the merest lunacy to impugn, philosophy has achieved nothing that is permanently established. The cause of this vast difference in result is a radical difference in method."[1] I believe he is right. And again, "Our age presents no problem more profound in its nature, or more wide-reaching in its bearings upon the intellectual interests of mankind, than this: How to identify science and philosophy, by making the foundation, method, and system of science philosophic, and the foundation, method, and system of philosophy scientific."[2] This paper undertakes to show how "the foundation, method, and system of philosophy" can be made scientific; but if by making "the foundation, method, and system of science philosophic," is meant the putting of the principles of science on a basis of philosophic certainty, then it seeks to show that the work cannot be done.
This theory takes a middle ground between the empirical and the common-sense theories of knowledge. With the common-sense philosophy, it insists that the attempt of the empiricist to find positive verification in experience for the first principles of science cannot succeed; with empiricism, it insists that the attempt of the common-sense philosophy to establish definite philosophical principles must end in failure. But it agrees with the common-sense philosophers in making of common sense the court of last appeal in philosophy. Though it cannot give us principles, it gives us the method which we are bound to follow both in science and philosophy. And it agrees with empiricism in finding in experience the only sort of justification which our beliefs can receive, although this justification is of a purely negative character.
Finally, this theory aims to give full recognition to the important, nay, the decisive, part which the emotional and volitional side of our natures play in shaping our beliefs. Philosophers find no difficulty in admitting that the beliefs of all people except themselves are determined largely by considerations non-intellectual in their character. But as searchers after truth they have tacitly claimed to be guided by but one
