Page:The Idealistic Reaction Against Science (1914).djvu/80



1. Old and New Positivism. — We must distinguish two periods in the history of positivism: of these the first is marked by a dogmatic belief in physical science, which is set up as the model of every form of knowledge; the second, dating from about 1870, goes still farther, and subjects science itself to searching criticism in order to eliminate any traces of metaphysics which might be sheltering themselves beneath the cloak of experimental theories; it no longer looks upon science as an unchangeable model, but studies the process of formation through which it passes, and turns to the human organism in its search for the psycho-physiological basis of this evolutionary genesis. This latter period approximates less closely in its methods to the older system of positivism than it does to the empiricism of David Hume and Stuart Mill, of which it is the logical conclusion, and which it completes by the addition of the biological concept of consciousness and the latest researches of physiological psychology. While positivism in its earner forms endeavoured to eliminate metaphysics by proving all reality to be capable of scientific explanation, taking refuge in agnosticism when this synthetic effort failed rather than acknowledge itself beaten by speculation, the new positive philosophy resorted to a purer and more ingenuous form of experience than self-styled scientific experience, and set itself the task of proving the enigmas of the universe to be non-existent. Metaphysical