e other hand, the higher categories, or ideas of reason,
seem to be merely anthropomorphic, and, therefore, ill-suited to explain
nature, because the relation of nature to intelligence is habitually
neglected by ordinary thought, which has not pressed its problems far
enough to know that such higher categories can alone satisfy the demand
for truth.

But natural science is gradually driven from the lower to the higher
categories, or, in other words, it is learning to take a more and more
idealistic view of nature. It is moving very slowly, because it is a
long labour to exhaust the uses of an instrument of thought; and it is
only at great intervals in the history of the human intellect, that we
find the need of a change of categories. But, as already hinted, there
is no doubt that science is becoming increasingly aware of the
conditions, under which alone its results may be held as valid. At
first, it drove "mind" out of the realm of nature, and offered to
explain both it and man in physical and mathematical terms. But, in our
day, the man of science has become too cautious to make such rash
extensions of the principles he uses. He is more inclined to limit
himself to his special field, and he refuses to make any declaration as
to the ultimate nature of things. He holds himself apart from
materialism, as he does from idealism. I think I may even go further,
and say that the fatal flaw of materialism has been finally detected,
and that the essential relativity of all objects to thought is all but
universally acknowledged.

The common notion that science gives a complete view of truth, to which
we may appeal as refuting idealism, is untenable. Science itself will
not support the appeal, but will direct the appellant to another court.
Perhaps, rather, it would be truer to say that its attitude is one of
doubt whether or not any court, philosophical or other, can give any
valid decision on the matter. Confining themselves to the region of
material phenomena, scientific men generally leave to common ignorance,
or to moral and theological tradition, all the interests and activities
of man, other than those which are physical or physiological. And some
of them are even aware, that if they could find the physical equation of
man, or, through their knowledge of physiology, actually produce in man
the sensations, thoughts, and notions now ascribed to the intelligent
life within him, the question of the spiritual or material natu