bound?"--the question which from Homer's days has been put to the
wayfarer in strange lands--is likewise the all-absorbing question
which man is ever asking of the universe of which he is himself
so tiny yet so wondrous a part. From the earliest times the
ultimate purpose of all scientific research has been to elicit
fragmentary or partial responses to this question, and philosophy
has ever busied itself in piecing together these several bits of
information according to the best methods at its disposal, in
order to make up something like a satisfactory answer. In old
times the best methods which philosophy had at its disposal for
this purpose were such as now seem very crude, and accordingly
ancient philosophers bungled considerably in their task, though
now and then they came surprisingly near what would to-day be
called the truth. It was natural that their methods should be
crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet supplied but scanty
materials for them to work with, and it was only after a very
long course of speculation and criticism that men could find out
what ways of going to work are likely to prove successful and
what are not. The earliest thinkers, indeed, were further
hindered from accomplishing much by the imperfections of the
language by the aid of which their thinking was done; for science
and philosophy have had to make a serviceable terminology by dint
of long and arduous trial and practice, and linguistic processes
fit for expressing general or abstract notions accurately grew up
only through numberless failures and at the expense of much
inaccurate thinking and loose talking. As in most of nature's
processes, there was a great waste of energy before a good result
could be secured. Accordingly primitive men were very wide of the
mark in their views of nature. To them the world was a sort of
enchanted ground, peopled with sprites and goblins; the quaint