340 PART V WORKING STAGE. 



tual and other progress is progress in method, for the sufficient 

 reason that method, if socially available, places us in a position 

 to fix and multiply facts for the benefit of our contemporaries 

 and descendants. In its absence, we inherit the outcome of 

 others' labour, but remain ignorant of any valuable methods 

 they may have applied, and continue therefore very much in 

 the condition of Sisyphus. In the case of secret processes this 

 disadvantage is self-evident, inasmuch as the secret is some- 

 times interred with its custodian. 



From the viewpoint of methodical procedure, granting the 

 existence of a general methodology, the first step is to classify 

 facts and processes, and to effect this in the manner above 

 indicated. (See also Conclusion 3.) Where in any science or 

 art a passable store of these classifications exists, the inquirer 

 is immensely aided, and is in turn able to improve them. So 

 far as methodical procedure in classification is concerned, it 

 consists in organically stringing together the facts under review 

 at any time. Wherever there are contrasts and opposites (as 

 good and bad, or long and short), the one should automatically 

 suggest the other, all that lies between the termini, and all 

 related divisions to the furthest limit. Degree-extremes, such 

 as pool to ocean, infancy to senility, or ingestion to excretion, 

 should be at once detected and methodically treated as ordinary 

 contrasts. Also, each alleged division needs to be examined 

 as to its homogeneity (as a given colour), and as to how far the 

 division between it and other supposed divisions may be bridged 

 (as deliberation and habit). Relations of quantity, time, space, 

 consciousness, degree, state, change, and personal equation, 

 noted in the second part of the table of Primary Categories, 

 should be methodically exhausted; as well as the processes 

 enumerated in the third part of the above table. 



Another illustration. In connection with an international 

 movement of a humanitarian character, I contemplate writing 

 to a certain Speaker. I generalise this to all Speakers, to all 

 Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries, to all Cabinet Ministers, 

 to all Party Leaders, to all Ambassadors and Consuls-General, 

 to all Rulers, to all Presidents of international associations, to 

 all Principals of universities, to all notable thinkers, and so on ; 

 and I further generalise by mentally resolving to employ this 

 generalisation and improve or adapt it in any appropriate 

 future contingency. I press beyond to national and local activi- 

 ties, and then to other spheres of an international, national, 

 local, group, individual, and incidental (also physical, intellectual, 

 moral, aesthetic, and vocational) character. Or, watching close 

 by the performance of a first-rate pianist, I reason that his 

 extreme delicacy and enormous vigour of touch could be de- 

 liberately imparted to ordinary pupils ; that these qualities should 

 mark the musician generally, also the painter, the sculptor, the 

 architect, including the arts and crafts generally; that they might 



