The Metaphysical Foundation of Buddhism and Modern Science

the conceptual order. But equally, novel concepts suggest novel
possibilities of observational discrimination.
The history of thought cannot be understood unless we take account of a
grave weakness in the observational order. Observational discrimination
is not dictated by the impartial facts. It selects and discards, and what
it retains is rearranged in a subjective order of prominence. This order
of prominence in observation is in fact a distortion of the facts. Thus we
have to rescue the facts as they are from the facts as they appear. We
have to rescue the facts in the discard, and we have to discard the
subjective order of prominence which is itself a fact of observation. For
example, consider the observed facts in early stages of civilization. The
observed fact was a flat Earth with the arched dome of the Sky. Even to
the contemporaries of Pope Silvester the antipodes were inconceivable,
and his reputed belief in them did not credit to the old wizard of a Pope.
Again we view the sky at noon on a fine day. It is blue, flooded by the
light of the Sun. The direct fact of observation is the sun as the sole
origin of light, and the bare heavens. Conceive the myth of Adam and Eve
in the Garden on the first day of human life. They watch the sunset, the
stars appear: -'And, Lo!, creation widened to man's view'.
The excess of light discloses facts and also conceals them. It distorts
the facts for human observation. It is one task of speculation to urge