PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 7 



field in psychology. Signs are, however, not wanting that 

 feeling, intellect, and volition will at no very distant date be 

 demonstrated to be complexes rather than primordial facts; 

 that all the sensations will be proved to be resolvable into the 

 same fundamental fact as the just-mentioned triad; and that 

 psychology will be regarded as the science which treats of the 

 neural or mental processes employed in the endeavour to satisfy 

 the needs which arise out of the various connected systems of 

 -the organism and out of the relations of that organism to its 

 environment. Similarly, the pan-human origin of culture in- 

 volves that the polygenetic theory of human purposes and 

 actions is ill-founded, whilst the rise of the "scientific manage- 

 ment "-movement suggests that theoretical and practical activi- 

 ties will be eventually governed by a single and undivided 

 scientific methodology. Furthermore, Mach and others, the pre- 

 sent author included, have proposed reasons for surmising that 

 the idea of a rigid division between matter and mind may be 

 traceable to inadequate analysis, and that the two are perhaps 

 one, not as the materialist, idealist, or pantheist, suspects, but 

 in the sense that the alleged separateness, duality, or difference 

 is non-existent. 



Sufficient has been advanced to suggest that the conception 

 of the unity of nature is no longer a gratuitous assumption 

 destitute of probability and proof, even though we are still 

 groping for an explanation of gravitation and its complement 

 cohesion, and even though we cannot yet indulge in dogmatic 

 utterances of any kind. 



The bearing of the doctrine of the unity of nature on the 

 methodology of science is manifest, for just as there was practi- 

 cally no scope for a methodology when the uniformity of 

 nature was denied, so, in the absence of the doctrine of the 

 unity of nature, the methodologist is bound hand and foot. 

 Once, however, there is limitless freedom for the man of science, 

 the methodologist can ceaselessly reiterate his cardinal postu- 

 late, i.e., the advisability and necessity of advancing in the 

 boldest manner possible wherever a legitimate opportunity pre- 

 sents itself. The objective foundations, then, of the methodo- 

 logy of science are laid in the comprehensive twin doctrine of 

 the uniformity and unity of nature. 



Now just as the uniformity of nature involves uniformity in 

 every department of existence without exception, so the unity 

 of nature carries with it the unity of all departments what- 

 soever. In other words, the unity of nature implies the unity 

 of outward nature as well as of life. This leads us far beyond 



