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The dialectical situation in consciousness will then be represented by the two distinct but not fundamentally in- compatible methods of natural science and metaphysics, which we have designated the mechanical and the teleolog- ical, together with the caveat of the plain mans conscious- ness restraining any doctrine that would involve the unreality of his practical experience. The process we are endeavoring to sketch in this chapter, and which we hope to fill out in greater detail in following chapters, is the whole movement of the reflective consciousness in its effort to put a theoretic construction on the world, and our aim is to show how reflection satisfies itself in the progressive stages of its movement and also how the resources of both the methods which it has at its service are exhausted in this effort, so that neither natural science nor metaphysics alone would be able to meet the demand. Moreover, the outlook of both natural science and metaphysics is objective. Al- lowing for all differences, the world that presents itself to the reflection of both natural science and metaphysics is the world of things on which the common consciousness puts its construction. What is the nature of this world of things? Answering this question, natural science trans- lates the world of things into terms of the material, while metaphysics translates it into terms of the mental. prev next |