OF REALITY. 537 



in many directions ; not only Metaphysics but also Psy- 

 chology, Sociology, and — -we may go further and say — 

 not only all philosophical but also much of the best 

 scientific thought. This truth can be broadly stated in 

 these words : Nowhere in the world of facts and phe- 

 nomena do we meet with things in their isolation ; the 

 phenomenal world is a connected whole, a continuum, in 

 time and space, and to deal with single isolated or inde- 

 pendent facts or phenomena leads away from an under- 

 standing of their true nature and a comprehension of 

 their reality. It is indeed a remarkable fact that the 

 very process which, in the regions of science, has pro- 

 duced so much knowledge, led to so many discoveries 

 and predictions, and been followed by so many useful 

 applications — the process of mathematical abstraction 

 and definition — should, at the same time, have led us 

 away from a real comprehension of the nature of things 

 into an artificial world of our own creation. Thus it 

 has come about that the greatest step taken in modern 

 times within the natural sciences themselves has con- 

 sisted in studying the objects of nature, not in isolation, 

 but in their surroundings, and the processes of nature 

 not independently but in their sequence in time. The 

 whole vocabulary of modern natural science, such as 

 " habitat," " environment," " evolution," and " solidarity," 

 mark this change m thought; in fact, hand in hand 

 with the increase of precision characteristic of the 

 mathematical treatment, there has marched the opposite 

 process of annulling conventional definitions and of 

 breaking down traditional landmarks. 



I have had occasion to point out how the science of 



