Here we see that if chemistry as a science is bound to take account of all its facts, the scientist is confronted with a problem of dimensions that is really a problem of Infinity applied not, as in the other cases quoted, to number, but to space.
And there is a reason which explains why the same problem tends to appear in these different ways. Both time and space can be most correctly thought of as series: the former known to us as possessing one direction, though possibly involving more, and the latter three, though possibly involving more. Time is not a thing nor a condition, but it is the way in which we are enabled to apprehend the relations of actions to one another. The assumption of the Pragmatist, that a different date in history is a new condition which might affect a chemical experiment, is meaningless, unless by that he intends to say that at the different date new conditions prevailed.
The general conclusion of recent thought is then to establish the Idealist position more strongly by an appeal to mathematical argument. This argument is strengthened by finding at the present time some support in scientific fact and experiment. The Idealist therefore appeals to fact, and his position rests ultimately on a truth which has its aspects of conformity with scientific experiment and with logical or mathematical proof.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] This word is used here in the most general and inclusive sense as applying to all thinkers who accept the reality of relations as part of a higher Unity.
[16] “A Pluralistic Universe,” p. 99.
[17] Taylor, “Elements of Metaphysics,” p. 312.
[18] Ibid., p. 350.
[19] A succession of what is disconnected is not change. Change is a succession within an identity: if not within the identity, there is no change, only analysis and re-grouping. The closer our knowledge is of ourselves or anything else, the more we see that change is the expression in time of an identity.
[20] Illingworth, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” p. 6.