THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 101

that our faculties have the power also to inform us as to

things which are external to us spatially objective and

that, as was contended in the last chapter, we have an

intuition of real external bodies : an external world as

ordinarily understood. The questions as to the validity

and the nature of memory will be subsequently considered.

They are only here referred to as auxiliary to our appre-

hension of objectivity.

Thus the second conviction which we desire to point out

as existing, at least in a latent condition, in all physical

science, and therefore implied in all its methods, is the con-

viction that an independent, extended, external world really

exists, that there are truly objective existences, and that

truth is a relation of conformity between the dictates of the

mind and other really existing conditions and relations.

We have just referred to our faculty of memory, and that

same faculty is intimately connected with the third conviction

which must be latent in every pursuit of science. This third

conviction is the certainty we have of our own continued

personal existence, and along with it the certainty that we

do, in fact, know our actions, sensations, reminiscences,

emotions, perceptions, conceptions, and inferences.

How would it be possible for any scientific experiments

to be carried on if we could not be perfectly certain that

it was we ourselves who carried them on : that it was we

who had both arranged the test conditions and also noted

the results? How, again, could we arrive at any conclusion

if we had any doubt about our really having felt, perceived,

or reasoned out the results we had felt, perceived, or

reasoned out?

Even mere scientific observation would be impossible if we

had any doubt that it was we ourselves one and the same

person who began the observation and carried it through

to its end.

that our faculties have the power also to inform us as to

things which are external to us spatially objective and

that, as was contended in the last chapter, we have an

intuition of real external bodies : an external world as

ordinarily understood. The questions as to the validity

and the nature of memory will be subsequently considered.

They are only here referred to as auxiliary to our appre-

hension of objectivity.

Thus the second conviction which we desire to point out

as existing, at least in a latent condition, in all physical

science, and therefore implied in all its methods, is the con-

viction that an independent, extended, external world really

exists, that there are truly objective existences, and that

truth is a relation of conformity between the dictates of the

mind and other really existing conditions and relations.

We have just referred to our faculty of memory, and that

same faculty is intimately connected with the third conviction

which must be latent in every pursuit of science. This third

conviction is the certainty we have of our own continued

personal existence, and along with it the certainty that we

do, in fact, know our actions, sensations, reminiscences,

emotions, perceptions, conceptions, and inferences.

How would it be possible for any scientific experiments

to be carried on if we could not be perfectly certain that

it was we ourselves who carried them on : that it was we

who had both arranged the test conditions and also noted

the results? How, again, could we arrive at any conclusion

if we had any doubt about our really having felt, perceived,

or reasoned out the results we had felt, perceived, or

reasoned out?

Even mere scientific observation would be impossible if we

had any doubt that it was we ourselves one and the same

person who began the observation and carried it through

to its end.