 

 These processes can be conducted correctly or incor- 

 rectly, elegantly or inelegantly, usefully or uselessly, and 



17. are therefore subject to criticism. In fact, criticism 



Critioisui a n • i> ^ -i • i • t p -r 



reflection of mcaus a reficction or the human mmd upon itself. It 



the mind 



on itself. jg an iutrospcctive process. In the course of history the 

 stage of criticism has only been reached when and where 

 a large amount of mental work, of thought in the widest 

 sense, has accumulated. Wherever this accumulated 

 mental work, this body of thought, has itself become an 

 object of contemplation, criticism has set in. In the 



18. course of the history of thought we have three great 

 eai periods! Critical pcriods, which coincide with the age of Socrates 



in antiquity, the age of Descartes in the seventeenth 

 century, and the great critical movement of the nine- 

 teenth century. 



