180 PART IV. -PREPARATORY STAGE. 



Conclusion 17 will complete our statement concerning the 

 general nature and relations of phenomena by dealing with 

 the subtle problem of the mode of determining what are, and 

 what are not, primary static and dynamic facts. 



CONCLUSION 4. 

 Need of a Life-Time Object of Enquiry. 



78. Considering the full statement of the general problem 

 of methodology presented in Section XIX, and the thirty-two 

 Conclusions which succeed this one, it is only necessary to 

 offer the briefest account of the nature of the problem with 

 which this Conclusion is concerned. 



The wider object of science is to determine the most general 

 facts or laws of nature by methods likely to achieve this end 

 conveniently, rapidly, and satisfactorily. According to circum- 

 stances, an inquirer may select one or another field of study, 

 and pursue his investigations for a shorter or a longer period. 

 Leaving sundry accidental alternatives on one side and only 

 contemplating the ideal norm, we may say that the fully 

 equipped inquirer should propose to himself as weighty a problem 

 as a life-time of endeavour (say intermittently or uninter- 

 mittently twenty-five years of ardent devotion) may reason- 

 ably be expected to promote substantially. From Conclusion 5, 

 it will transpire what are the general limitations, and from Con- 

 clusion 25 c why one comprehensive problem only, rather than 

 many minor ones, should be selected for examination. 



In regard to the particular question to be elucidated, no 

 guidance can be offered save that by preference one of the 

 many salient problems of the age should be attacked ( 167), 



(h) MODALITY. Examine, stage by stage, or continuously, the pheno- 

 menon's modal aspects, according to the second table of Primary Categories. 



(0 DIALECTICS. Examine, following Conclusions 27 and 28, for facts pos- 

 sibly contradictory, contrary, opposite, etc., to those alleged to have been 

 established in or between wholes and parts of wholes (e.g., are men born 

 good?). 



(j) COMPARISON. Examine the phenomenon under profusely varied 

 conditions of space, time, and other circumstances, including phenomena 

 most similar and most dissimilar both as regards wholes, parts, and degree 

 (e.g., race superiority). 



(k) RELATIONS. Examine the degree of the phenomenon's relations to 

 the science immediately in question and its applications, to the sciences 

 immediately related to that science, to the more remotely related sciences, 

 to the sciences and arts generally, and to the specio-psy chic sciences and 

 their corresponding practical activities (e.g., some aesthetic problem). 



(/) STATEMENT. Examine the degree of the phenomenon's relation to 

 closely, less closely, and distantly connected phenomena in order to reach 

 the most relevant general statement (e.g., the sense of sight), and furnish, 

 after the fullest investigation, the tersest, most lucid, most definite, and 

 most comprehensive statement practicable of the peculiar nature of the 

 phenomenon, both as regards theory and practice, which approaches com- 

 plete exactness, and is offered as far as possible in mathematical form. 



