414 PART VII. GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



scattered by the all-penetrating noon-day sun of a conscious 

 and fully elaborated methodology. 1 



Correct thinking is a pan-human product, whereas unscientific 

 thinking merely argues thinking without the aid of- a pan- 

 humanly developed scientific method. Concede that a scientific 

 method exists and is generally accepted and efficiently taught, 

 and the millenium of the intellect should not be far off. Or, 

 if this view should appear Utopian, it will scarcely be denied 

 that a relatively large minority would be able to profit sub- 

 stantially by the study of a body of Conclusions such as have 

 been submitted in this treatise. 2 



225. Ultimately, the object of this methodology is to supply 

 a comparatively solid groundwork for the training of the masses 

 of mankind, assisting the teacher to raise the average intelli- 

 gence to a majestic level in comparison to the present one. 

 An analysis of the scientifically trained and the scientifically 

 untrained adult (Sections III and IV) justifies, we believe, such 

 a conception. Proximately, the aim of this methodology is: 

 (a) to supplement scientific tradition by a conscious general 

 scientific method; (b) to introduce the scientific spirit into every 

 line of enquiry and activity ; (c) to encourage more particularly 

 sound observation, sweeping though guarded generalisations, 

 careful verification, exact definitions, and extensive theoretical 

 and practical deductions, collectively applied in a certain se- 

 quence; and (d) to offer guidance to new sciences where, as in 

 the cultural sciences, no effective methodological traditions as 

 yet obtain. 



1 "There are no special peculiarities inherent in the scientific mind." 

 (Prof. Arthur Schuster, in Presidential Address to the British Association 

 in 1915.) 



2 "The course which I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as 

 leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits 

 and understandings nearly on a level." (Bacon, Novum Organum, bk. 1, 61.) 

 To which Professor Fowler rejoins: "Bacon's promise never has been and 

 never can be fulfilled." Of the two statements, Bacon's seems less extra- 

 vagant, we submit. 



FINIS. 



