The especial problem of logic, as the theory of scientific method, is the relation of fact and thought to each other, of reality and thought. It is, however, differentiated from the metaphysical theory of knowledge. Logic does not inquire into the ultimate _meaning_ of fact and thought, nor into their _ultimate_ relations to one another. It simply takes them from the attitude of science itself, its business being, not the justification nor refutation of this attitude, but its development into explicit doctrine. Fact means to logic no more, but certainly no less, than it means to the special sciences: it is the subject-matter under investigation, under consideration; it is that which we are trying to make out. Thought too means to logic what it means to science: method. It is the attitude and form which intelligence takes in reference to fact—to its subject-matter, whether in inquiry, experiment, calculation, or statement. Logic, then, would have for its essential problem the consideration of the various typical methods and guiding principles which thought assumes in its effort to detect, master, and report fact. It is presupposed here that there is some sort of fruitful and intrinsic connection of fact and thought; that thinking, in short, is nothing but the fact in its process of translation from brute impression to lucent meaning. But the moment such a presupposition is stated, ninety-nine persons out of a hundred think that we have plunged, _ex abrupto_, from the certainty of science into the cloudland of metaphysic. And yet just this conception of the relation of thought (method) to fact (subject-matter) is taken for granted in every scientific investigation and conclusion. Here, then, we have in outline the present position of logic. It is that any attempt to state, in general, or to work out, in detail, the principle of the intrinsic and fruitful relation of fact and thought which science, without conscious reflection, constantly employs in practice, seems “metaphysical” or even absurd. Why is this? The answer to this question will give the filling-up of the outline just presented.