Page:The Function of Reason.pdf/72

 also makes assumptions as to markets and competition which neglect many important factors. We have here an example of the necessity of transcending a given morphological scheme. Up to a point the scheme is invaluable. It clarifies thought, it suggests observation, it explains fact. But there is a strict limit to the utility of any finite scheme. If the scheme be pressed beyond its proper scope, definite error results. The art of the speculative Reason consists quite as much in the transcendence of schemes as in their utilization.

Mathematical physics suggests another reflection. We must dwell upon the extreme abstractness of the mathematical ideas involved. It is surprising that a scheme of such abstract ideas should have proved to be of such importance. We can imagine that an Egyptian country gentleman at the beginning of the Greek period might have tolerated the technical devices of his land surveyors, but would have felt that the airy generalizations of the speculative Greeks were tenuous, unpractical, waste of time. The obscurantists of all ages exhibit the same principles. All common sense is with them. Their only serious antagonist is History, and the history of Europe is dead against them. Abstract speculation has been the salvation of the world — speculations which made systems and then transcended them, speculations which ventured to the furthest limit of abstraction. To set limits to speculation is treason to the future.

But the weaving itself requires discipline. It has