Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/483

 PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY. 469 stance that notwithstanding the free exercise of abstraction, the things and processes upon which it is based lie open to observation and experiment, or if they are inferred are yet made highly probable. If we are unanimous as to the object of the idea or of the concept we are indifferent to the name, and willingly accept a traditional term, though it may have had another meaning formerly, since no one feels tempted to re-establish this meaning. Or we gratefully accept an expression coined by a master, even if it does not seem well chosen, in order to avoid a dispute about matters of taste. Thus we have essentially attained that which was desired by the bold prophets of modern times. Less trouble has been taken about theoretical logic, hence also about the principles of terminology. Together with Theology, its sister Metaphysic has been pushed into a corner whence they cannot disturb the investigators of Nature. Metaphysic, was regarded as that feigned wisdom issuing in "abstruse distinctions" and incomprehensible expressions, which to- gether with Logic occupied the "pedantic" study of the " barbaric middle ages " through Logic too it had been thought that something could be discovered about things themselves, which can after all only be got at by experi- ence and calculation. This attitude of the modern natural sciences to the old pillars of Philosophy, points to the fact that the former have achieved complete independence and have become almost completely victorious ; still there has not been wanting a development in Logic and Metaphysic themselves, nor yet an extension of scientific thought to spheres which are little or not at all accessible to Physics and Chemistry, but which are at any rate as near to philo- sophical interest. We need not wonder, then, that from that time when Mechanics seemed to lead right into the workshops of nature, resolute investigators have undertaken to apply the instrument to which this result was mainly attributed, partly to anticipatory generalisations, partly to the extension of the sphere of knowledge in general the instrument that is, of the mathematical methods. Hence the energetic endeavour in the proud and strong seventeenth century to treat Psychology, Morals and Politics, as well as Physics, " more geonietrico," i.e. to demonstrate. But wherein lay the strength of these methods'? Opinion was unanimous as to that. It lay in an unbroken progress from ascertained starting-points ; in other words, in the combination of undoubted and indubitable propositions into the proof of propositions which might otherwise be disputed. Some maintained the fundamental propositions to be pure