Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/255

241 by themselves or that such results merely control the determination of theories which in turn influence the direction of further experimentation? Poincaré holds that the truth of a theory must have general utility; Duhem, that any experiment has demonstrative value only if it integrates itself into a preconceived, theoretical unity. Cl. Bernard and Newton decided that, in addition to a mere recognition of facts, a method founded on reason, superior to experimentation is necessary, and Newton's inductive method is but a rationalization of experience. Results can be obtained only through the use of preconceived ideas since the principles can never be applied to all facts, though their applicability gives them their value. For Aristotle, who sees in induction the condensation in general rules of many experiments and for whom the principles of science consist in such rules, these principles seem to arise from experience itself; for Descartes they result from reason alone. Newton derives the principles of science from both reason and experience. They are selected facts and as such are the products of experiments, but as scientific values they pass beyond the range of experimentation. Likewise among modern scientists, principles are both empirical and a priori. They imply an analysis of the real but must be orientated according to a determined meaning. The principles of positive sciences imply most frequently preconceived ideas, which have their root in experience and are justifiable by it, but whose germ is found in a presentiment of their fertility. If science can progress only by aid of such preconceived conceptions, philosophy is to coordinate these ideas and establish a system of rational presuppositions. In the work of scientists who seem best to embody the scientific spirit, one finds a distinction between what results from experimentation and what fulfills a methodological requirement. Science can put the questions to nature; philosophy can coordinate them in a system according to their necessary relation to one ideal and form a basis of a broad interrogatory of which all the parts are harmonious and for which experimentation can furnish the answers.

A subject is the unity of its thoughts. A judgment is always made by a single subject, though not dependent on any particular subject. I am, in so far as I think, and my thought is real or nothing is real. Indeed, my thought creates reality. Solipsism is avoided by the recognition of other subjects and of a material or outer world. This outer world, however, has less reality for a particular subject than its own inner world, since to the latter belong all mental activities, and its kernel is self-consciousness. The ability to differentiate an ego and a non-ego denotes that these realities are but parts of a greater unity, which, to have reality, must have all these parts organically related in itself. Every unity of consciousness is a center of reality, though not of reality as a whole, for that is polycentric and any focus of reciprocal action is one of these centers. Reality is neither outside the subject nor a part of any