Possibly this does not mean very much. Then approach the matter from another side, risking a [p.083] reference to one of science's pet conceits, the "question of fact." It has been for science a question of fact, of mere objective fact, whether matter made mind or mind made matter; whether this or that thing is or is not a cause of some other thing; whether certain very low, perhaps unicellular organisms show purpose in their activities or do not, are gifted with a natural tendency to social life, a real interest in their kind, or are not so gifted; or--to take just one more case--whether the changes in the brain that precede bodily movement are or are not directed by consciousness, consciousness being in one case in causal relation with the brain, and in the other only an idle, external accompaniment, an "epi-phenomenon"; but in each of these questions of objective fact we see the scientist only standing in his own light, obscuring the view of what above all else it is important to see. Are mind and matter, cause and effect, purpose, society, brain-processes and consciousness such well-established conceptions, are they such independent constants in the scientist's formulæ, that wholly uncritical questions of fact are all that one needs to ask about them? Why, when one really thinks about it, to assume, as the questions of fact of an objective science are made to assume, that anything either is or is not something else, is about as blinding and ill-advised as could well be. It has the pleasing form of open-mindedness, but only the form. It is very much as if some earnest, yearning truth-seeker should exclaim: "I would see clearly; therefore I will not open my eyes." No doubt it keeps the scientist busy, eternally busy, dealing and redealing his facts or data, as busy indeed as the playful [p.084] cat that so hotly pursues her own tail, but it does not contribute much that is positive and progressive. The very best that one can say for it is that it turns the kaleidoscope of human experience, leading as it usually does to a new arrangement of hard, unchanging things. To the question, for example, about lower organisms showing purpose or social feeling in their activity, the scientist, after most careful experiments, may answer in the negative, and be quite emphatic in his answer too; but almost at once he--or some one for him--will appreciate that mankind, when scrutinized and experimented upon in the same way, under the same instruments and through the same laboratory methods, is similarly deficient; and then, somehow, the wind is taken out of his sails, since social feeling and purpose refuse to be so easily disposed of. In this case, as in all cases, the question of mere objective fact simply returns, as importunate as ever, for another reckoning, with Shelley's cloud silently laughing at its own cenotaph.