VI 



ON SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN 

 PHILOSOPHY 



WHEN we try to ascertain the motives which have 

 led men to the investigation of philosophical 

 questions, we find that, broadly speaking, they can be 

 divided into two groups, often antagonistic, and leading 

 to very divergent systems. These two groups of motives 

 are, on the one hand, those derived from religion and 

 ethics, and, on the other hand, those derived from science. 

 Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel may be taken as typical of the 

 philosophers whose interests are mainly religious and 

 ethical, while Leibniz, Locke, and Hume may be taken as 

 representatives of the scientific wing. In Aristotle, 

 Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant we find both groups of 

 motives strongly present. 



Herbert Spencer, in whose honour we are assembled 

 to-day, would naturally be classed among scientific 

 philosophers : it was mainly from science that he drew 

 his data, his formulation of problems, and his conception 

 of method. But his strong religious sense is obvious 

 in much of his writing, and his ethical preoccupations 

 are what make him value the conception of evolution 

 that conception in which, as a whole generation has 

 believed, science and morals are to be united in fruitful 

 and indissoluble marriage. 



It is my belief that the ethical and religious motives, 

 H 97 



