[T]he philosophical method seems based upon an analysis which does not start with the classification of facts, but reaches its judgments by some obsc… - Karl Pearson

[M]y axiom runs as follows: "The whole is not identical with a part." This axiom leads us at once to a problem. What relation has the part to the whole?

[I]t is better to be content with the fraction of a right solution than to beguile ourselves with the whole of a wrong solution.

I fear that... I may appear to have exceeded the duty of an editor. For all the Articles in this volume whose numbers are enclosed in square brackets I am alone responsible, as well as for the corresponding footnotes, and the Appendix... The principle which has guided me throughout the additions I have made has been to make the work... a standard work of reference for its own branch of science. ...It forms ...the history of a peculiar phase of intellectual development, worth studying for the many side lights it throws on general human progress. On the other hand it serves as a guide to the investigator in what has been done, and what ought to be done. ...[T]he individualism of modern science has not infrequently led to a great waste of power; the same... work has been repeated in different countries at different times, owing to the absence of such histories... [T]he would-be researcher either wastes much of his time in learning the history... or else works away regardless of earlier investigators. ...I have endeavoured to give it completeness (1) as a history of developement, (2) as a guide to what has been accomplished.