FUNCTION OF CRITICISM IN ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 341 
unifying law, the attainment of which is the goal of philos¬ 
ophy. The comprehensive unit idea has not yet, except 
very vaguely, floated before the most exalted human mind. 
Science in its present stage is chiefly concerned with build¬ 
ing up correct concepts, commonly called facts; progress 
has been made in the province of identity; and some work¬ 
ing laws, holding gdod in limited realms of thought, have 
apparently been attained, but yet we can scarcely claim to 
be much better off than blindly groping after final truths. 
Practical ideas about criticism can easily be drawn from 
this general analysis. Suppose some new fact or law is pro¬ 
posed, then the first test to he applied is whether it is true or 
false; the second is whether it is new or old; the third is its 
place in the general scheme of knowledge. If what is offered 
in evidence by an author can be shown to be inaccurate , in¬ 
correct, or false by its lack of harmony with other facts or 
pieces of evidence, by some internal inconsistency, or by its in¬ 
completeness, then it fails, and by just criticism it is thrown 
out. But, having passed this stage successfully, it is next 
necessary to examine its bearing upon other previously ad¬ 
mitted parts of knowledge to discover whether it is new or is 
in reality old, being merely something presented in a differ¬ 
ent aspect, disguised perhaps unintentionally and uncon¬ 
sciously, but yet being merely a phase of some other product 
of experience. Finally, having been passed upon by criti¬ 
cism and believed to be true and new, then it is necessary to 
determine its dimensions, so to speak, its size, whether it is 
smaller than some more comprehensive law and is to be 
placed as a subordinate part of it, or whether it is larger and 
contains other laws within itself—that is to say, we must 
determine its rank in the hierarchy of ideas. These three 
canons of criticism, truth, newness, rank, corresponding as 
they do to the three forms of thought, concepts, judgments, 
general laws, respectively, are thus easily comprehended and 
should be consciously practiced by scientific critics; for we 
claim that criticism should become as much a function of 
science as the discovery of facts and laws, and indeed it is 
