direction
of human affairs by itself. The method of science engrained through
education in habit means emancipation from rule of thumb and from the
routine generated by rule of thumb procedure. The word empirical in its
ordinary use does not mean "connected with experiment," but rather
crude and unrational. Under the influence of conditions created by the
non-existence of experimental science, experience was opposed in all
the ruling philosophies of the past to reason and the truly rational.
Empirical knowledge meant the knowledge accumulated by a multitude of
past instances without intelligent insight into the principles of any
of them. To say that medicine was empirical meant that it was not
scientific, but a mode of practice based upon accumulated observations
of diseases and of remedies used more or less at random. Such a mode of
practice is of necessity happy-go-lucky; success depends upon chance. It
lends itself to deception and quackery. Industry that is "empirically"
controlled forbids constructive applications of intelligence; it depends
upon following in an imitative slavish manner the models set in
the past. Experimental science means the possibility of using past
experiences as the servant, not the master, of mind. It means that
reason operates within experience, not beyond it, to give it an
intelligent or reasonable quality. Science is experience becoming
rational. The effect of science is thus to change men's idea of the
nature and inherent possibilities of experience. By the same token, it
changes the idea and the operation of reason. Instead of being something
beyond experience, remote, aloof, concerned with a sublime region
that has nothing to do with the experienced facts of life, it is found
indigenous in experience:--the factor by which past experiences are
purified and rendered into tools for discovery and advance.

The term "abstract" has a rather bad name in popular speech, being used
to signify not only that which is abstruse and hard to understand,
but also that which is far away from life. But abstraction is an
indispensable trait in reflective direction of activity. Situations do
not literally repeat themselves. Habit treats new occurrences as if
they were identical with old ones; it suffices, accordingly, when the
different or novel element is negligible for present purposes. But when
the new element requires especial attention, random reaction is the
sole recourse unless abstraction is brou