PREFACE. 



The present treatise may be regarded as an attempt at a 

 modern re-statement of Bacon's position in his Novum Organum, 

 and this principally ~ because the author follows the great Eli- 

 zabethan in his suspicion of all precipitate theorising and in 

 his conviction that the human mind may be made incalculably 

 more effective for the discovery of truth than it has hitherto 

 been. Like Bacon, he deems it eccentric to expect of men a 

 high degree of methodological competency, so long as there 

 exists no science of correct thinking grounded on a circumspect 

 and exhaustive analysis of the process of thought at its best. 

 Until such a science is established, the author opines, the pro- 

 gress of the sciences generally, especially those relating to the 

 individual and to society, will be both snail-like and ant-like. 

 This demand for a science of correct thinking not hasty or 

 laborious speculations on the subject is so eminently rational 

 that it is difficult to imagine how any soberly reflecting per- 

 son can forbear echoing it, whilst in respect of the obstacles 

 which might be encountered in such a truly formidable enter- 

 prise, there should be agreement that these obstacles must be, 

 manifestly, objectively discpvered, not hypothetically created. 

 The author fain hopes that, as a result of over a quarter of 

 a century of indefatigable attention to the methodological prob- 

 lem, he has substantially advanced by this contribution the 

 state of the science to which all the other sciences turn for 

 light, as the planets do to the sun. On the principles he has 

 adopted, there should be at last a possibility of changing the 

 whirling chaos in the psychological, moral, economic, and kind- 

 red sciences into a steady and relatively swift forward move- 

 mentto the intense relief and immense benefit of the entire 

 human race.- Moreover, whatever the problem or issue that 

 might arise, fair assistance towards its examination and reso- 

 lution will be probably found in this work by those who have 

 assimilated its proposals. 



These pages have a predominantly practical object to aid 

 the inquirer in any investigation, extensive or restricted, which 



