Page:The Organisation of Thought, Educational and Scientific.djvu/201

 These elements form the agreed content of the apparatus of commonsense thought. They require metaphysical analysis; but they are among the data from which metaphysics starts. A metaphysic which rejects them has failed, in the same way as physical science has failed when it is unable to harmonise them into its theory.

Science only renders the metaphysical need more urgent. In itself it contributes little directly to the solution of the metaphysical problem. But it does contribute something, namely, the exposition of the fact that our experience of sensible apparent things is capable of being analysed into a scientific theory, a theory not indeed complete, but giving every promise of indefinite expansion. This achievement emphasises the intimate relation between our logical thought and the facts of sensible apprehension. Also the special form of scientific theory is bound to have some influence. In the past false science has been the parent of bad metaphysics. After all, science embodies a rigorous scrutiny of one part of the whole evidence from which metaphysicians deduce their conclusions.