the
chaos of his social, political, industrial, and emotional life into
wholesome force. He will sing again. But the discovery of mind comes
first, and then, the song."

SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND INDIVIDUAL THINKER

GEORGE H. MEAD

The scientist in the ancient world found his test of reality in the
evidence of the presence of the essence of the object. This evidence
came by way of observation, even to the Platonist. Plato could treat
this evidence as the awaking of memories of the ideal essence of the
object seen in a world beyond the heavens during a former stage of the
existence of the soul. In the language of Theatetus it was the agreement
of fluctuating sensual content with the thought-content imprinted in or
viewed by the soul. In Aristotle it is again the agreement of the
organized sensuous experience with the vision which the mind gets of the
essence of the object through the perceptual experience of a number of
instances. That which gives the stamp of reality is the coincidence of
the percept with a rational content which must in some sense be in the
mind to insure knowledge, as it must be in the cosmos to insure
existence, of the object. The relation of this test of reality to an
analytical method is evident. Our perceptual world is always more
crowded and confused than the ideal contents by which the reality of its
meaning is to be tested. The aim of the analysis varies with the
character of the science. In the case of Aristotle's theoretical
sciences, such as mathematics and metaphysics, where one proceeds by
demonstration from the given existences, analysis isolates such elements
as numbers, points, lines, surfaces, and solids, essences and essential
accidents. Aristotle approaches nature, however, as he approaches the
works of human art. Indeed, he speaks of nature as the artificer par
excellence. In the study of nature, then, as in the study of the
practical and productive arts, it is of the first importance that the
observer should have the idea--the final cause--as the means of
deciphering the nature of living forms. Here analysis proceeds to
isolate characters which are already present in forms whose functions
are assumed to be known. By analogy such identities as that of fish fins
with limbs of other vertebrates are assumed, and some very striking
anticipations of modern biological conceptions and discoveries are
reached. Aristotle recognizes that the theory of the nature of the form
or essence