174 PART IV. PREPARATORY STAGE. 



A good general illustration of this advance in science is 

 offered by descriptive works pertaining to countries. The 

 volume may open with a geographical, geological, and clima- 

 tological survey, and may describe the terrestrial and aquatic 

 fauna and flora. It may give an account of the races and 

 stocks inhabiting the country, and a brief history of the people, 

 with some reference to neighbouring countries. It may enlarge 

 on its mineral and forest wealth, on the productivity of the 

 land and the nature of its crops, on the utilisation of pastures, 

 and on its principal trades. It may speak in precise terms of 

 its political constitution, its laws, its army, navy, and air force, 

 its local administrations and local activities, its family life, its 

 educational system, art, science, religion, and recreation. It may 

 furnish vital statistics, statistics of commerce, industry, and 

 finance, and of agriculture, forestry, and live stock ; and afford, 

 in a word, a tolerably correct general picture of the organisation 

 and of the life of the men, women, and children inhabiting the 

 country. Two centuries ago such a comprehensive statement, 

 if attempted, would have proved a tissue of fantastic guesses 

 and misinterpretations. 



We are doubtless only at the threshold of the synthetic or 

 realistic age. For this reason, with the encouragement must 

 go a warning. In proportion as there has been little speciali- 

 sation, as generally in the mental and social sciences, synthetic 

 procedure is non-scientific if not anti-scientific, and therefore 

 only in proportion as there are scientifically sifted facts and 

 generalisations, are we justified in having recourse to the 

 synthetic method. Mere logical webs, constructed out of com- 

 monsense knowledge and shrewd surmises, are strangers to 

 science. 



Growth through the ages is responsible for the diverse stages 

 of science and its method, as observed from various historic 

 angles. It is primarily a process of objective evolution. Neces- 

 sarily therefore the single individual is scarcely more than a 

 mirror of his age, and his theories, couched generally in finalistic 

 phraseology, constitute roughly only a valid defence of the 

 scientific status quo. A dynamic conception of scientific ad- 

 vance should prove an effectual solvent of many long-standing 

 controversies, and enable us to discern, and take advantage of, 

 the direction in which science and methodology are moving. 



CONCLUSION 3. 



Need of Fixing Methodologically the General Nature and Re- 

 lations of Phenomena. 



75. Having ascertained that an enquiry should be conducted 

 in conformity with methodological canons, and having decided 

 that these canons form a synthetically connected unity, we 



