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THE STEELY BARB abstract, and apparently of no great practical value. For such persons, metaphysics is vague and lofty nonsense, only fit to give one vertigo; its uncontrolled speculations are contrary to the findings of modern science and have been discredited (for all but the inadequately informed) by the publications of the latest thinkers. Working hypotheses have at last begun to dispel the mysteries of the universe and man's existence. By means of calculations based on sober, controlled experiment, and verified not only in the facts of the laboratory but also through the applied techniques of everyday life, the traditional mysteries of the mystics are being systematically dissipated. The Eucharist has been transmuted back into bread. And so, although philosophy may be allowed its duc in so far as it is subservient to civilization and follows the usual habits of the modern mind, it cannot be taken seriously if it conflicts with the current formu. lations of physical science or recommends a different mode of conduct from that today made general by the universal progress of technology. Metaphysics and such airy meditations as those of the philosophy of history and religion may be sensitively tolerated as a genteel embellishment of education, but they are not of any vital use.
Minds of the type represented by this sort of up-to-date apotropaic cerebration tcach philosophy as a synthesis of scientific information. They reject everything that cannot be linked into this context. They are concerned to control and harmonize the findings from the various fields of research, outline a comprehensive pattern, and formulate methodical principles, without encroaching on the authority of the specialist-the research fellow in direct touch with the microbe, asterism, or condi. tioned reflex; but as for the methods, goals, and so-called truths of every other system of thought: these are either rejected or patronized, as the quaint, outmoded prepossessions of a superseded world.
There is, however, another type of modern thinker, diametri
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