Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/101

 88 C. L. MOEGAN : assumption and is incomplete. It is incomplete ; for is this unique and yet absolutely universal fact that the content of consciousness is known only in and to an individual is this fact to be left out of account ? The play of ' ' Hamlet " with Hamlet left out seems to me nothing in comparison. It makes an assumption, for to make assumptions is simply to see how facts look when some integral factor is omitted. English thought, according to Mr. Hodgson, has commonly ignored the universal or all-embracing character of the conscious- ness, and has identified it with individual being. So it seems to me, and the article in MIND No. 41 was written to show that psychology could not be even psychology, much less philosophy, until the universal factor in consciousness was attended to. Tran- scendentalism, he says, inclines to identify consciousness with universal being, and if this be interpreted to mean that it inclines to neglect the individual agent, without which the universality of the content is naught, I heartily agree with him. The article in MIND No. 42 was written to show that transcendentalism was incomplete till it recognised that the universal content can be realised only in an individual bearer. And I make bold to add that Mr. Hodgson thinks the tw^o sides may be split, one surren- dered to Psychology, the other reserved for Metaphysic ; while to me it seems that we shall never get the surest footing and the completest results until we recognise that such halves the indi- vidual without the universal content, and the universal content without the individual bearer are disjecta membra. The science which unites them, and considers the content as realised in and by an individual, and the individual as realised through and by the content, seems to me to be Psychology. A psychology which should attempt to occupy the position Mr. Hodgson gives to it would have nothing to say except Here is a consciousness which interests me, but about which I can say nothing. THE GENERALISATIONS OF SCIENCE. By Professor C. LLOYD MORGAN. An important question is suggested by Mr. N. Pearson's interest- ing discussion of 'The Definition of Natural Law' in MIND No. 44. That question concerns the relation that Natural Law bears to the generalisations of science. Are the two fields coextensive ? or is Natural Law a vast region of which the generalisations of science constitute only the known and accurately surveyed areas ? Mr. Pearson holds the latter view. He objects to Lewes's description of a law as a notation of observed facts, and to the current defini- tions of natural laws as generalisations from experience, on the