UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 No. 21 
 
 Editors: 
 THE RT. HON. H. A. L. FISHER, 
 
 M.A., F.B.A. 
 PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, Lirr.D., 
 
 LL.D., F.B.A. 
 PROF. SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON, 
 
 M.A. 
 PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, 
 
 M.A.
 
 A complete classified list of the volumes of THE 
 HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY already published 
 will be found at the back of this book.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 TO SCIENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. ARTHUR THOMSON 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY, ABERDEEN 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE ; " " HEREDITY; " 
 " THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS J " " HERBERT SPENCER ; " 
 
 "THE SCIENCE OF LIFE ; " "THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 
 IN THE CENTURY;" "THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE;" 
 
 " OUTLINES OF ZOOLOGY ; " " THE NATURAL 
 HISTORY OF THE YEAR*' 
 
 Joint author of "TAe Evolution of Sex " and "Evolution " 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 LONDON 
 THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LTD.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911, 
 
 BY 
 
 :JENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 - CHAP. 
 
 I THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD ......... 7 
 
 II THE AIM OF SCIENCE ......... 35 
 
 * III SCIENTIFIC METHOD .......... 57 
 
 IV CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES ..... 81 
 
 ^^\ SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ........ 124 
 
 VI SCIENCE AND ART .......... 166 
 
 V> VII SCIENCE AND RELIGION ......... 192 
 
 en 
 
 VIII THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE ........ 224 
 
 REFERENCES TO BOOKS ......... 251 
 
 INDEX . 255
 
 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 
 
 "For myself I found that I was fitted for noth- 
 ing so well as for the study of Truth; as having 
 a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the 
 resemblance of things (which is the chief point), 
 and at the same time steady enough to fix and 
 distinguish their subtler differences; as being 
 gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to 
 doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, 
 readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and 
 set in order; and as being a man that neither 
 affects what is new nor admires what is old, and 
 that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought 
 my nature had a kind of familiarity and relation- 
 ship with Truth." FRANCIS BACON. 
 
 Before Science The Practical Mood The Emotional Mood 
 The Scientific Mood contrasted with the Others Ad- 
 justment of Moods Characteristics of the Scientific Mood 
 A Passion for Facts Cautiousness of Statement Clear- 
 ness of Vision Sense of the Inter-relatedness of Things 
 Culture of the Scientific Mood Summary. 
 
 BEFORE SCIENCE. We do not know much that 
 is quite certain in regard to our early ancestors, 
 7
 
 8 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 but it is safe to say that man's relations with 
 Nature were for a long time predominantly 
 practical. We may recall the vivid picture which 
 ^Eschylus gives of primitive men living in caves, 
 without fire, without wood-work, without sys- 
 tem, without seasons, without foresight, a dream- 
 life without science: 
 
 "And let me tell you, not as taunting men, 
 But teaching you the intention of my gifts 
 How, first, beholding they beheld in vain, 
 And, hearing, heard not, but like shapes in 
 
 dreams, 
 Mixed all things wildly down the tedious 
 
 time, 
 
 Nor knew to build a house against the sun 
 With wicketed sides, nor any wood-work knew 
 But lived like silly ants, beneath the ground, 
 In hollow caves unsunned. There came to 
 
 them 
 
 No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring 
 Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, 
 But blindly and lawlessly they did all things, 
 Until I taught them how the stars do rise 
 And set in mystery, and devised for them 
 Number, the inducer of philosophies, 
 The synthesis of letters, and besides 
 The artificer of all things, Memory 
 That sweet muse-mother."
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 9 
 
 In those early days the various moods that 
 we are familiar with such as the scientific, the 
 artistic, and the philosophic had not become 
 defined off from an oppressive practical mood. 
 Very gradually, however, Man got a firmer foot- 
 hold in the struggle for existence, and was able 
 to raise his head and look at the stars. He dis- 
 covered the year with its marvellous object-lesson 
 of recurrent sequences a discovery which was 
 one of the first great steps towards science, and 
 he became vividly aware that his race had a 
 history. He had time, too, for a conscious en- 
 joyment of Nature, which came to mean more 
 and more to him. Here and there, perhaps, some 
 began to ponder over the significance of their 
 experience. Gradually, at all events, as the ages 
 passed, various moods became, as we say, dif- 
 ferentiated from one another, and men began to 
 be contrasted according as this or that mood was 
 more habitual with them. Men of action, men 
 of feeling, and men of thought, these were the 
 three primary types, which are now-a-days split 
 up into minor types. They correspond, obvi- 
 ously, to doing, feeling, and knowing; to hand, 
 heart, and head; to practice, emotional activity, 
 and intellectual inquiry. That we may better 
 understand the scientific mood, let us consider for 
 a little the others. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL MOOD. First there is the
 
 10 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 mood of the dominantly practical man, whose 
 whole trend is towards doing, not towards know- 
 ing. He must, of course, know his facts if his 
 doings are to be effective, and he must, likewise, 
 have sound social feeling if his doings are to be 
 deeds, not misdeeds; and no one will seek to 
 dispute that the practical man has a firm grip 
 of facts, and that he is often full of that kindli- 
 ness which marks a strong development of the 
 kin-instinct. Yet he himself would be the first 
 to point out that he had no particular hunger or 
 thirst after the descriptive formulae which Science 
 seeks to supply. So far as Science means that 
 kind of knowledge which is Foresight, that kind 
 of Foresight which is Power, he believed in it, 
 but on the whole it did not interest him. Simi- 
 larly, while he would confess to a pleasure in 
 friendly relations between man and man, and 
 between man and his beasts, and to a sometimes 
 apparently hyperaesthetic sense of order, he would 
 admit, on the whole, that aesthetic emotion was 
 not much in his line. He was not built that way. 
 There is obviously much to be said for the 
 dominant practical mood. It is as natural and 
 necessary and dignified as any other. Science 
 grew out of practical lore, and fresh vigour has 
 often come to science by a tightening of its touch 
 with the business of everyday life. How much 
 mathematics, for instance, both simple and subtle.
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 11 
 
 has arisen in direct response to practical needs, 
 whether of measuring land or measuring elec- 
 tricity ! 
 
 On the other hand, the risks of a tyrannous 
 practical mood are great. When things get into 
 the saddle and override ideas and ideals and all 
 good feeling, when the multiplication of loaves 
 and fishes becomes the only problem in the world, 
 we know the results to be vicious. To be wholly 
 practical is to grub for edible roots and see no 
 flowers upon the earth, no stars overhead. The 
 exaggeratedly practical man "will have nothing 
 to do with sentiment," though he prides himself 
 in keeping close to "the facts"; he cannot abide 
 "theory," though he is himself imbued with a 
 quaint Martin Tupperism which gives a false sim- 
 plicity to the problems of life; he will live, he in- 
 sists, in "the real world," and yet he often hugs 
 close to himself the most unreal of ideals. 
 
 THE EMOTIONAL MOOD. Secondly, there is the 
 emotional and artistic mood, which finds expres- 
 sion in Schiller's words: "O wunderschon ist 
 Gottes Erde, und schon auf ihr ein Mensch zu 
 sein." "Oh wondrous beautiful is God's earth, 
 and good it is to be a man upon it." 
 
 From man's first emergence, perhaps, the 
 herbs and the trees, the birds and the beasts, sent 
 tendrils into his heart, claiming and finding kin- 
 ship. Ever so early there must have been a
 
 12 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 I 
 
 rude joy in the heavens and the earth, and in 
 the pageant of the seasons something more 
 than the pleasure of basking in the sun like a 
 lizard. Probably, however, it was not until man 
 had gained some firmness of footing in the 
 world, secured by his wits against stronger rivals 
 and a careless environment, that the emotional 
 tone grew into dignity as a distinct mood, a 
 genuine enjoyment of beautiful things, which 
 found expression in music and dance, in song and 
 story, hi painting and carving, and hi religious 
 rites. 
 
 Like the practical mood, so the emotional 
 mood has its obvious virtues. It is part of the 
 salt of life. It begets a sympathy that is insight. 
 In a noisy world it helps to keep us aware of 
 harmony hidden in the heart of things. 
 
 We are perhaps apt to think too lightly of the 
 value of the more primitive aesthetic emotions. 
 Do we not need some infusion of the simple de- 
 light in the earth which was expressed for in- 
 stance by Matthew Arnold in his Empedocles on 
 Etna: "Is it so small a thing to have enjoy'd 
 the sun?" There is a fine ideal, which no science 
 need contradict, in that line of Goldsmith's, 
 "His heaven commences ere the world be past." 
 It is only by the culture of the emotional mood 
 though the words are almost self-contradictory 
 that man "hitches his wagon to the stars."
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD IS 
 
 But, just as with any other disproportionate 
 development, there are risks in the hypertrophied 
 emotional mood. Uncurbed by science, un- 
 related to practice, it may become morbid, even 
 mad. Rational wonder may degenerate into "a 
 caterwauling about Nature." Enthusiasm for 
 what is beautiful, without relevant activity, may 
 become an unpleasant effervescence. There may 
 be overfeeling, just as there may be overdoing. 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD CONTRASTED WITH THE 
 OTHERS. The scientific worker has elected pri- 
 marily to know, not do. He does not directly seek, 
 like the practical man, to realize the ideal of 
 exploiting nature and controlling life though he 
 makes this more possible; he seeks rather to 
 idealize to conceptualize the real, or at least 
 those aspects of reality that are available in his 
 experience. He thinks more of lucidity and 
 formulae than of loaves and fishes. He is more 
 concerned with knowing Nature than with en- 
 joying her. His main intention is to describe 
 the sequences in Nature in the simplest possible 
 formulae, to make a working thought-model of 
 the known world. He would make the world 
 translucent, not that emotion may catch the 
 glimmer of the indefinable light that shines 
 through, but for other reasons because of his 
 inborn inquisitiveness, because of his dislike of 
 obscurities, because of his craving for a system
 
 14 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 an intellectual system in which phenomena are 
 at least provisionally unified. 
 
 And, as we have indicated the vices of an exag- 
 gerated emotional mood and of a too exclusively 
 practical mood, so we must admit that the 
 hypertrophied scientific mood has its risks, of 
 ranking science first, and life second (as if science 
 were not, after all, for the evolution of life); of 
 ignoring good feeling (as if knowledge could not 
 be bought at too high a price); of pedantry (as 
 if science were merely a "preserve" for the ex- 
 pert intellectual sportsman, and not also an 
 education for the citizen); of disproportionate 
 analysis dissecting more than it reconstructs 
 so that the artistic perception of unity and har- 
 mony is lost; of maniacal muck-raking for items 
 of fact (as if facts alone constituted a science). 
 
 ADJUSTMENT OF MOODS. Before we go on to 
 consider the characteristics of the scientific mood 
 in greater detail, let us sum up so far. There are 
 three dominant moods in man practical, emo- 
 tional, and scientific each with its subdivisions. 
 They correspond symbolically to hand, heart, and 
 head, and they are all equally necessary and 
 worthy. "And the eye cannot say unto the 
 hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head 
 to the feet, I have no need of you." They are 
 all worthy, but most so when they respect one 
 another as equally justifiable outlooks on nature,
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 15 
 
 and when they are combined, in adjusted pro- 
 portions, in a full human life. But that is so 
 difficult of attainment, especially when great 
 excellence in one direction has been inherited or 
 icquired, that the disproportionate developments 
 ,ve have spoken of are apt to occur. They are 
 >ften the more dangerous because of the very 
 trength which the exaggeration gives to its pos- 
 essor. This is part of the penalty of genius. 
 
 For ordinary folk, however, it is safe to say 
 that when any mood becomes so dominant that 
 the validity of the others is denied or ignored, 
 the results are likely to be tainted with some vice 
 some inhumanity, some sentimentalism, some 
 pedantry, some violence to the unity of life. A 
 sane life implies a practical recognition of the 
 trinity of knowing, feeling, and doing. This 
 spells health, wholeness, holiness, as Edward 
 Carpenter has well said. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 
 In his presidential address to the British Associa- 
 tion in 1899, Sir Michael Foster inquired into the 
 qualities that distinguish the scientific worker, 
 and came to the conclusion that they were, in the 
 mam, three: 
 
 "In the first place, above all other things, his 
 nature must be one which vibrates in unison 
 tvith that of which he is in search; the seeker 
 \fter truth must himself be truthful, truthful with
 
 16 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the truthfulness of nature; which is far more 
 imperious, far more exacting than that which 
 man sometimes calls truthfulness. 
 
 "In the second place, he must be alert of mind. 
 Nature is ever making signs to us, she is ever 
 whispering to us the beginnings of her secrets; 
 the scientific man must be ever on the watch, 
 ready at once to lay hold of Nature's hint, how- 
 ever small, to listen to her whisper, however 
 low. 
 
 "In the third place, scientific inquiry, though 
 it be pre-eminently an intellectual effort, has 
 need of the moral quality of courage not so much 
 the courage which helps a man to face a sudden 
 difficulty as the courage of steadfast endurance." 
 
 Anticipating the obvious criticism that these 
 three qualities of truthfulness, alertness, and 
 courage are not in any way peculiar to the scien- 
 tific man, but "may be recognized as belonging to 
 almost every one who has commanded or deserved 
 success, whatever may have been his walk in life," 
 Sir Michael said: "That is exactly what I would 
 desire to insist, that the men of science have no 
 peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are 
 ordinary men, their characters are common, even 
 commonplace. Science, as Huxley said, is or- 
 ganized common-sense, and men of science are 
 common men, drilled in the ways of common- 
 sense."
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 17 
 
 Perhaps this protests a little too much, that 
 the scientific man is as other men are, but it 
 emphasizes a useful point, that the scientific mood 
 does not necessarily imply any particular knowl- 
 edge of this or that science. Some men who are 
 quite ignorant of any of the concrete sciences 
 have nevertheless a highly developed scientific 
 mood. Give them data and a clearly stated 
 problem, and they soon show that they are 
 scientific in every fibre of their mind. It is 
 indeed a vulgar error that science is anything by 
 itself. To speak of "going in for science" is like 
 proposing to go in for breathing or good digestion. 
 
 When all is said, however, we feel that there is 
 something distinctive in the scientific mood, and 
 this requires further analysis. It will appear 
 that our conclusions agree with Sir Michael 
 Foster's, but they emphasize intellectual rather 
 than moral features. 
 
 A PASSION FOR FACTS. As a first characteristic 
 of the scientific mood we would rank a passion 
 for facts, which corresponds to the quality of 
 truthfulness in Sir Michael Foster's analysis. 
 It is the desire for accuracy of observation and 
 precision of statement. "First make sure of the 
 facts," is a fundamental precept in science, but 
 it is no easy matter. Even in regard to simple 
 problems it is often difficult to get a grip of the 
 facts of the case. Even in regard to simple oc-
 
 18 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 currences it is often difficult to give a quite 
 accurate account of what took place. This is 
 partly due to the dash of the artistic mood which 
 most men have. It is often due to the untrained 
 eye, which sees only what it has the power of 
 seeing, sometimes little indeed and, in the 
 opposite direction, to preconceptions which often 
 enable men to see what is not to be seen. It is 
 also due to lack of discipline in the method of 
 science; thus nothing is commoner than a nail* 
 ration that mingles observation with unconscious 
 inferences from observation, which is one of the 
 elementary fallacies. 
 
 "Man, unscientific man," Sir Michael Foster 
 said, "is often content with 'the nearly' and 'the 
 almost.' Nature never is. It is not her way to 
 call the same, two things which differ, though the 
 difference may be measured by less than the 
 thousandth of a milligramme or of a millimetre, 
 or by any other like standard of minuteness. 
 And the man who, carrying the ways of the 
 world into the domain of science, thinks that he 
 may treat Nature's differences in any other way 
 than she treats them herself, will find that she 
 resents his conduct; if he in carelessness or hi 
 disdain overlooks the minute difference which 
 she holds out to him as a signal to guide him 
 in his search, the projecting tip, as it were, 
 of some buried treasure, he is bound to go
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 19 
 
 astray, and, the more strenuously he struggles 
 on, the farther will he find himself from his true 
 goal." 
 
 Many children seem to pass through an inter- 
 esting stage in which they fail to discriminate 
 between their dream-pictures and their wide- 
 awake pictures of actual occurrences, and it was 
 probably ingenuousness rather than any lack of 
 good faith that led some of the old naturalist- 
 travellers, in the glamour of strange lands, to 
 mix up in their diaries what they actually saw 
 and what the natives told them was to be seen. 
 And we do not need to go back to ancient history 
 to find examples. 
 
 The scientific worker is well aware that in 
 measurements and observations the accuracy at- 
 tainable is only approximate, and that the degree 
 of approximation varies with the individual. 
 The personal equation has been for a long time 
 frankly recognized and allowed for in astronomy; 
 it is also sometimes estimated in chemistry and 
 physics; but it must be recognized all round. 
 Science begins with measurement and there are 
 some people who cannot be measurers; and just 
 as we distinguish carpenters who can work to this 
 or that fraction of an inch of accuracy, so we 
 must distinguish ourselves and our acquaint- 
 ances as able to observe and record to this or 
 that degree of truthfulness.
 
 20 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Hence, naturally, the importance of discipline 
 and apprenticeship in precision whether with 
 the chemical balance or with the scalpel, with 
 the sextant or the micrometer. Even faithful 
 drawing is an effective factor in the development 
 of truthfulness ; and we heartily agree with Agassiz 
 that a training in natural science is one of the best 
 preparations a man can have for work in any 
 department of life where accurate carefulness 
 and adherence to the facts of the case are of 
 indispensable importance. 
 
 Long ago Bacon said: "We should accustom 
 ourselves to things themselves," and this-^-to 
 distinguish between appearance and reality-(-is 
 what the scientific mood seeks after. Its emblem 
 might be the X-rays which penetrate through 
 superficial obscurities. It is the note of precision 
 that is distinctive. We read of Clerk Maxwell: 
 "Throughout his childhood his constant question 
 was, 'What's the go of that? What does it do?' 
 Nor was he content with a vague answer, but 
 would reiterate, 'But what's the particular go 
 of it?'" 
 
 The quality of accuracy has, of course, a great 
 variety of expressions at many different levels, 
 but it is of the same mood and towards the same 
 ideal all through. The discipline of weighing and 
 measuring is doubtless sometimes exaggerated 
 into an end in itself, and made unnecessarily
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 21 
 
 tedious by its unrelatedness to real problems, but 
 those who are inclined to be impatient with it 
 should remember that it is congruent with and 
 contributory to "that enthusiasm for truth, 
 that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater 
 possession than much learning; a nobler gift 
 than the power of increasing knowledge." 
 
 These are Huxley's words, whose passion for 
 facts marked all he said and did. They suggest 
 a famous sentence in his autobiography, in which 
 he expressed his aims in life. "If I may speak 
 of the objects I have had in view since I began 
 the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: 
 To promote the increase of natural knowledge 
 and to forward the application of scientific meth- 
 ods of investigation to all the problems of life 
 to the best of my ability, in the conviction which 
 has grown with my growth and strengthened 
 with my strength, that there is no alleviation 
 for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of 
 thought and of action, and the resolute facing of 
 the world as it is, when the garment of make- 
 believe by which pious hands have hidden its 
 uglier features is stripped off." * 
 
 We have used the strong phrase "a passion 
 for facts" because of the intensity which all the 
 great masters in science have shown in their 
 reverence for truth and in their contempt for 
 mere opinions. "Opinions," Glanville says, "are
 
 22 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the rattles of immature intellects, but the ad- 
 vanced reasons have outgrown them." 
 
 "The longer I live," Huxley said, "the more 
 obvious it is to me that the most sacred act 
 of a man's life is to say and feel, 'I believe such 
 and such to be true.' All the greatest rewards 
 and all the heaviest penalties of existence cling 
 about that act." 
 
 CAUTIOUSNESS OF STATEMENT. Following from 
 the passion for facts, there is a second char- 
 acteristic of the scientific mood, namely, cau- 
 tiousness. *It has habituated itself to withhold 
 judgment when the data are obviously incom- 
 plete; to doubt conclusions that have been quickly 
 reached; to hesitate in accepting what is particu- 
 larly attractive whether in its simplicity or its 
 symmetry! Thus scientific workers are naturally 
 sceptical and of the school of St. Thomas which 
 is in no way inconsistent with a tenacity of con- 
 viction when the demonstration is complete. 
 Not any easier than accuracy is this quality 
 of active scepticism, "thatige Skepsis." Indeed, 
 as Prof. W. K. Brooks says in his Foundations 
 of Zoology: "The hardest of intellectual virtues 
 is philosophic doubt, and the mental vice to which 
 we are most prone is our tendency to believe 
 that lack of evidence for an opinion is a reason 
 for believing something else." . . . "Suspended 
 judgment is the greatest triumph of intellectual
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 23 
 
 discipline." The sceptical, distrustful, scientific 
 desire to test everything was charmingly hit off 
 in the definition of a professor given in Fliegende 
 Blatter "Ein Professor ist ein Mensch der an- 
 derer Meinung ist." "A professor is a man who 
 is of a different opinion." 
 
 \ It is true that the scientific mood is continually 
 making hypotheses or guesses at truth; the 
 scientific , use of the imagination is a recognized 
 method. It is a kind of intellectual experimenta- 
 tion, and it suggests actual experiments by 
 which it is itself tested^ The danger of this is 
 not so much for experts as for those who have 
 incomplete mastery of the rules of the game, but 
 every one will admit that provisional hypotheses 
 have a tendency to put on the garb of full-grown 
 theories, or even of established doctrines. As 
 Mr. Bateson has phrased it, the controlled scien- 
 tific mood will avoid "giving to the ignorant as 
 a gospel, in the name of science, the rough guesses 
 of yesterday that to-morrow should forget." As 
 Huxley said with memorable severity: "The as- 
 sertion that outstrips the evidence is not only a 
 blunder but a crime." 
 
 A fine illustration of scientific restraint is to 
 be found in Huxley's agnostic position in regard 
 to the theory of evolution before the publication 
 of the Origin of Species. He had studied Lamarck 
 attentively, and he had fought many and pro-
 
 24 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 longed battles with Herbert Spencer on the 
 subject. "But even my friend's rare dialectic 
 skill and copiousness of apt illustration could 
 not drive me from my agnostic position. I took 
 my stand upon two grounds: Firstly, that up 
 to that time, the evidence in favour of transmuta- 
 tion was wholly insufficient; and secondly, that 
 no suggestion respecting the causes of transmuta- 
 tion assumed, which had been made, was in any 
 way adequate to explain the phenomena. Look- 
 ing back at the state of knowledge at that time, 
 I really do not see that any other conclusion was 
 justifiable." . . . "That which we were looking 
 for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respect- 
 ing the origin of known organic forms which as- 
 sumed the operation of no causes but such as 
 could be proved to be actually at work. We 
 wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other 
 speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite 
 conceptions which could be brought face to face 
 with facts and have their validity tested. The 
 Origin provided us with the working hypothesis 
 we sought." . . . "The only rational course for 
 those who had no other object than the attain- 
 ment of truth was to accept 'Darwinism' as a 
 working hypothesis and see what could be made 
 of it. Either it would prove its capacity to eluci- 
 date the facts of organic life, or it would break 
 down under the strain." (See Huxley's Life and
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 25 
 
 Letters, vol. i. p. 168.) To read these words is to 
 breathe the scientific atmosphere. They illus- 
 trate the scientific mood better than any analysis. 
 Cautiousness, then, is characteristic of science. 
 Just as "burnt bairns dread the fire"; so the 
 scientific mood, often deceived by misobserva- 
 tion, by inferences mixed up with records, by 
 hearsay evidence, by an induction from too nar- 
 row a basis, and even by the will-o'-the-wisp 
 glamour of a brilliant hypothesis, becomes more 
 and more cautious, distrustful, "canny." One of 
 the forms of cautiousness that is most difficult 
 of attainment, and yet indispensable, is distrust 
 of our personal bias in forming judgments. Our 
 interpretations are necessarily coloured by our 
 personal experience and our social environment; 
 our hypotheses may arise from social suggestion: 
 but before they pass into the framework of 
 science they must be "de-personalized." In fact, 
 the validity of a scientific conclusion, as distin- 
 guished from a mere opinion, depends on the 
 elimination of the subjective element. As Prof. 
 Karl Pearson says : " The scientific man has above 
 all things to strive at self-elimination in his 
 judgments, to provide an argument which is as 
 true for each individual mind as for his own. 
 The classification of facts, the recognition of 
 their sequence and relative significance, is the 
 function of science, and the habit of forming a
 
 26 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 judgment upon these facts, unbiassed by personal 
 feeling, is characteristic of what may be termed 
 the scientific frame of mind" (Grammar of Science, 
 1900 edition, p. 6). 
 
 As Faraday said: "The world little knows 
 how many of the thoughts and theories which 
 have passed through the mind of a scientific 
 investigator have been crushed in silence and 
 secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse 
 examination; that in the most successful instances 
 not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the 
 wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been 
 realized." As a complementary statement we 
 give another quotation from the same great au- 
 thority: "The philosopher should be a man will- 
 ing to listen to every suggestion, but determined 
 to judge for himself. He should not be biassed 
 by appearances; have no favourite hypotheses; 
 be of no school, and in doctrine have no master. 
 He should not be a respecter of persons, but of 
 things. Truth should be his primary object. If 
 to these qualities be added industry, he may 
 indeed hope to walk within the veil of the Temple 
 of Nature." 
 
 It seems to us strange that some biologists 
 have criticized Prof. Weismann because in the 
 course of a quarter of a century or more, he has 
 modified certain of his suggestions as new facts 
 came within his knowledge. Nothing is more
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 7 
 
 characteristically scientific. As Prof. J. H. 
 Poynting has admirably put it: "The hypotheses 
 of science are continually changing. Old hypoth- 
 eses break down and new ones take their place. 
 But the classification of known phenomena which 
 a hypothesis has suggested, and the new discov- 
 eries of phenomena to which it has led, remain 
 as positive and permanent additions to natural 
 knowledge when the hypothesis itself has van- 
 ished from thought." 
 
 CLEARNESS OF VISION. A third character- 
 istic of the scientific mood is the endeavour after 
 clearness, ^the dislike of blurred vision and ob- 
 scurities. \ The mole has a sort of half-finished 
 lens, which is physically incapable of throwing 
 any clear image on the retina. If there is any 
 image at all, it must be a blurred tangle of lines. 
 In our busy lives, as the nemesis of our specialisms 
 and preoccupations, we tend to have moles' 
 lenses in regard to particular orders of facts; we 
 see certain things clearly, but others are blurs. 
 The scientific mood is in continual protest against 
 this; it is all for clearness. 
 
 When we work long at a thing and come to 
 know it up and down, in and out, through and 
 through, it becomes hi quite a remarkable way 
 translucent. The botanist can see through his 
 tree, see wood and bast, cambium and medullary 
 rays, all in their proper place; he can see the
 
 28 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 ascending water and salts, the descending sugar 
 and proteids. The zoologist can in the same way 
 see through the snail on the thorn, seeing as in a 
 glass model everything in its place, the nerve- 
 centres, the muscles, the stomach, the beating 
 heart, the coursing blood, and the filtering kid- 
 ney. So the human body becomes translucent to 
 the skilled anatomist, and the globe to a skilled 
 geographer. 
 
 Similarly, on a higher plane than merely opti- 
 cal clearness, those of the scientific mood are in 
 great part trying to make the world translucent. 
 They are seeking to construct an intellectual 
 cinematograph of the long processions of causes 
 that pass unceasingly before us. A perfectly clear 
 working thought-model is what science seeks to 
 construct. 
 
 There is so much to know that ignorance in 
 itself is no particular reproach; but the point 
 is to be clear when we know and when we do not, 
 and it is one of the characteristics of the scientific 
 mood that it will have yes or no to this question. 
 
 "Do you see it or do you not?" was the con- 
 tinual question of a biological teacher gifted 
 with great educational ability, and "If you see 
 it, what is it like?" 
 
 A student who worked under Agassiz relates 
 how she was almost brought to despair by the 
 severe way in which that great master, after giv-
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 29 
 
 ing her a specimen to study, came day after day, 
 and asked, with a cruel kindliness: "Well, what 
 do you see now?" and then went away. But 
 at length the student saw something saw what 
 was to be seen, and more also. 
 
 What science knows it must know definitely; 
 what it sees must be in focus. It feels the wisdom 
 of one of Bacon's aphorisms often verified in his- 
 tory: "Truth to emerge sooner from error than 
 from confusion." The definitizing of error is 
 often the beginning of its disappearance. When 
 the evil genie of the Eastern tales took on definite 
 bodily form there was some chance of tackling 
 him; as a mere wraith he was unassailable. 
 
 One of the expressions of the scientific endea- 
 vour after clearness is to be found in precision of 
 speech. Thus Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson says 
 of Lord Kelvin: "He hated ambiguities of lan- 
 guage, and statements which mislead by loose- 
 ness of phrasing. With painful effort he strove 
 for clarity of expression, elaborating his phrases 
 in a way that threatened at times to defeat the 
 end intended. In that hazy medium of words 
 wherein we all drown, he at least would attempt 
 to observe the proprieties of language. As an 
 example take this: Externally the sense of touch, 
 other than heat, is the same in all cases it is 
 a sense of forces, and of places of application of 
 forces, and of directions of forces."
 
 SO INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 SENSE OF THE INTER-RELATEDNESS OF THINGS. 
 A fourth characteristic of the scientific mood 
 is a sense of the inter-relatedness of things. It 
 regards Nature as a vibrating system most surely 
 and subtly interconnected. It discloses a world 
 of inter-relations, a long procession of causes, a 
 web of life, infinite sequences bound by the iron 
 chains of causality. 
 
 In illustration, we would quote what we have 
 said elsewhere in reference to Darwin's picture 
 of "The Web of Life," one of the grandest of 
 all scientific pictures. "What is meant by Dar- 
 win's picture of the Web of Life, and where did 
 he paint it? We find it in all his works a lumin- 
 ous background the idea of linkages in nature, 
 the idea of the correlation of organisms. Cats 
 have to do with the clover-crop, Darwin says, 
 and earthworms with the world's bread supply. 
 If there is an orchid in Madagascar with a spur 
 eleven inches long, Darwin prophesies that there 
 is a moth with a proboscis of equal length. No 
 bird falls to the ground without sending a throb 
 through a wide circle, for Darwin rears eighty 
 seedlings from a single clod taken from a bird's 
 foot. Long nutritive chains may bind the bracken 
 on the hill-side to the brain of the proprietor 
 if he is fond of eating trout. The patent-leather 
 shoes on his feet connect him with the melan- 
 choly slaughter of seals, while his ivory-backed
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 31 
 
 toilet-brushes implicate him in the passing of 
 the elephant. There is a ceaseless circulation of 
 matter and energy. All things flow. Influence 
 passes from A. to Z., though Z. is quite unaware 
 of A. What ripples spread and spread from the 
 introduction of rabbits into Australia, or of 
 sparrows into the United States, or of the mon- 
 goose into Jamaica. What absolutely essential 
 connections there are between cutting down trees 
 and a plague of insects, between birds and seed- 
 scattering, between sunlight and the catches of 
 mackerel" (Darwinism and Human Life, 1909, 
 p. 10). These and hundreds of similar linkages 
 seem at first quaint puzzles, but when the house- 
 that-Jack-built procession of causes is indicated, 
 they become clear as daylight as actualities 
 of inter-relatedness. Our illustrations happen 
 to be biological, but the idea is universal, and 
 the outlook for all sorts of inter-relations in 
 the great system of nature is diagnostic of the 
 scientific mood. It is often seen in high develop- 
 ment in men of business, particularly in those 
 who have geographical interests. For it must 
 be borne in mind throughout that the scientific 
 mood is in no way confined to those who pursue 
 science in the stricter sense. 
 
 CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. We do 
 not apologize for giving so much prominence to 
 an elementary discussion of the chief charac-
 
 32 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 teristics of the scientific mood. For in a series 
 like that to which this volume belongs it cannot 
 be made too clear that science is no "preserve" 
 for the learned, but the birthright of all. We 
 must never think of it as something printed and 
 ponderous and more or less finished, but as 
 something living in our mind and influencing 
 our work. 
 
 As was admirably said by Mr. Benchara 
 Branford in an address to students: "Science is 
 born anew in the deliberate will and intention of 
 each of us when we succeed in thinking about the 
 principles of our work in a clear, logical, and 
 systematic way, and courageously put our con- 
 clusions to the test of experiment; and the so- 
 called sciences are the written records of such 
 thinking, only more extensive, clear, systematic, 
 and consistent, and more true to reality, because 
 they have been tested by countless experiments 
 and experiences in the race." 
 
 What would one not give to be able to tell 
 how the scientific mood may be developed! Our 
 inheritances are diverse and unequal, and they 
 limit us; yet much can be gained by "nurture" 
 and much lost for the lack of it. 
 
 A born raconteur is not likely to make a 
 good man of science even in the best laboratory 
 in the world, and a man without a dash of poetry 
 is not likely to acquire it by a diligent perusal
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD 33 
 
 of the Faerie Queene, yet it is idle to pretend 
 that we cannot to some extent influence the 
 development of our inherited moods by appro- 
 priate nurture. 
 
 By dint of hammering, one becomes a smith, 
 and it is by doing scientific work that one culti- 
 vates the scientific habit of mind. Those who 
 mean to become teachers and investigators may 
 find inspiration hi being apprenticed to a great 
 master and in a laboratory with great traditions; 
 those who mean only to become intelligent 
 citizens of the world to whom this volume, 
 with the rest of the Library, is primarily ad- 
 dressed may find inspiration in reading scien- 
 tific "classics," histories of science (astronomy, 
 best of all), and biographies of the great masters 
 (such as Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Helmholtz, 
 Kelvin, Huxley, Darwin, and Pasteur), but the 
 scientific temper must be wrought out by each one 
 for himself. 
 
 What we wish to make clear is that the scien- 
 tific mood does not necessarily demand for its 
 development the long sea-voyages that meant so 
 much to Darwin and Huxley, nor the extensive 
 explorations and long solitudes that meant so 
 much to Humboldt and Wallace, nor dramatic op- 
 portunities such as came to Pasteur, nor splendidly 
 equipped laboratories, nor costly instruments. 
 
 What is demanded is within the reach of all
 
 34 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 who will habituate themselves in making sure of 
 the facts, in precision of statement, hi getting 
 things clear, and in realizing the complexity of 
 all situations. These qualities cannot be ac- 
 quired passively; the kingdom of science must be 
 taken by force. The scientific mood can only be 
 engendered by our being actively and energeti- 
 cally scientific. 
 
 It matters little what problem is tackled, but it 
 should, at first, be one that admits of discipline 
 in some form of measurement or accurate registra- 
 tion. It is often well to follow our tendrils of 
 spontaneous interest towards some subject which 
 naturally attracts us; but it is also well that we 
 should undertake some difficult piece of work, 
 which stretches our brains. In some way those 
 who would develop the scientific mood must learn 
 to endure hardness intellectually, remembering 
 Darwin's recipe: "It's dogged that does it." 
 
 SUMMARY. The scientific mood is especially 
 marked by a passion for facts, by cautiousness of 
 statement, by clearness of vision, and by a sense of 
 the inter-relatedness of things. It is contrasted with 
 the emotional or artistic mood and with the practical 
 mood, bid the three form a trinity (of knowing, feel- 
 ing and doing}, which should be unified in every 
 normal life.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 
 
 "The classification of facts, the recognition 
 of their sequence and relative significance is the 
 function of science, and the habit of forming a 
 judgment upon these facts unbiassed by personal 
 feeling is characteristic of what may be termed the 
 scientific frame of mind." KARL PEARSON. 
 
 Observation, Description, and Formulation Science and 
 Common-Sense The Subject-Matter of Science De- 
 scriptive Character of Science Knowledge of Causes- 
 Reduction to Simpler Terms Laws of Nature Particu- 
 lar Aims of Different Sciences The Evolutionary Aim 
 Summary. 
 
 LONGSTANDING controversies regarding science 
 and religion, science and theology, science and 
 philosophy, science and poetry, owe their longev- 
 ity partly to a misunderstanding of the aim of 
 Science. We propose, therefore, to devote a 
 chapter to this subject, which is also of great in- 
 terest for its own sake. 
 
 OBSERVATION, DESCRIPTION, FORMULATION. 
 The primary aim of Science is the concise de- 
 scription of the knowable universe. The man of 
 
 85
 
 S6 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 scientific mood becomes aware of certain facts 
 that interest him; he proceeds to become more 
 intimately aware of them; to make his sensory 
 experience of them as full as possible. Careful 
 and critical observation is the first step. 
 
 This work of Science, which we may call get- 
 ting at the facts, is much more difficult of attain- 
 ment than those who have not tried imagine. One 
 reason for this is very familiar, that things are 
 not always what they seem to be. And though 
 Science does not raise the characteristic meta- 
 physical question as to what is meant by being 
 real, it has in its own way to distinguish seeming 
 from reality. The sun does not rise and set, the 
 stable Earth is a whirling sphere, the inert body 
 may be a vortex of rapidly moving corpuscles, 
 and so on. If Science is to be consistent it has to 
 set itself to the task of distinguishing realities 
 from appearances. 
 
 Having got his facts, the scientific investigator 
 proceeds to arrange them, to find their common 
 denominator, to discover the conditions of their 
 occurrence, and to describe them as completely 
 and as simply as possible, and finally to sum 
 them up hi a general formula, often called "a 
 law of nature." 
 
 Aristotle defined this aim when he said: "Art 
 [or, as we should say, Science] begins when, from 
 a great number of experiences, one general con-
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 37 
 
 ception is formed which will embrace all similar 
 cases." And the greater part of the clearing-up 
 which Science effects is not in forming some new 
 general conception, but in bringing new sets of 
 facts within the grasp of an old one. When we 
 make things more intelligible, we do so by dis- 
 cerning the general beneath the particular, 
 the "permanent law" beneath the "evanescent 
 circumstance." 
 
 In short, it is the aim of Science to describe 
 the impersonal facts of experience in verifiable 
 terms, as exactly as possible, as simply as pos- 
 sible, and as completely as possible. It is an in- 
 tellectual construction a working thought-model 
 of the world. In its universe of discourse it keeps 
 always to experiential terms or verifiable sym- 
 bolical derivates of these. 
 
 SCIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE. It is somewhat 
 remarkable that several investigators of distinc- 
 tion have compared Science to common-sense. 
 We are told that "A most simple description of 
 true science is embraced in the words: Keep your 
 eyes open and apply common-sense." Prof. P. 
 G. Tait was wont to say that Science aims at 
 giving "a common-sense view of the world we 
 live in." Huxley emphasized the idea that 
 "Science is nothing but trained and organized 
 common-sense." 
 
 It seems to us that it would be nearer the truth
 
 38 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 to say that Science is sharply contrasted with 
 common-sense. Thus one of the most marked 
 characteristics of science is its critical quality, 
 which is just what common-sense lacks. By 
 common-sense is usually meant either the con- 
 sensus of public opinion, of unsystematic every- 
 day thinking, the untrustworthiness of which is 
 notorious, or the verdict of uncritical sensory 
 experience, which has so often proved fallacious. 
 It was "common-sense" that kept the planets 
 circling round the earth; it was "common- 
 sense" that refused to accept Harvey's demon- 
 stration of the circulation of the blood. 
 
 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF SCIENCE. We have 
 already pointed out that Science is independent 
 of any particular order of facts. It takes the 
 knowable universe for its subject; it deals with 
 psychical as well as physical processes, with Man 
 as much as with Nature; it has to do with every- 
 thing to which its methods can be applied. What 
 makes a study scientific is not, of course, the 
 nature of the things with which it is concerned, 
 but the method by which it deals with these 
 things. A study of a skylark is not necessarily 
 zoological. 
 
 The subject-matter of Science includes all 
 clearly defined facts of experience which are 
 communicable and verifiable. There are three 
 points here to be attended to. (1) Before Science
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 39 
 
 really begins, a preliminary sifting is often neces- 
 sary to distinguish supposed facts seen by the 
 untutored eye from clearly defined facts. (2) 
 The facts that Science takes to do with are 
 "real," and "what is real means something 
 which we do not make, but find" As Thomas 
 Hobbes of Malmesbury said in his great Levia- 
 than (1651): "Natural History is the history of 
 such facts or effects of nature as have no de- 
 pendence on man's will." (3) Only one self- 
 denying ordinance has Science imposed on itself 
 in regard to its subject-matter. The ordinance 
 is that Science shall consist only of the com- 
 municable and verifiable. However real certain 
 personal experiences may be to us, we are re- 
 strained by boundaries of our own erection from 
 calling these experiences scientific territory. They 
 may be, but they are not until it is shown that 
 similar personal experiences will be enjoyed by 
 all who place themselves in the appropriate 
 conditions. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTER OF SCIENCE. When 
 the aim of Science is spoken of as "description" 
 the word is used in a slightly technical sense. 
 There is a preliminary description which is not 
 more than a faithful record of observations 
 the kind of description which Linnaeus, for in- 
 stance, excelled in giving for a species of plant or 
 animal. But this is only intellectual photography,
 
 r A ' 
 
 40 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 good, but only a means to an end, to a higher 
 kind of description which is characteristically 
 scientific. 
 
 When we say that the object of Science is "the 
 complete- and consistent description of the facts 
 of experience in the simplest possible terms," 
 we are adopting a view held by such authorities 
 as Kirchhoff, Mach, Karl Pearson, and Ward 
 which is to many minds disappointing. De- 
 scription seems such a tame term to apply to the 
 function of Science, which, we are told, is to 
 solve the riddles of the universe. 
 
 When we come to think it over, however, or 
 better still, when we try to work it out, "a com- 
 plete and consistent description in the simplest 
 possible terms" is no small achievement. It 
 must leave nothing out, it must be consistent 
 with itself, with the rest of the science of which 
 it forms a part, with Science as a whole, with the 
 formal conditions of experience in general. Of 
 a truth, "complete and consistent description" 
 will tax our intellectual thews and sinews. And 
 it must be in the simplest possible terms, which 
 means penetrating analysis, careful reduction to 
 the lowest common denominator. And the terms 
 must be such as are accessible to direct experience 
 or to indirect experimental testing. Such is the 
 aim of Science. 
 
 Behind the first feeling of disappointment
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 41 
 
 with the definition of Science as a description of 
 the facts of experience, there lurks a second: Is 
 the explanation of things to be given up? Is it 
 not the office of Science to get behind description 
 and to supply explanation? The answer to that 
 question is this: (a) The vulgar belief that 
 Science has "explained everything" is a hope- 
 less misunderstanding. As we shall afterwards 
 find, it would be nearer the truth to say that 
 Science has explained nothing. (6) Science does 
 not even try to refer facts of experience to any 
 ultimate reality. That is not its business, (c) In 
 a limited sense Science explains things, namely, 
 by reducing them to simpler terms, by discover- 
 ing the conditions of their occurrence, and by 
 disclosing their history. What do we mean when 
 we say that Physics has accounted for the tides, 
 or that Physiology has made some function of 
 the body much more intelligible than it used to 
 be? What is meant is that we have gaine"d a 
 general conception of the nature of the facts hi 
 question, and that we are able to relate them to 
 some general formula. In this sense only does 
 Science explain things, and it does not really get 
 beyond a description. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSES. We must admit 
 that there is good sense in the popular impres- 
 sion that it is the aim of Science to discover the 
 causes of things. What is Science for if it does
 
 42 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 not make our experience of the world around us 
 and of ourselves more intelligible, and does not 
 this increased intelligibility depend in great part 
 on the discovery of causes? Science has been 
 defined, indeed, by a distinguished physiologist, 
 Prof. Gotch, as "the causative arrangement of 
 phenomena." 
 
 But how is this consistent with the descriptive 
 view of Science? We have seen that Science does 
 not "explain" anything. But what else is the 
 discovery of causes? 
 
 To answer this question involves a brief 
 digression into a difficult and dangerous terri- 
 tory, the meaning of cause. The first point that 
 we must be clear about is that in the natural 
 sciences, the causes which are discovered are 
 "secondary" or "caused causes," the question 
 of ultimate causes not being raised; and that 
 they are "efficient," not "final" causes, not 
 giving any answer to the question "Why?" In 
 the natural sciences the word cause is used in 
 the sense indicated by Mill, "a cause which is 
 itself a phenomenon without reference to the 
 ultimate cause of anything." Causation, Mill 
 said, is simply uniform antecedence. 
 
 But even after we have become clear that 
 Science has not to do with a First Cause, or 
 with Final Causes, great ambiguities remain. 
 As Prof. Bergson points out, even in scientific
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 43 
 
 discourse three different meanings of the term 
 "cause" are frequently confused. "A cause may 
 act by impelling, by releasing, or by unwinding. 
 The billiard-ball, that strikes another, determines 
 its movement by impelling. The spark that ex- 
 plodes the powder acts by releasing. The gradual 
 relaxing of the spring that makes the phono- 
 graph turn, unwinds the melody inscribed on 
 the cy Under: if the melody which is played be 
 the effect, and the relaxing of the spring the 
 cause, we must say that the cause acts by wn- 
 winding. 
 
 "What distinguishes these three cases from 
 each other is the greater or less solidarity between 
 the cause and the effect. In the first, the quan- 
 tity and quality of the effect vary with the 
 quantity and quality of the cause. In the second, 
 neither quality nor quantity of the effect varies 
 with quality and quantity of the cause: the 
 effect is invariable. In the third, the quantity 
 of the effect depends on the quantity of the 
 cause, but the cause does not influence the 
 quality of the effect: the longer the cylinder 
 turns by the action of the spring, the more of the 
 melody I shall hear, but the nature of the melody, 
 or of the part heard, does not depend on the 
 action of the spring. 
 
 "Only in the first case, really, does cause ex- 
 plain effect; in the others the effect is more or
 
 44 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 less given in advance, and the antecedent in- 
 voked is in different degrees, of course its 
 occasion rather than its cause." 
 
 In the first case, where the cause acts by im- 
 pulsion, what is in the effect was already in the 
 cause; the momentum of the one billiard-ball 
 passes in great part into the other; the causal 
 explanation is complete. 
 
 In the second case, where the cause acts by 
 releasing, it is an indispensable condition; it 
 pulls the trigger apart from which the effect will 
 not occur. But it does not explain the effect. 
 The egg of a sea-urchin will develop without 
 being fertilized if it be immersed for a short time 
 in sea-water to which some magnesium chloride 
 or the like has been added, and there are many 
 other ways of inducing "artificial parthenogene- 
 sis." But the cause in this case in only a trigger- 
 puller. 
 
 In the third case, there is more than trigger- 
 pulling, but the cause does not explain more 
 than the rate or duration of the effect. 
 
 People are wont to recognize themselves as the 
 "causes" of this or that result, congratulating 
 themselves on being the "happy cause of success," 
 blaming themselves as being the "unfortunate 
 cause of disaster," and this idea of an active agent 
 effecting a change in something passive often 
 influences the popular conception of causality.
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 45 
 
 Science seeks to free itself from this anthropo- 
 morphism. 
 
 It is part of the business of Science to account 
 for the occurrence of events, and it does so by 
 disclosing then* "efficient causes." This simply 
 means that the event in question is shown to be 
 determined by preceding events; one particular 
 set of circumstances giving rise to another. 
 
 Let us here seek the aid of a scientific phi- 
 losopher, Prof. A. E. Taylor. "The notion of 
 causation as a transaction between two things 
 is replaced in the experimental sciences by the 
 conception of it as merely the determination of an 
 event by antecedent events. Similarly, with the 
 disappearance of things as the vehicles of causal 
 processes falls the whole distinction between an 
 active and a passive factor. As it becomes more 
 and more apparent that the antecedent events 
 which condition an occurrence are a complex 
 plurality and include states of what is popularly 
 called the thing acted upon as well as processes 
 in the so-called agent, science substitutes for the 
 distinction between agent and patient the con- 
 cept of a system of reciprocally dependent inter- 
 acting factors. These two substitutions give us 
 the current scientific conception of a cause as the 
 * totality of the conditions' in the presence of 
 which an event occurs, and in the absence 
 of any member of which it does not occur.
 
 46 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 More briefly, causation in the current scientific 
 sense means sequence under definitely known 
 conditions." 
 
 This view of cause and effect as earlier and 
 later stages of the same continuous process, 
 unified by a pervading principle, brings us back 
 to the "descriptive" ideal of scientific explana- 
 tion. "According to this doctrine, advocated 
 by such eminent thinkers as Kirchhoff, Mach, 
 and Ostwald among physicists, and, with various 
 modifications, Avenarius, Miinsterberg, Royce, 
 and James Ward among recent philosophers, the 
 ultimate ideal of science, or at any rate of physi- 
 cal science, is simply the description of the course 
 of events by the aid of the fewest and simplest 
 general formulae. Why things happen as they 
 do, it is now said, is no proper question for science; 
 its sole business is to enable us to calculate how 
 they happen." 
 
 REDUCTION TO SIMPLER TERMS. It is the 
 continual aim of science to reduce the number 
 of categories or necessary concepts. This is 
 the art of wielding William of Occam's razor 
 "Entia non sunt multiplicanda prseter necessi- 
 tatem." "Entities are not to be multiplied be- 
 yond necessity." Of the effort to reduce the 
 categories let us take a famous illustration. On 
 the occasion of his jubilee (1896) as Professor of 
 Natural Philosophy, Lord Kelvin, then a veteran
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 47 
 
 of seventy-two, surprised many by a remarkable 
 utterance: "One word characterizes the most 
 strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of 
 science that I have made perseveringly during 
 fifty -five years; that word is failure. I know no 
 more of electric and magnetic force, or of the 
 relation between ether, electricity, and ponder- 
 able matter than I knew and tried to teach my 
 students of natural philosophy fifty years ago 
 in nay first session as Professor." 
 
 It is instructive to inquire from the experts, 
 of course what this indefatigable genius, whose 
 life was a sequence of brilliant successes, meant 
 by speaking of failure. Prof. Silvanus P. Thomp- 
 son in his Life of Lord Kelvin explains the case. 
 "The trend of modern ultra-physics with respect 
 to the constitution of matter is towards the fol- 
 lowing five categories: (1) the ether, that is, the 
 plenum filling space; (2) the electron, conceived 
 as a plexus in the ether, probably of two species; 
 
 (3) the atom, a complex of electrons in the ether; 
 
 (4) the molecule, a specific group of atoms (or in 
 some cases one atom); (5) the mass, an assem- 
 blage of molecules. Energy is involved in the 
 construction of any of these out of any other. 
 
 "Lord Kelvin's effort seems to have been to 
 find a theory to reduce the necessary concepts 
 to the smallest number matter and energy, or, by 
 means of the vortex theory, to ether and energy.
 
 48 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 In the end he found it necessary to bring in elec- 
 tricity as well. But who shall call this failure? !> 
 We understand, however, why Kelvin himself, 
 actuated by the desire to reduce all physical 
 phenomena within the duality of matter and 
 energy an ideally scientific desire should con- 
 fess in this respect to failure. 
 
 In connection with the reduction of natural 
 processes to simpler terms, we must be careful 
 not to allow the idea to become tyrannical. It 
 is not always possible to effect a reduction, and 
 it is not always relevant. Moreover, it is not 
 always easy to make sure that the reduction is 
 complete; some residual phenomena may escape 
 which are at the very heart of the matter. 
 
 We cannot describe thinking in physiological 
 terms, still less in physical terms. By psycho- 
 logical analysis we may perhaps make it more 
 intelligible, but not otherwise. That is to say, 
 we cannot bring it under any general biological 
 or physical concept. And although we are sure 
 that a thinking man developed in time out of a 
 fertilized egg-cell, we cannot reduce the activities 
 of the thinking man to what we know of the activ- 
 ities of the cell. And, again, as we shall explain 
 more fully in the section on "particular aims," 
 even if a physico-chemical reduction were effected 
 of all that goes on in the cell, that would not give 
 us a useful biological account of its behaviour,
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 49 
 
 e. g. of its development. For that requires a 
 historical explanation. 
 
 LAWS OF NATURE. If Science is only de- 
 scription, what is to be said of the Laws of 
 Nature, which Science has discovered, which, 
 moreover, things used to "obey," when we were 
 at school? Let us find an answer to this question 
 in the words of a keen investigator, who, having 
 helped to make physical laws, should know some- 
 thing about them. "We must confess," says 
 Prof. J. H. Poynting, "that physical laws have 
 greatly fallen off in dignity. No long time ago 
 they were quite commonly described as the Fixed 
 Laws of Nature, and were supposed sufficient in 
 themselves to govern the universe. Now we 
 can only assign to them the humble rank of 
 mere descriptions, often erroneous, of similar- 
 ities which we believe we have observed" (Ad- 
 dress, British Association, 1889, p. 616). 
 
 Prof. Poynting goes on to say that a "law 
 of nature explains nothing it has no govern- 
 ing power, it is but a descriptive formula which 
 the careless have sometimes personified. There 
 may be psychological and social generalizations 
 which really tell us why this or that occurs, but 
 chemical and physical generalizations are wholly 
 concerned with the how" 
 
 In other words, concurrently with the change 
 in our conception of physical law has come a
 
 50 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 change in our conception of physical explanation. 
 The change is in our recognizing that " we explain 
 an event not when we know 'why' it happened, 
 but when we know 'how' it is like something else 
 happening elsewhere or otherwise when, in fact, 
 we can include it as a case described by some law 
 already set forth. In explanation we do not ac- 
 count for the event, but we improve our account 
 of it by likening it to what we already know." 
 
 It is a common problem of science to account 
 for a given state of things, the appearance of 
 an island, a cold summer, a succession of fine 
 sunsets, a shower of gossamer, a butterfly coming 
 out of a cocoon, and so on. In what way does 
 science account for these things? By a descrip- 
 tion of the conditions of their coming about, and 
 in proportion to the completeness and generality 
 of that description is our satisfaction with the 
 account that is given. We are particularly well 
 satisfied when what seemed to be an exception 
 is shown to prove the rule that is to say, when 
 an apparently strange event is shown to con- 
 form to an established law. 
 
 Let us take a concrete case given by Prof. 
 Karl Pearson (Grammar of Science, ed. 1900, p. 
 99). "The law of gravitation is a brief descrip- 
 tion of how every particle of matter in the uni- 
 verse is altering its motion with reference to every 
 other particle. It does not tell us why particles
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 51 
 
 thus move; it does not tell us why the earth de- 
 scribes a certain curve round the sun. It simply 
 resumes, in a few brief words, the relationships 
 observed between a vast range of phenomena. 
 It economizes thought by stating in conceptual 
 shorthand that routine of our perceptions which 
 forms for us the universe of gravitating matter." 
 
 To the same purpose, in his impressive His- 
 tory of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century T 
 Dr. J. T. Merz writes: "A complete and simple 
 description admitting of calculation is the aim 
 of all exact science. . . . We shall not expect to 
 find the ultimate and final causes, and science will 
 not teach us to understand nature and life. . . . 
 Science means 'the analysis of phenomena as 
 to their appearance in space and their sequence 
 in time.' " Or again, the true nature of scien- 
 tific explanation is suggested by Kirchhoff's defi- 
 nition of mechanics, as the science of motion, 
 whose object it is "to describe completely and 
 in the simplest manner the motions that occur 
 in nature." 
 
 Huxley expressed the same general view of the 
 Laws of Nature in a letter to Kingsley in 1863 : 
 
 "This universe is, I conceive, like to a great 
 game being played out, and we poor mortals 
 are allowed to take a hand. By great good for- 
 tune the wiser among us have made out some 
 few of the rules of the game, as at present played.
 
 52 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 We call them 'Laws of Nature,' and honour 
 them because we find that if we obey them we 
 win something for our pains. The cards are 
 our theories and hypotheses, the tricks our experi- 
 mental verifications." 
 
 PARTICULAR AIMS OF DIFFERENT SCIENCES. 
 It was Kant who said that any branch of 
 knowledge contains just so much science as it 
 contains of mathematics; and this is not very 
 different from saying that all science begins with 
 measurement. If this view is pressed it leads to 
 the conclusion that the only perfect science is 
 mechanics, and that the only quite precise sciences 
 are those dealing with processes which can be 
 analysed into the motions of ideal corpuscles. 
 
 This seems to us an impracticable ideal of 
 precision, for it must be noted that facts whose 
 mechanical analysis is not within sight need not 
 on that account be treated unscientifically. 
 They may be measured, though not with the 
 same measure as is used for the stars in their 
 courses. Complex as are the inborn variations 
 of plants and animals, they can be treated by 
 the same statistical methods as are used in 
 recording the simple phenomena observed when 
 dice are thrown ten thousand times. Myste- 
 rious as are the facts of inheritance, the expert 
 can occasionally prophesy safely as to the nature 
 of the chicks which will emerge from an unhatched
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 53 
 
 setting of eggs. There is a great deal of precise 
 measurement in physiology and psychology which 
 has led or is leading to exact science, though not 
 to mechanical re-description. 
 
 Moreover, to return to a consideration referred 
 to in the section on reduction, we are very strongly 
 of opinion that Biology does not necessarily make 
 progress towards perfection by the mechanical 
 analysis of changes that go on in living bodies. 
 That kind of analysis or reduction to the lowest 
 terms is an engine of research which must be 
 worked for all it is worth, but it does not directly 
 answer any biological questions. For Biology 
 has a particular end that of describing the life 
 of plants and animals, and that end is not 
 necessarily achieved by discoveries in the physics 
 and chemistry of living bodies. We watch a 
 bird building its nest. We know that there is 
 an intricate sequence of physical and chemical 
 changes going on in its body. We feel sure that 
 nothing occurs that contradicts any of the es- 
 tablished laws of chemistry and physics. We 
 do not know whether a complete chemical and 
 physical description of what occurs is realizable 
 or not. We know that it has not been given. 
 But we feel sure that if it were given it would 
 not directly help us to understand the bird build- 
 ing its nest. For that requires a different kind 
 of description with different concepts, which
 
 54 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 recognize the bird as an historic being with a 
 mind of its own. 
 
 Comte maintained very strongly that mechan- 
 ical principles broke down as inapplicable be- 
 yond the physical order, but that is not quite 
 the point. They are applicable in Biology; they 
 have been of great service as a means of inves- 
 tigation hi Biology; their application has brought 
 the characteristically vital into bolder relief. But 
 the point is that they are not exhaustive of what 
 occurs, and that they do not give us distinc- 
 tively biological descriptions. 
 
 It must be clearly understood that Biology 
 has an aim far wider than that of giving an 
 account of the physical and chemical processes 
 that go on in the living body. It has to tell 
 the story of individual development, the story of 
 racial evolution, and the story of the everyday 
 behaviour of the organism. It has to recognize 
 the past living on in the present, the individ- 
 uality and spontaneity of the creature, and, 
 often at least, a dramatic element in life much, 
 in fact, that requires a kind of description very 
 different from that of Chemistry and Physics. 
 In the same way it might be shown that Psy- 
 chology has a particular aim of its own, which is 
 distinct from that of Biology. 
 
 More generally stated, the important idea 
 which we wish to make clear is that what defines
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE 55 
 
 a science is not its subject-matter, but its point 
 of view, the particular kind of question it 
 asks. The lark singing at heaven's gate is a 
 fact of experience which may be studied phy- 
 sically, biologically, and psychologically, but 
 a complete answer to the questions asked by 
 Physics would not answer those asked by Biol- 
 ogy, still less those asked by Psychology. 
 
 THE EVOLUTIONARY AIM. The end of Science 
 is not reached in the formulation of things as 
 they are, it has also an historical or evolution- 
 ary aim. In every department of knowledge 
 the question we are continually asking is "How 
 have these things come to be? " The solar system 
 is traced back to a vast nebula. 
 
 "The solid earth on which we tread 
 In tracts of fluent heat began." 
 
 There are hints of inorganic evolution, one kind 
 of matter giving rise to another, as Uranium 
 to Radium. There is a history if not a sermon 
 in every stone. And when we come to organ- 
 isms we find evolution in the stricter sense, race 
 giving rise to race by processes of slow trans- 
 formation still very imperfectly understood. The 
 conception extends to language and literature, to 
 art and institutions, to everything. It is in this 
 genetic view of Nature and of Man that Science 
 completes itself, and joins hands with Philosophy.
 
 56 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 SUMMARY. The aim of Science is to describe 
 the impersonal facts of experience in verifiable 
 terms as exactly as possible, as simply as possible, 
 and as completely as possible. It is an intellectual 
 construction, a working thought-model of the world. 
 In its "universe of discourse" it keeps always to 
 experiential terms, or verifiable derivatives of these. 
 It is as far on one side of common-sense as poetry 
 is on the other. It deals with "facts" which have 
 no dependence on man's will, which must be com- 
 municable and verifiable. It is descriptive formu- 
 lation, not interpretative explanation. The causes 
 that Science seeks after are secondary causes, not 
 ultimate causes; effective causes, not final causes. 
 Indeed, its causes and effects are simply earlier 
 and later stages of the same continuous process. 
 Science always seeks to reduce things to a common 
 denominator and to reduce the number of categories 
 or necessary concepts. The "Laws of Nature" 
 are descriptive formulae in "conceptual shorthand" 
 of the routine of our perceptions. Each science has 
 its distinctive questions and concepts of its own. 
 The end of Science is not reached in the formula- 
 tion of things as they are, it has also to describe 
 how they have come to be.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 
 
 "Induction for deduction, with a view to 
 construction." COMTE. 
 
 The Logic of Science The Keen Eye Collecting Data 
 Measurement Arrangement of Data Analysis and Re- 
 duction Hypothesis Test Experiments and Control 
 Experiments Formulation The Scientific Use of the 
 Imagination The Fundamental Postulate of Science 
 Summary. 
 
 SCIENCE is not wrapped up with any particular 
 body of facts; it is characterized as an intellectual 
 attitude. It is not tied down to any peculiar 
 methods of inquiry; it is simply sincere critical 
 thought, which admits conclusions only when 
 these are based on evidence. We may get a good 
 lesson hi scientific method from a business man 
 meeting some new practical problem, from a 
 lawyer sifting evidence, or from a statesman 
 framing a constructive bill. 
 
 How, then, does science differ from ordinary 
 knowledge? It is criticised, systematized, and 
 generalized knowledge. That is to say, the stu- 
 dent of science takes more pains than the man 
 57
 
 58 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 in the street does to get at the facts; he is not 
 content with sporadic knowledge, but will have 
 as large a body of facts as he can get; he systema- 
 tizes these data and his inferences from them, and 
 sums up in a generalization or formula. In all 
 this he observes certain logical processes, certain 
 orders of inference, and we call this scientific 
 method. 
 
 THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. Of modes of inference 
 there are no more than there were in the days of 
 Aristotle, who recognized three: (a) from particu- 
 lar to particular (analogical reasoning), (6) from 
 particulars to general (inductive reasoning), (c) 
 from general to particular (deductive reasoning). 
 Let us take a few examples. 
 
 (a) Analogical Reasoning. The geologist tells 
 us the story of the making of the earth and 
 describes what happened millions of years ago, 
 and in many cases he relies on analogical reason- 
 ing. From the consequences of particular happen- 
 ings to-day he infers the efficient causes of events 
 that happened in the Devonian age. He sheds 
 the light of the present on the dark abysses of 
 the past. 
 
 When Darwin argued from the particular vari- 
 ations which he observed in his domesticated 
 pigeons and cultivated plants to variations which 
 might have occurred in unthinkably distant aeons, 
 he was trusting to analogical reasoning. Often
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 59 
 
 it is the only alternative, but it should be used 
 with restraint in arguing from the present to re- 
 mote antiquity, for it is obvious that some impor- 
 tant difference between the conditions then and 
 those of to-day may invalidate the argument. 
 
 (b) Inductive Reasoning. This is argument 
 from particulars to the universal, and science is 
 full of illustrations. " Galileo had smooth inclined 
 planes made; and then, by rolling balls down 
 them and measuring the times and squares of 
 descent, he discovered inductively that the space 
 fallen is always as the square of the time of fall- 
 ing; so that, if a body in one second of time falls 
 about sixteen feet, in two seconds it will have 
 fallen sixty-four feet, four times as far (time 2- 
 squared), in three seconds one hundred and forty- 
 four feet, nine times as far (time 3-squared)." 
 
 The inductive method may almost be called 
 Baconian, for Bacon was the first to show that 
 the sound way of studying Nature was to work 
 up from particulars to principles. He called his 
 method the new instrument the Novum Orga- 
 num. It was founded on the principle that things 
 which are always present, absent, or varying 
 together, are casually connected. 
 
 (c) Deductive Reasoning. This is argument 
 from the universal to particulars, the kind of 
 inference which enables the long arm of science 
 to reach back through the ages that are past and
 
 60 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 forward into those which are to come. By deduc- 
 tion Neptune was discovered before it was seen. 
 By deduction, given three good observations of 
 a passing comet, we can predict its return to a 
 night. 
 
 As a good example, cited by Prof. Case, of the 
 abuse of the deductive method by one of the 
 greatest of all intellects, we may recall an argu- 
 ment used by Aristotle to support the old circular 
 astronomy. The stars are eternal and must have 
 eternal motion. The only eternal motion is circu- 
 lar. Therefore the stars move in circles round the 
 earth. "It is a case of two hypothetical premises 
 leading to a false conclusion. Every step is false. 
 There is nothing for it but experience. The real 
 question is how the stars move in point of fact." 
 
 It is not within the scope of this little book to 
 enter into a detailed discussion of the various 
 scientific methods such as the mathematical, the 
 empirical, the explanatory, and the verificatory, 
 which Mill distinguished. But there are two 
 important considerations to be borne in mind, 
 first, that great conclusions seem often to be 
 reached by a flash of imaginative genius, perhaps 
 the expression of long-continued processes of sub- 
 conscious cerebration; and, second, that in actual 
 practice induction and deduction are mingled in 
 intricate ways. 
 
 In many instances we find that experiment and
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 61 
 
 induction have afforded a basis from which deduc- 
 tion has reached far beyond experience. The 
 supreme illustration of the power of combined 
 methods is to be found in Newton's Principia, for 
 here, as Prof. Case has shown in detail, the 
 method is neither the deductive Aristotelian, nor 
 the inductive Baconian, but both; it is the inter- 
 action of induction and deduction in a mixed 
 method. "The full title, Philosophise Naturalis 
 Principia Maihematica, implies a combination of 
 induction and deduction. It is also a combination 
 of analysis and synthesis: it proceeds from facts 
 to causes as well as from causes to facts." 
 
 THE KEEN EYE. We use this phrase, meta- 
 phorically as well as literally, to describe what 
 may be called a preliminary condition of all 
 scientific investigation one certainly that has led 
 to many discoveries. We mean the observant 
 habit, the alert mind, the appetized intelligence, 
 the inquisitive spirit, which notices whatever is 
 unusual, which sees a problem in the most com- 
 monplace occurrences. It is difficult to define 
 this quality, which is at its highest when sensory 
 alertness is combined with a habit of wondering 
 and pondering. 
 
 Of Clerk Maxwell, who "enriched the inherit- 
 ance left by Newton and consolidated the work 
 of Faraday," it is said that his first recollection 
 was that of lying on the grass before his father's
 
 62 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 house, and looking at the sun, and wondering. It 
 was said of Edward Forbes, one of the most 
 brilliant of British naturalists, that "he had a 
 hawk's eye to see in a moment any plant that was 
 new." And it is our impression, based on the 
 history of science, that apart from genius most 
 discoveries have been psychologically due to a 
 combination of the keen eye with the inquisitive 
 spirit. Let us recall what Tyndall has told us of 
 the way in which Robert Mayer was led to his 
 theory of energy. 
 
 "In the summer of 1840, as he himself informs 
 us, he was at Java, and there observed that the 
 venous bfood of some of his patients had a singu- 
 larly bright red colour. The observation riveted 
 his attention; he reasoned upon it, and came to 
 the conclusion that the brightness of the colour 
 was due to the fact that a less amount of oxida- 
 tion sufficed to keep up the temperature of the 
 body in a hot climate than in a cold one. The 
 darkness of the venous blood he regarded as the 
 visible sign of the energy of oxidation" (Tyndall, 
 1876, p. 274). 
 
 He was drawn to the whole question of animal 
 heat, to the relation between heat generated and 
 work done, and to his remarkable contributions 
 to the mechanical theory of heat in particular, 
 and to the theory of energy in general. All roads 
 lead to Rome, and he must be a bold man who
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 63 
 
 will declare any of Nature's beckonings to be 
 unworthy of attention. 
 
 COLLECTING DATA. The first step in beginning 
 the scientific study of a problem is to collect the 
 data, which are or ought to be "facts." And by 
 this we mean, in Prof. Taylor's words, "experiences 
 which we cannot altogether fashion as we please 
 to suit our own convenience, or our own sense of 
 what is fitting or desirable, but have largely to 
 accept as they come to us." As is often said, 
 "Facts_are chiels that winna^_ding" that is to 
 say, they cannot be coerced or denied, and they 
 are verifiable by all who have equal opportunities 
 and equipment for experiencing them. 
 
 In the so-called "natural sciences" this collec- 
 tion of data implies observation, and much 
 depends on the degree of excellence which the 
 observer attains. The fundamental virtues are 
 clearness, precision, impartiality, and caution. 
 Common vices are rough and ready records, reli- 
 ance on vague impressions, acceptance of second- 
 hand evidence, and picking the facts that suit. 
 Since observers are fallible mortals, we readily 
 understand the importance of co-operation, of 
 independent observations on the same subject, 
 of instrumental means of increasing the range 
 and delicacy of our senses, and of automatic 
 impersonal methods of registration such as pho- 
 tography supplies.
 
 64 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 MEASUREMENT. In collecting data for- scien- 
 tific thinking the fundamental virtue is accuracy, 
 and it is impossible to exaggerate its importance. 
 Science begins with measurement, with which we 
 include, of course, every method of precise reg- 
 istration. 
 
 Many advances, Lord Kelvin said, have owed 
 their origin to protracted drudgery. "Accurate 
 and minute measurement seems to the non-scien- 
 tific imagination a less lofty and dignified work 
 than looking for something new. But nearly all 
 the grandest discoveries of science have been but 
 the rewards of accurate measurement and patient, 
 long-continued labour in the minute sifting of 
 numerical results." In illustration he instanced 
 the discovery of the law of gravitation by Newton, 
 Faraday's theory of specific inductive capacity, 
 Joule's law of thermo-dynamics, and that of the 
 continuity of the gaseous and liquid states by 
 Andrews. 
 
 One of the most instructive recent illustrations 
 of the value of attending to little hints is to be 
 found in the story of the discovery of argon. Lord 
 Rayleigh made a number of precise weighings of 
 the oxygen contained in a carefully weighed and 
 measured glass flask at 15 C. and 760 mm. 
 There were very minute differences in the weights 
 recorded, affecting the fourth decimal place. He 
 then made a series of weighings of pure nitrogen
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 65 
 
 in the same vessel, and took note of the minute 
 differences in the weights recorded. Especially 
 were there differences in the weighings of nitrogen 
 made from certain of its compounds and nitrogen 
 obtained by removing oxygen, water, traces of 
 carbonic acid and other impurities from atmo- 
 spheric ah-. As the differences between the 
 weighings seemed greater than the possibilities of 
 error, the possibility suggested itself that the 
 nitrogen derived from the air might not be quite 
 pure. 
 
 Now in 1785 Cavendish, in his analysis of air, 
 had also tried whether the removal of nearly 
 twenty -one volumes of oxygen and a small quan- 
 tity of carbonic acid from one hundred volumes of 
 atmospheric air left pure nitrogen. His testing left 
 a residual bubble of something. It might, Caven- 
 dish thought, have been introduced accidentally 
 during the manipulations, but he also suggested 
 that it might be a gas neither nitrogen nor oxygen, 
 and, if so, that there was about one volume of it 
 to every hundred of atmospheric nitrogen. For 
 more than a century the question rested. 
 
 But in 1894 Lord Rayleigh and Sir William 
 Ramsay, in considering the discrepancies in the 
 weighings of atmospheric nitrogen, remembered 
 Cavendish's residual bubble, and Sir William 
 Ramsay speedily discovered that it consisted of 
 argon (about one and a hah" times as heavy as
 
 66 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 nitrogen) and some other elementary gases. The 
 discovery was the reward of precision and a sig- 
 nal instance of the value of attending to even 
 minute discrepancies. 
 
 It is doubtless a pity when circumstances lead 
 a man of science to spend his whole life in collect- 
 ing data and in measurement, but it is ungenerous 
 and unwise to speak of this in a superior way as 
 "hodman's work." Let us take an illustration 
 from the volume of Astronomy by Mr. Hinks 
 the somewhat monotonous and quantitative work 
 of star-cataloguing, which Hipparchus is supposed 
 to have begun more than a century before Christ, 
 which is continued even unto this day. What is 
 the use of it? The author points out (1) that it 
 forms an essential basis for the applications of 
 astronomy the determination of time, naviga- 
 tion, surveying; (2) that without good star places 
 we can have no theory of the motions in the solar 
 system; and (3) that "without accurate catalogues 
 of the stars we can know nothing of the grander 
 problems of the universe, the motion of our 
 sun among the stars, or of the stars among 
 themselves." 
 
 In addition to its necessity in furnishing 
 materials for Science, there is great educational 
 value in the discipline of making definite and 
 accurate measurements. Speaking of its utility, 
 even for those students who were destined for the
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 67 
 
 Church, Lord Kelvin said in an address at Bangor: 
 "There is one thing I feel strongly in respect to 
 investigation in physical or chemical laboratories 
 it leaves no room for shady, doubtful distinc- 
 tions between truth, half-truth, whole falsehood. 
 In the laboratory everything tested or tried is 
 found either true or not true. Every result is 
 true. Nothing not proved true is a result; there 
 is no such thing as doubtfulness." It is very 
 interesting that Clerk Maxwell should speak in 
 one sentence of "those aspirations after accuracy 
 in measurement, and justice in action, which we 
 reckon among our noblest attributes as men." 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF DATA. In many cases the 
 accumulation of data has to be followed by not 
 less laborious arrangement. The facts have to 
 be classified, and that from different points of 
 view, and without prejudice. The object of this 
 is to discover correlations and uniformities of 
 sequence. In dealing with an enormous mass 
 of facts in regard to the Migration of Birds, 
 one of the leading inquirers into this fascinat- 
 ing subject, Mr. Eagle Clarke, of the Royal Scot- 
 tish Museum, required more time for the orderly 
 classification of the data than was required for 
 their collection. 
 
 Just as observation is made incalculably more 
 effective by the use of instruments, so in classify- 
 ing and registering facts, the use of statistical
 
 68 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 devices curves and the like is invaluable, as is 
 well illustrated in their successful application to 
 the difficult problems of biometries, notably of 
 variation and heredity. 
 
 Bad observation may invalidate the whole 
 scientific process, but carelessness in the arrange- 
 ment of data may be equally fatal. It has often 
 happened that attending to some minute discrep- 
 ancy revealed in the classification of data has led 
 to the elucidation of the whole problem. Thus it 
 has become a maxim that no apparent departure 
 from the rule should be treated as trivial. It may 
 mean an error of observation; it has often led, 
 e. g. in Chemistry and Astronomy, to an impor- 
 tant clue. 
 
 ANALYSIS AND REDUCTION. In many scientific 
 inquiries it is necessary to pass below the every- 
 day facts of experience to those that underlie 
 them. There is a process of analysis or reduction 
 to simpler terms. In order to understand the 
 first facts better we try to resolve them into 
 others, which can be described in simpler or more 
 generalized terms. There are all sorts of analyses 
 and reductions dissecting an annual, cutting 
 microscopic sections of a rock, making a chemical 
 analysis of a substance and their utilization is 
 indispensable. 
 
 HYPOTHESIS. We mean by a scientific hypoth- 
 esis a provisional formulation, a tentative solu-
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 69 
 
 tion, and it is part of the scientific method to 
 make them and test them. While there seems 
 to be no doubt that some scientific conclusions 
 have arisen in the mind of the investigator as 
 if by a flash of insight, in the majority of cases 
 the process of discovery is a slower one. The 
 scientific imagination devises a possible solution 
 an hypothesis and the investigator proceeds 
 to test it. He makes intellectual keys and then 
 tries whether they fit the lock. If the hypothesis 
 does not fit, it is rejected and another is made. 
 The scientific workshop is full of discarded keys. 
 
 It need hardly be said that whether the* hy- 
 pothesis is reached imaginatively or laboriously, 
 whether it is suggested by induction from many 
 particulars or as a deduction from some previously 
 established conclusion, it has to be tried and 
 tested until it rises to the rank of a theory. t 
 
 TEST EXPERIMENTS AND CONTROL EXPERI- 
 MENTS. The distinction between observation 
 and experiment is not of much importance. In 
 the former we study the natural course of events; 
 in the latter we arrange artificially for certain 
 things to occur. The method of experiment 
 saves time and we can make surer of the condi- 
 tions. In studying the effect of electric discharges 
 on living plants, it would be worse than tedious 
 to wait for the lightning to strike trees in our 
 vicinity, so we mimic the natural phenomena in
 
 70 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the laboratory. In studying phenomena like 
 hybridization, we are obviously on much surer 
 ground with experiment than with observation 
 in natural conditions. 
 
 Alterations in the conditions of occurrence 
 which it might be difficult or impossible to 
 arrange in Nature can be readily effected in the 
 laboratory. It is thus possible to discover which 
 of the antecedents are causally important. Cattle 
 begin to die of some mysterious epidemic disease; 
 bacteria are found to be abundant in the dead 
 bodies; it is conjectured that the disease is 
 bacterial. Some of the bacteria are peculiar, and 
 it is observed that they occur in all the victims. 
 The hypothesis is made that this particular species 
 of bacterium is responsible for the disease. But 
 since the epoch-making experiments of Koch 
 which showed that Bacillus anthracis is the cause 
 of anthrax (splenic fever, or wool-sorter's disease 
 in man), no one dreams of stopping short of the 
 experimental test. The suspected bacillus is 
 isolated, a pure culture is made, this is injected 
 into a healthy animal, and if the disease ensues 
 the proof is complete. 
 
 Besides furnishing fresh data, an experiment 
 may be of use at a later stage in scientific proce- 
 dure, namely, in putting the hypothesis to the 
 proof; and much of the success of a scientific 
 worker often depends on his ingenuity in think-
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 71 
 
 ing out these crucial or test experiments. Let us 
 notice two or three examples. 
 
 When bacteriology was still in its infancy, and 
 Pasteur was still fighting for his discovery that 
 putrefaction was due to the life of micro-organ- 
 isms in the rotting substance, he put his theory 
 to a crucial test which is continually repeated 
 now-a-days as a class experiment or for practical 
 purposes in the preservation of various foods. He 
 took some readily putrescible substances, steri- 
 lized them by boiling, and hermetically sealed 
 the vessel. No putrefaction occurred. 
 
 When Von Siebold and his fellow-workers 
 had convinced themselves indirectly that certain 
 bladderworms, e. g. those which occur in the pig 
 and the ox, were the young stages of certain 
 tapeworms which occur in man, they made the 
 crucial and almost heroic experiment of swallow- 
 ing the bladderworms. By becoming soon after- 
 wards infected with the tapeworms they proved 
 the truth of their theory. 
 
 Or let us take a simple case where the method 
 of exclusion is combined with a control experi- 
 ment. The freshwater crayfish has a sense of 
 smell, as is proved by the rapid way in which it 
 retreats from strong odours. Investigation led 
 to the hypothesis that this sense was located in 
 the antennules or smaller feelers. This was 
 verified by observing that a crayfish bereft of
 
 72 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 these appendages did not react to a strong odour, 
 whereas here the control experiment comes in 
 in exactly the same conditions and to the same 
 stimulus another crayfish with its antennules 
 intact did actively respond. Pursuing precisely 
 the same two methods, the investigator proved 
 that the seat of smell was in peculiarly shaped 
 bristles on the outer fork of the antennules. 
 
 A great experimental philosopher is reported 
 to have said: "Show me the scientific man who 
 never made a mistake, and I will show you one 
 who never made a discovery." This was in allu- 
 sion to the everyday method of "trial and error," 
 which is part of the logic of experimenting. 
 Different hypotheses are tried till the one that 
 fits the facts is found. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that a scientific con- 
 clusion may sometimes be safely accepted before 
 its demonstration is visibly complete, a famous 
 instance being Harvey's demonstration of the 
 circulation of the blood (1628). From the struc- 
 ture of the heart, the observed flow in different 
 parts of the system, and the valves in the veins, he 
 almost completely demonstrated the circulation. 
 Only one step was awanting. "Harvey's diffi- 
 culty lay in the circumstance that as the micro- 
 scope was not in use, no known path existed by 
 which the blood could be conveyed from the 
 smallest arteries into the smallest veins; there was
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 73 
 
 a gap in the vascular series, but his demonstra- 
 tion made it a logical certainty that a bridge 
 across this gap was in existence" (Gotch, 1906, 
 p. 47). Although it was not till 1661 that Mal- 
 pighi saw the blood flowing through transparent 
 capillaries from the smallest arteries to the 
 smallest veins, Harvey's demonstration might 
 have passed at once into physiological science 
 (which was far from being its reception) for the 
 simple reason that it was an observed fact that 
 the blood goes on ceaselessly flowing throughout 
 life. The system works, therefore the unseen 
 bridge across the gap must be there. 
 
 FORMULATION. The final step in scientific 
 method is to sum up what has been proved in 
 terms as clear and terse as possible. A theory is 
 stated, a formula is invented, or, more frequently 
 a new set of facts is brought into subjection to 
 an old law. The theory must fit the facts; it 
 must be a complete and consistent description; 
 its terms must be either directly experimental, 
 or accessible to experimental tests; and it must 
 be impersonal to this extent, that it will appear 
 valid to all who can appreciate the evidence. 
 
 "The final touchstone," Prof. Karl Pearson 
 says, "is equal validity for all normally consti- 
 tuted minds." Moreover, the theory must be 
 compared with already established conclusions. 
 If there is any discrepancy between the new and
 
 74 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 old, some reconsideration of the one or the other, 
 or of both, will be necessary. ' 
 
 Lord Kelvin was wont to emphasize the dis- 
 tinction between two stages of progress in science, 
 the "Natural History" stage and the "Natural 
 Philosophy" stage. In his introductory lecture 
 (1846) as Professor of Natural Philosophy in 
 Glasgow University a lecture which he repeated 
 for over fifty years he said: "In the progres- 
 sive study of natural phenomena, that is, the 
 phenomena of the external world, the first work 
 is to observe and classify facts; the process of 
 inductive generalization follows, hi which the 
 laws of nature are the objects of research. These 
 two stages of science are designated by the ex- 
 pressions' of natural history and natural philos- 
 ophy." In other words, there is an observational 
 and descriptive stage, followed by generaliza- 
 tion and formulation. 
 
 It is necessary, then, to make a clear distinc- 
 tion between the raw materials of science and 
 the systematizations which raise these to a 
 higher power. As Prof. P. G. Tait once said: 
 "Descriptive botany, natural history, volumes 
 of astronomical observations, etc., are collec- 
 tions of statements, often facts, from which 
 scientific truth may ultimately be extracted, but 
 they are not science. Science begins to dawn, 
 but only to dawn, when a Copernicus, and after
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 75 
 
 him a Kepler or a Galilei, sets to work on these 
 raw materials, and sifts from them their essence. 
 She bursts into full daylight only when a Newton 
 extracts the quintessence. There has been, as 
 yet, but one Newton; there have not been very 
 many Keplers." 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 This was the title of a famous lecture in which 
 Tyndall discussed with eloquence and insight the 
 function of imagination in scientific research, 
 " Bounded and conditioned byco-operant reason," 
 he said, "imagination becomes the mightiest in- 
 strument of the physical discoverer." "There is 
 in the human intellect a power of expansion, I 
 might almost call it a power of creation, which is 
 brought into play by simple brooding over facts, 
 'the spirit brooding over chaos.' " 
 
 It may be that the imaginative brooding sug- 
 gests a solution in some way that we do not at 
 present understand life is essentially creative; 
 it may be that there is a more or less unconscious 
 cerebral experimenting; it is certain that letting 
 the mind play among facts has often led to 
 magnificent conclusions. It seems that the solu- 
 tion is often reached first and the proof supplied 
 afterwards. Newton spoke of reaching his dis- 
 coveries "by attending my mind thereunto," 
 but it would be extremely interesting to know 
 more precisely what he meant. The steps by
 
 76 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 which he reached his gravitation-formula illus- 
 trate an interlacing of induction and deduction, 
 but we must agree with Prof. Gotch that the 
 law was "the conception of a creative mind gifted 
 with imagination." "In the language of Tyndall, 
 this 'passage from a falling apple to a falling 
 moon' was a stupendous leap of the imagination, 
 for his enunciated law applies in conception to 
 the universe, thus extending into boundless space 
 and persisting through endless time." 
 
 At the beginning of this chapter we hinted 
 that all methods are transcended by men of gen- 
 ius, whose magnificent operations the history of 
 Science discloses. We cannot give a psychological 
 account of the way in which the greatest of them 
 made their discoveries. Their methods were 
 secondary. "God said, Let Newton be! and 
 there was light." Of Kelvin, his biographer 
 says: 
 
 "Like Faraday, and the other great masters in 
 science, he was accustomed to let his thoughts 
 become so filled with the facts on which his atten- 
 tion was concentrated that the relations subsist- 
 ing between the various phenomena dawned upon 
 him, and he saw them as if by some process of 
 instinctive vision denied to others. It is the gift 
 of the seer. ..." "His imagination was vivid; 
 in his intense enthusiasm he seemed to be driven, 
 rather than to drive himself. The man was lost
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 77 
 
 in his subject, becoming as truly inspired as is 
 the artist in the act of creation." 
 
 What a famous mathematical teacher, Hop- 
 kins,, "who had had, perhaps, more experience 
 of mathematical minds than any man of his time," 
 said of Clerk Maxwell, may also serve to illustrate 
 our point in regard to genius. His striking words 
 were: "It is not possible for that man to think 
 incorrectly on physical subjects." 
 
 In short, it must be admitted that genius 
 transcends methods. As Prof. Silvanus P. 
 Thompson says in his Life of Lord Kelvin: 
 
 "Observation, experience, analysis, abstraction, 
 imagination, all these are necessary but are they 
 all? Something seems yet wanting to account 
 for what we call the intuition of the master-mind. 
 It is surely more akin to the innate faculty of 
 the great artist than to the trained powers of the 
 analyst or the logician." 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATE OF SCIENCE. 
 There is one fundamental postulate underlying 
 scientific procedure, a postulate which is verified 
 with every fresh step. It is the postulate of the 
 Uniformity of Nature. This, which may be ana- 
 lysed into a number of postulates, means that for 
 our human purposes there is stability in the 
 properties of things, that the same situations are 
 continually recurring, that there is a routine in 
 the order of Nature a routine without gaps or
 
 78 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 interpolations, in which every event is deter- 
 mined by antecedent events. 
 
 Clerk Maxwell discussed the Uniformity of 
 Nature in his famous Discourse on Molecules 
 (1873). 
 
 "In the heavens we discover by their light, 
 and by then* light alone, stars so distant from 
 each other that no material thing can ever have 
 passed from one to another; and yet this light, 
 which is to us the sole evidence of the existence 
 of these distant worlds, tells us also that each 
 of them is built up of molecules of the same 
 kinds as those which we find on earth. A mole- 
 cule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius 
 or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in pre- 
 cisely the same time. 
 
 "Natural causes, as we know, are at work 
 which tend to modify, if they do not at length 
 destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions 
 of the earth and the whole solar system. But 
 though in the course of ages catastrophes have 
 occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, 
 though ancient systems may be dissolved and 
 new systems evolved out of their ruins, the mole- 
 cules out of which these systems are built the 
 foundation-stones of the material universe re- 
 main unbroken and unworn. They continue this 
 day as they were created perfect in number and 
 measure and weight. . . ."
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD 79 
 
 In the more exact sciences such as astronomy 
 the verification of the uniformity is complete, 
 since the routine of sequences can be summed 
 up in rigid mechanical formulae. We cannot 
 do this in Biology, yet here also we make and 
 verify the postulate of the Uniformity of Nature. 
 In spite of a strong personal element in many 
 living creatures which makes then* behaviour in 
 complicated situations unpredictable, there are 
 uniformities both of action and reaction. With- 
 out these, indeed, there could not be a science 
 of Biology at all, but with these there is a basis 
 for calculation, prediction, and action, which is 
 reliable, though not to the same degree as that 
 afforded by the more exact sciences. 
 
 SUMMARY. The logic of scientific discovery is 
 chiefly an intricate interlacing of induction and 
 deduction. While genius has counted for much in 
 the history of science, many great discoveries have 
 been the harvest of a keen-ege and an inquisitive 
 spirit. The first step in scientific procedure is to 
 collect data, and all science begins with measure- 
 ment. The second step is the arrangement and 
 classification of facts. Auxiliary to this and to 
 formulation is the process of analysis or reduction 
 to^simpler terms. In order to fulfil the aim of 
 describing facts of experience as exactly as possible, 
 as simply as possible, as completely as possible, 
 it is often necessary to try one hypothesis after 

 
 80 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 another. An important step in procedure is the 
 carrying out of test experiments. The final result 
 .> is a general formula or a law of Nature, or, more 
 frequently, the inclusion of a new set of facts within 
 an old law. At every step imagination counts and 
 its highest flights are called genius. The funda- 
 mental postulate of science is the Uniformity of 
 Nature.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 
 
 "The divisions of the sciences are not like 
 different lines that meet in one angle, but rather 
 like the branches of trees that join in one 
 trunk." BACON. 
 
 The Convenience and the Difficulties of Classification 
 Bacon's Classification Comte's Classification Spencer's 
 Classification Bain's Classification Karl Pearson's Clas- 
 sification Bio-physics Exact Science The Classifica- 
 tion Adopted The Interest of the Classification of the 
 Sciences The Correlation of the Sciences Summary. 
 
 THE CONVENIENCE AND THE DIFFICULTIES 
 OF CLASSIFICATION. Science takes the whole 
 known universe for its province, and every com- 
 municable verifiable fact of experience is included 
 among its data. This is such a large order that 
 it is obviously convenient to have some classi- 
 fication. Moreover, although there is nothing 
 but mis-education to hinder an intelligent citizen 
 from having a scientific interest in many different 
 orders of facts, tastes differ, and an intellectual 
 division of labour naturally arises. As a matter 
 of fact, the long discipline which every science 
 81
 
 82 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 requires renders it impossible for any ordinary 
 man to succeed in gaining a masterly familiarity 
 with more than one department of knowledge. 
 
 The classification of the sciences is a matter 
 of practical and intellectual convenience, but 
 it is full of difficulties and raises very deep ques- 
 tions. If it be made too detailed, there is the 
 risk of losing sight of the unity of knowledge; 
 if it be made too general, there is the risk of 
 denying to particular sciences that autonomy 
 which the distinctive character of then* subject- 
 matter warrants. A compromise has to be made 
 between two desirabilities. It is plain, for in- 
 stance, that Botany and Zoology need not be 
 separated witl^ great insistence; they may be 
 united without serious fallacy under the title 
 Biology. On the other hand, there are good rea- 
 sons for y saying that it is a fallacy of the gravest 
 sort to* include Biology as a special section of 
 Physics and Chemistry. 
 
 There are similar difficulties in teaching and 
 learning. Too great specialization leads to 
 pedantry; too little of it to superficiality. When 
 our aim is to get a grip of scientific method, we 
 are more likely to succeed by settling down to 
 the thorough study of some one order of facts, 
 than by indulging in an intellectual ramble 
 through the universe. On the other hand, when 
 we wish fresh points of view and new impulse
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 83 
 
 to the scientific imagination, we require width 
 of knowledge and contacts between different 
 disciplines. 
 
 There seems to be a peculiar fascination in 
 attempting to classify the sciences, ( and many 
 great intellects have puzzled over the problem. 
 Thus we find Hfcxley, at the age of seventeen, 
 writing: "I have for some time been pondering 
 over a classification of knowledge. My scheme 
 is to divide all knowledge in the first* place into 
 two grand di visions ^ (1) Objective that for 
 which a man is indebted to the external world; 
 and (2) Subjective that which he has acquired 
 or may acquire by inward contemplation." He 
 
 proposed this scheme: *. 
 
 * 4 .* 
 
 SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE 
 
 Metaphysics 
 
 Metaphysics Maths. Logic Theology Morality History Physiology Physics 
 proper 
 
 There have been dozens of classifications of 
 the sciences, which have been dealt with in a 
 very learned way by the late Prof. Robert Flint, 
 but it is far from our purpose to discuss them 
 here. We shall not do more than refer to a few 
 which illustrate particular points. 
 
 BACON'S CLASSIFICATION. In his "Intellec- 
 tual Globe," Francis Bacon (1561-1626) recog- 
 nized three big departments of human learning
 
 84 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 History, Poesy, and Philosophy or the Sciences. 
 History, based on Memory, was divided into 
 "Natural" and "Civil," a reminiscence of which 
 is found in the title "Natural and Civil History" 
 which was borne till lately by more than one 
 Scottish Professorship. Poesy was based on the 
 faculty of Imagination. Philosophy or the Sci- 
 ences, based on Reason, included Divinity, which 
 has to do with revelation, and Natural Phil- 
 osophy, which has to do with God, Nature, 
 and Man. The department dealing with Nature 
 included Mathematics, Physics (Material and 
 Secondary Causes), and Metaphysics (Form and 
 Final Causes). It is obvious that this classifica- 
 tion does not help us much to-day, but it is very 
 interesting, as Prof. Karl Pearson points out, 
 to notice the suggestion that the sciences are not 
 like different lines that meet in one angle, but 
 rather like branches of a tree that meet in one 
 stem, "which stem grows for some distance 
 entire and continuous before it divides itself 
 into arms and boughs." There is here a sug- 
 gestion at once of unity and of evolution. 
 
 Since the divisions of the sciences are "like 
 the branches of trees that join in one trunk," 
 "it is first necessary that we constitute a univer- 
 sal science as a parent to the rest, and as making 
 a common road to the sciences before the ways 
 separate." This "universal science" was a
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 85 
 
 "primary or summary philosophy," and included 
 an inquiry into " transcendentals, or the adven- 
 titious conditions of beings." Bacon's scheme 
 formed the basis of the gigantic work of the 
 French Encyclopaedists, but they might well 
 have had a better. It was founded on a false 
 idea of Memory, Imagination, and Reason as 
 separate faculties, giving rise to separate depart- 
 ments of knowledge, and it is full of what seems 
 to us to-day to be extraordinary confusion, such 
 as the entire separation of History from Science, 
 and the separation of Man from Nature. 
 
 COMTE'S CLASSIFICATION. Auguste Comte 
 (1798-1357) recognized six fundamental sciences: 
 Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, 
 Biology, and Sociology; and a seventh supreme 
 or final science of Morals. These, he said, form 
 a linear series, indicative of the order of evolution, 
 for a relatively simple, abstract, and independent 
 science must, he maintained, always come before 
 the relatively more special, complex, and depen- 
 dent. There were two great ideas here, though 
 both were exaggerated. The first is, that the 
 sciences should contribute to the guidance of 
 human conduct, for in morals there is the "synthet- 
 ical terminus of the whole scientific construction." 
 In other words, Science should afford the broad 
 basis for the Art of Life. The second is, that the 
 sciences form a hierarchy, those that deal with
 
 86 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the more complex orders of facts being dependent 
 on those that deal with less complex orders of 
 facts. It does not seem to us that the facts of 
 life can be re-stated in the formulae of chemistry 
 and physics, or that the biologist holds in his 
 hands the key to the problems of human society, 
 but it is certain that an understanding and also 
 a control of the organism has been greatly fur- 
 thered by chemical and physical inquiries, and 
 that the data of biology are full of suggestion 
 to the sociologist. Comte's insistence on the 
 inter-dependence and correlation of the sciences 
 was sound. 
 
 The idea of a linear series, however, is falla- 
 cious if taken literally. It does not express an 
 historical fact that Biology evolved or evolves 
 from Chemistry and Physics; Astronomy can- 
 not be separated off as a fundamental science 
 from Physics and Chemistry, nor did it supply 
 the foundations of Physics; Mathematics may be 
 justly called the most fundamental of the sciences, 
 but it is abstract and not in line with Physics, 
 Chemistry, and Biology, which are descriptive. 
 The ranking of Psychology as a department of 
 Physiology (Biology) abandons the autonomy of 
 that very distinctive science quite gratuitously 
 and fallaciously, we venture to think. 
 
 SPENCER'S CLASSIFICATION. Herbert Spencer 
 (1864) emphasized the distinction between the
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 87 
 
 Abstract Sciences of Logic and Mathematics, 
 which deal with modes or methods of scientific 
 description, and the Concrete Sciences which are 
 the scientific descriptions. Thus Mathematics 
 is obviously an abstract science, applicable to 
 all sorts of things, but never inquiring what sort 
 of things they are. 
 
 "The broadest natural division of the sciences 
 is, he affirmed, that between sciences which 
 deal with the abstract relations under which phe- 
 nomena are presented to us, and those which 
 deal with the phenomena themselves between 
 sciences which deal with the mere blank forms of 
 existence, and those which deal with real ex- 
 istences" (Flint, 1904, p. 227). Among the lat- 
 ter, Spencer distinguished the Abstract-Concrete 
 Sciences, such as Mechanics, Physics, and Chem- 
 istry which treat of realities in their elements, or 
 of the real relations implicated in certain classes of 
 facts, and the Concrete Sciences, Astronomy, Geol- 
 ogy, Biology, Psychology, and Sociology, which 
 deal with realities in their totalities, or with 
 aggregates of phenomena. 
 
 "From the beginning," he says, "the Abstract 
 Sciences, the Abstract-Concrete Sciences, and the 
 Concrete Sciences have progressed together, the 
 first solving problems which the second and third 
 presented, and growing only by the solution of 
 the problems; and the second similarly growing
 
 88 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 by joining the first in solving the problems of the 
 third. All along there has been a continuous 
 action and reaction between the three great classes 
 of sciences." 
 
 SPENCER'S SCHEME 
 
 Group I. Abstract Sciences: LOGIC AND MATHEMATICS 
 Group II. Abstract-Concrete Sciences: Mechanics, Phy- 
 sics, Chemistry 
 
 Group III. Concrete Sciences : Astronomy, Geology, Biol- 
 ogy, Psychology, Sociology 
 
 "The three groups of Sciences may be briefly 
 defined as laws of the forms, laws of the factors, 
 laws of the products." 
 
 "The first, or Abstract group, is instrumental 
 with respect to both the others; and the second, 
 or Abstract-Concrete group, is instrumental with 
 respect to the third or Concrete group." 
 
 "The second and third groups supply subject- 
 matter to the first, and the third supplies subject- 
 matter to the second; but none of the truths 
 which constitute the third group are of any use 
 as solvents of the problems presented by the 
 second group; and none of the truths which the 
 second group formulates can act as solvents of 
 problems contained in the first group." 
 
 In this scheme, as Prof. Flint pointed out, 
 "Spencer would seem to have himself constructed 
 a series of sciences of the very kind which, in
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 89 
 
 opposition to Comte, he declared to be impossible. 
 Comte meant no more by calling one science 
 logically dependent on another than that the one 
 placed first is instrumental as regards the one 
 placed last, while the latter is not instrumental 
 as regards the former. If there be a number of 
 sciences dealing with fundamentally distinct 
 phenomena, and so related that every antecedent 
 is instrumental as regards every consequent, and 
 no consequent is instrumental as regards any 
 antecedent, a series of sciences is constituted 
 which represents the logical dependence of its 
 members. Spencer started with denying that 
 there was any such series, but ended by impli- 
 citly showing that there was one. His own clas- 
 sification, taken in connection with the passage 
 quoted, was a decisive refutation of what was 
 extreme in his own criticism of the Comtist 
 scheme. So far from having succeeded in over- 
 throwing that scheme he only at the utmost 
 succeeded in slightly modifying it. 
 
 "There is a logical dependence of the sciences. 
 And why? Just because there is a natural depen- 
 dence of phenomena. The quantitative relations 
 with which mathematics deals are more general 
 than the mechanical laws which physics brings 
 to light; there can be no chemical combinations 
 unconditioned by physical properties; vital func- 
 tions never appear apart from chemical processes;
 
 90 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 and there must be life before there can be con- 
 sciousness. That remarkable hierarchy of phe- 
 nomena is a fact which a cloud of abstract lan- 
 guage or a covering of subtle reasoning may to 
 some extent and for a short while conceal from 
 our view, but which no language or reasoning can 
 efface or even long obscure. And there being 
 such a hierarchy of phenomena, it is scarcely 
 conceivable that there should be no correspond- 
 ing hierarchy of sciences" (Flint, 1904, p. 231). 
 
 We have quoted this strong opinion from an 
 authority who earned a high reputation in deal- 
 ing with philosophical questions, but it appears 
 to us to require some safeguarding in one direc- 
 tion in particular, to which we have already 
 referred, and must refer yet again. There are, 
 of course, physical and chemical processes in the 
 living body; we may speak of the physics and 
 chemistry of organisms; but these do not con- 
 stitute biology, nor do they directly contribute 
 to the solution of biological problems, which 
 have primarily to do with the ways of living 
 creatures as such. 
 
 One of the features of Spencer's classification 
 which has been much criticized and justly, as 
 it seems to us is the awkward naming and 
 grouping of the "Abstract-Concrete" Sciences, 
 which included Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry 
 and Sciences of Light, Heat, Electricity, and
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 91 
 
 Magnetism. It is difficult to see why Mechanics 
 should be called "abstract-concrete," or why 
 the Sciences of Heat, Light, etc., are not included 
 under Physics, and so on. 
 
 BAIN'S CLASSIFICATION. Prof. Alexander Bain 
 distinguished Fundamental (or Abstract) Sciences 
 from Dependent (or Concrete) Sciences, and in so 
 doing, apart from the nomenclature, he made 
 a distinct step of progress. It is evident that 
 Geography (one of the dependent sciences) is de- 
 rivative, complex, and particulate, as contrasted 
 with Physics (one of the fundamental sciences), 
 which is independent, simple, and general. 
 
 The fundamental sciences, according to Bain, 
 were Logic, Mathematics, Mechanics or Mechan- 
 ical Physics, Molecular Physics, Chemistry, Biol- 
 ogy, and Psychology. "In every one of these," 
 he said, "there is a distinct department of phe- 
 nomena; taken together they comprehend all 
 known phenomena, and the order indicated is the 
 order from simple to complex, and from indepen- 
 dent to dependent, marking the order of study 
 and evolution." Taken collectively "they con- 
 tain the laws of every known process in the 
 world, whether of matter or of mind; and set 
 forth these laws in the order suitable for studying 
 and comprehending them to the greatest possible 
 advantage." 
 
 The dependent sciences include Mineralogy.
 
 92 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Meteorology, Geography, Botany, Zoology, Phi- 
 lology, and Sociology the point in the definition 
 being that "no one of them involves any opera- 
 tion but what is expounded in the fundamental 
 or departmental sciences." 
 
 Thirdly, Bain suggested a third group of Prac- 
 tical Sciences, but here his usual clearness of 
 thought is less evident. For he includes within 
 one very elastic band no only what we now call 
 "Applied Sciences," but also some of the arts like 
 Architecture, and several sub-sciences like ^Es- 
 thetics (surely a division of Psychology), not to 
 speak of Ethics and Economics. The idea of his 
 third group was a good one but the contents 
 formed, as Flint says, "an artificial and hetero- 
 geneous conglomeration." The same authority 
 protests against the exclusion of Metaphysics and 
 Theology, a procedure common to Comte, Spencer, 
 and Bain; but concedes that as regards the classi- 
 fication of the Sciences properly so-called Bain's 
 Scheme "may well be regarded as an improve- 
 ment on Comte's and much superior to Spencer's." 
 
 KARL PEARSON'S CLASSIFICATION. One of the 
 clearest of recent maps of knowledge is that 
 furnished by Prof. Karl Pearson in his Grammar 
 of Science. He distinguishes, to begin with, the 
 Abstract Sciences, which deal with modes of 
 discrimination, from the Concrete Sciences, which 
 deal with the contents of perception. The Ab-
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 93 
 
 stract Sciences include Logic and other "method- 
 ological " disciplines, and mathematics with its 
 many subdivisions including Statistics. 
 
 The Concrete Sciences include (1) the Phys- 
 ical Sciences, which deal with inorganic phe- 
 nomena, and (2) the Biological Sciences, which 
 deal with organic phenomena. The Physical 
 Sciences are divided by Pearson into the Precise 
 and the Synoptic, the latter always decreas- 
 ing as the former increase. Astronomy is in 
 greater part precise, meteorology is in greater part 
 synoptic. "In the one case we have not only a 
 rational classification of facts, but we have been 
 able to conceive a brief formula, the law of gravi- 
 tation, which accurately resumes these facts. We 
 have succeeded in constructing, by aid of ideal 
 particles, a conceptual mechanism which describes 
 astronomical changes. In the other case we may 
 or may not have reached a perfect classification 
 of facts, but we certainly have not been able to 
 formulate our perceptual experience in a mechan- 
 ism or conceptual motion, which would enable us 
 to precisely predict the future." 
 
 (1) THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES those dealing 
 with Inorganic Phenomena are divided by Pear- 
 son into the following: 
 
 Precise Physical Sciences (reduced to ideal 
 motions) .
 
 94 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Physics of the Ether, e. g. dealing with Heat, 
 Light, Electricity, Magnetism. 
 
 Atomic Physics, e. g. Theoretical Chemistry, 
 Spectrum Analysis. 
 
 Molecular Physics, e. g. dealing with Elasticity, 
 Sound, Crystallography, Hydro-mechan- 
 ics, Theory of the Tides, Kinetic Theory 
 of Gases. 
 
 Molar Physics, e. g. Mechanics, Planetary The- 
 ory, Lunar Theory. 
 
 Synoptic Physical Sciences (not reduced to 
 ideal motions). 
 
 Chemistry, Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, 
 Meteorology, Inorganic Evolution of the 
 Earth and the Planetary System. 
 
 The Precise and the Synoptic Physical Sciences, 
 respectively, "correspond very closely to the phe- 
 nomena of which we have constructed a con- 
 ceptual model by aid of elementary corpuscles 
 having ideal motions, and to the phenomena 
 which have not been reduced to such a conceptual 
 description." . . . "Thus Synoptic Physical Sci- 
 ence is rather Precise Physical Science in the 
 making than qualitatively distinct from it. It 
 embraces large classifications of facts which we 
 are continually striving to resume in simple 
 formulae or laws, and, as usual, these laws are 
 laws of Motion. Thus considerable portions of
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 95 
 
 the Synoptic Physical Sciences are already precise, 
 or in process of becoming precise. This is notably 
 the case with Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy. 
 
 (2) THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES those dealing 
 with Organic Phenomena are divided by Pear- 
 son as follows: 
 
 First, there are those branches of biological 
 science which deal with the spatial relations, or 
 the localization of living creatures. Here Pearson 
 includes the study of the Distribution of Living 
 Forms (Chorology) and the study of habits in 
 relation to environment (Ecology). "These form 
 the major portion of what in the old sense was 
 termed Natural History." [Prof. Pearson's classi- 
 fication seems to us, in this instance, too hard 
 and fast. The distinctive feature of animal 
 behaviour is certainly not its spatial relation.] 
 Secondly, there are those branches of biological 
 science which deal with sequence in time with 
 growth or change. The non-recurring phases are 
 called Evolution (of plants, animals, and man); 
 the recurring phases are called Growth. The 
 study of non-recurring growth is History; the 
 study of recurring growth is Biology in the nar- 
 rower sense. [This seems to us again too hard 
 and fast. Thus we do not think that the trans- 
 formation through variation and selection which is 
 at the heart of racial evolution, and the differen- 
 tiation and integration which are at the heart of
 
 96 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 individual development, can be lumped in the 
 conception of Growth.] 
 
 Biology is further subdivided, by Pearson, into 
 three great divisions, according as it deals (a) 
 with form and structure (Morphology, Anatomy, 
 Histology, etc.) ; (6) with growth and reproduction 
 (the topics dealt with in the Evolution of Sex, 
 the Theory of Heredity, and Embryology); and 
 (c) with functions and actions, which may be 
 studied from the physical side (Physiology) or 
 from the mental side (Psychology). The branch 
 of Psychology which deals with men in the group 
 is Sociology, which falls into such branches as 
 the Science of Morals, the Science of Politics. 
 Political Economy, and Jurisprudence. 
 
 PEARSON'S SCHEME 
 
 (In outline only.) 
 
 ABSTRACT SCIENCE: Logic. Mathematics, Sta- 
 tistics, Applied Mathematics, a cross-link 
 between Abstract and Concrete Science. 
 
 CONCRETE SCIENCE: (1) The Physical Sciences 
 including Precise Physical Sciences (Phys- 
 ics of the Ether, Atomic Physics, Molecu- 
 lar Physics, Molar Physics) and Synoptic 
 Physical Sciences (Chemistry, Mineralogy, 
 Geology, Geography, Meteorology, etc.). 
 (2) The Biological Sciences including
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 97 
 
 Chorology and Ecology, Biology in the 
 narrower sense (the study of structure, 
 the study of growth and reproduction, 
 the study of functions, Psychology, and 
 Sociology, and finally History (including 
 the study of organic as well as human 
 evolution). 
 
 BIO-PHYSICS. To his long list of sciences Prof. 
 Pearson would add another a cross-link between 
 Physical and Biological Sciences which he calls 
 Bio-physics. This science particularly excites our 
 interest, for in spite of its very shadowy nature 
 (even Pearson admitting that it "does not appear 
 to have advanced very far at present") the idea 
 of it is provocative and raises the kind of ques- 
 tion which makes the problem of classifying the 
 sciences of deep importance. 
 
 Prof. Pearson says that "life invariably occurs 
 associated with sense-impressions similar to those 
 of lifeless forms," and that "organisms appear 
 to have chemical and physical structure differing 
 only in complexity from inorganic forms." But 
 our impression is that the difference in complexity 
 has involved a difference in kind, such that the 
 interpretative formulae of the physical sciences 
 do not suffice for the description of the growth 
 and activities, the development and evolution of 
 organisms. Living creatures are historic beings,
 
 98 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 and in studying them we have to do with behav- 
 iour quite different from the movements of lifeless 
 forms. Prof. Pearson continues: 
 
 "Although we cannot definitely assert that life 
 is a mechanism, until we know more exactly what 
 we mean by the term mechanism as applied to 
 organic corpuscles, there still seems little doubt 
 that some of the generalizations of physics 
 notably the great principle of the conservation of 
 energy do describe at least part of our perceptual 
 experience of living organisms." 
 
 Admitting this, and the fact that there are 
 physical and chemical processes in the living body 
 which receive physical and chemical formulation, 
 we do not regard these as distinctive of the living 
 creature. Many of them, such as digestion, may 
 occur outside the living body altogether, in a 
 test-tube for instance. In short, we do not find 
 that a knowledge of these isolated items helps us 
 to describe hi physical terms the life and behav- 
 iour, the development and evolution of living 
 creatures. 
 
 According to Pearson, however, "a branch of 
 science is needed dealing with the application of 
 the laws of inorganic phenomena, or Physics, to 
 the development of organic forms. This branch 
 of science which endeavours to show that the 
 facts of Biology of Morphology, Embryology, and 
 Physiology constitute particular cases of general
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 99 
 
 physical laws has been termed Etiology. It would 
 be perhaps better to call it Bio-physics" 
 
 But the term Etiology is already in recognized 
 use for a biological inquiry into the factors in 
 organic evolution, such as variation and heredity, 
 selection and isolation, and it will remain a sound 
 branch of the biological tree even though no 
 success rewards the attempt to describe evolution 
 in terms of the laws of physics. 
 
 Prof. Pearson's idea is different. Just as 
 Applied Mathematics is "the process of analysing 
 inorganic phenomena by aid of ideal elementary 
 motions," and thus links Abstract to Concrete 
 Science, so Bio-physics attempts to link the 
 Physical and Biological Sciences together. 
 
 Pearson presents this view in a scheme: 
 
 Applied ("ABSTRACT SCIENCE 
 
 Mathematics \ 
 
 a cross-link I CONCRETE SCIENCE 
 
 PHYSICS BIOLOGY 
 
 Y 
 Bio-physics a cross-link 
 
 "Applied Mathematics and Bio-physics are thus 
 the two links between the three great divisions of
 
 100 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Science, and only when their work has been fully 
 accomplished shall we be able to realize von 
 Helmholtz's prediction and conceive all scientific 
 formulae, all natural laws, as laws of motion. 
 This goal we must, however, admit is at present 
 indefinitely distant." 
 
 Not only so, but as the only Bio-physics we 
 know of is the physical and chemical study of 
 various processes that occur in organisms, and 
 as no vital function whatever has yet been re- 
 described in bio-physical terms, and as the 
 results of bio-physical analysis do not seem to 
 help us to understand the growth and activities, 
 the development and evolution of living creatures 
 which require interpretations different in kind 
 from those of Physics we are of opinion that 
 Bio-physics might be completed without Biology 
 having more than begun. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that an elaborate 
 and vividly clear classification of the sciences by 
 Prof. Patrick Geddes has not yet been published, 
 and therefore cannot be included here, though 
 the most convincing one we know. Some indica- 
 tion of it may be obtained from the following 
 scheme of anthropological studies published in 
 1903 by Prof. A. C. Haddon, for which he was 
 largely indebted to Prof. Geddes: 
 
 EXACT SCIENCE. We have seen that Prof. 
 Karl Pearson has distinguished Precise Physical
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 101 
 
 h 
 O 
 
 gg 
 
 
 
 ^fe JH 
 
 
 ii 
 
 ll 
 
 li 
 
 gg ii 
 
 P 
 
 I! 
 
 ^1 
 
 H H 
 < 55 
 
 MO 
 
 aj ai 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 5|, 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ECONOMICS 
 POLITICS 
 
 lll| 
 
 ANTHROPOLOG 
 
 ECOLOGY 
 
 COMPAKATI 
 HUMAN 
 PHYSIOLOG 
 
 i i 
 
 SOCIAL 
 TAXONOMY 
 
 ANALYSIS OF 
 INSTITUTIONS AND 
 TECHNOLOGY 
 
 RACIAL CLASSIFI- 
 CATION OF MAN 
 
 COMPARATIVE 
 HUMAN 
 ANATOMY 
 
 TAXONOMY 
 ANATOMY 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 2; 00 
 
 
 > o 
 HZ Q 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 i III 
 
 B 
 
 MI 
 
 si 
 
 s g 
 
 i 
 
 91 
 
 ! H | H 
 
 < 
 Pi 
 
 : W 
 
 2 \ w
 
 102 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Sciences from Synoptic Physical Sciences. In the 
 former, such as Molar and Molecular Physics, 
 the processes can be described in terms of ideal 
 motions; in the latter, such as Chemistry and 
 Geology, this can be done only in part. But 
 portions of the Synoptic Sciences are always 
 passing into the Precise Sciences. 
 
 The term "Exact Science" may be used more 
 generally to indicate all science that has resolutely 
 begun to "measure," including in "measurement" 
 all forms of precise registration. Not a little of 
 the modern work in pyschology is very exact, 
 but the description of its subject-matter "in 
 terms of ideal motions" is certainly not its 
 end. 
 
 In further illustration, let us ask why we hesi- 
 tate in applying to Biology the term "Exact 
 Science" which we unhesitatingly accord to 
 Astronomy. The reasons are two, intrinsic and 
 extrinsic. The intrinsic reason is that Biology 
 deals with living creatures, which are personal 
 agents, variable and spontaneous, always to some 
 extent unpredictable. We deal in Biology with 
 an order of phenomena more complex than in 
 Astronomy, and our knowledge is proportionately 
 lacking in exactness. 
 
 The extrinsic reason is that Biology is a young 
 science and Astronomy a very old one. The 
 Astronomer is a master-workman, the Biologist
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 103 
 
 still only an apprentice. In a lecture on Inher- 
 itance, the late Prof. W. F. R. Weldon put this 
 matter very clearly: "The ideal description of 
 every experience, the description which alone 
 makes further progress possible, is a description 
 of all the results obtained, and not a statement 
 which largely ignores the inconsistencies observed. 
 The reason why astronomers, and physicists, 
 and chemists can so often afford to neglect the 
 inconsistencies of then- experience without making 
 themselves ridiculous is that by great labour 
 they have already succeeded in confining the 
 limits within which these inconsistencies occur, 
 so that the proportion of the whole experience 
 affected by them is very small. But biologists 
 have not yet advanced so far as this: The margin 
 of uncertainty in their experience is still so large 
 that they are obliged to take account of it in 
 every statement they make." 
 
 Yet the work which Prof. Weldon himself 
 did in connection with variation, heredity, and 
 selection was symptomatic of the movement 
 towards exactness that has recently character- 
 ized even the most difficult departments of 
 Biology, those dealing with Evolution. There 
 has been for a long time much exact science in 
 comparative anatomy and physiology, but in 
 recent years the labours of the biometricians on 
 the one hand, and of the experimental zoologists
 
 104 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 on the other, have done much to bring the study 
 of evolution-problems nearer the ideal of exact 
 science. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION ADOPTED. Combining what 
 appear to us to be the chief merits of the fore- 
 going classifications, we propose the following 
 map: 
 
 A. ABSTRACT, FORMAL, or METHODOLOGICAL 
 SCIENCES. 
 
 These deal with methods of inference, supply 
 intellectual instruments for investigation, and 
 test the consistency and completeness of scien- 
 tific descriptions. 
 
 MATHEMATICS, including STATISTICS. 
 LOGIC, in the widest sense. 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 B. CONCRETE, DESCRIPTIVE, or EXPERIEN- 
 TIAL SCIENCES. 
 
 These deal with the facts of experience and 
 with inferences from these facts. They include 
 five general or fundamental sciences and a large 
 number of particulate or derivative sciences. 
 
 B. 1. The five great fundamental sciences 
 are:
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 105 
 
 ANIMATE ORDER 
 
 PURELY PHYSICAL 
 ORDER 
 
 SOCIOLOGY is the science of the structure and 
 life, growth and evolution of societary 
 forms or social groups. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY is the science of the subjective 
 aspect of behaviour, of Man and of animals. 
 In the human sphere Psychology has 
 the fascinating distinction, as compared 
 with other sciences, that "the instruments 
 of investigation are also the objects of 
 research." 
 
 BIOLOGY is the science of the structure and 
 activity, development and evolution of 
 organisms, including Man. 
 
 PHYSICS is mainly the science of the transfor- 
 mations of Energy (Energetics). 
 
 CHEMISTRY is mainly the science of the differ- 
 ent kinds of matter, their transformations, 
 affinities, and interactions. It is par ex- 
 cellence the science of molecules and atoms.
 
 106 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 APPLIED. 
 the space.) 
 
 OLITICS 
 Civics 
 ONOMICS 
 
 ICS 
 EDUCATIO 
 
 ETH 
 CA 
 
 S- >" 
 
 M fi 
 
 s 
 
 o ft 
 
 All 
 
 NAVIGAT 
 ENGINEER 
 ARCHITEC 
 
 AGRI 
 MET 
 
 CE OF 
 HISTORY 
 
 La II 
 
 PI 
 
 o 
 
 3 >> S 
 
 Ew$ 
 <S 
 
 g3s 
 
 2 fc O 
 M O 
 
 O 
 
 A L HISTOR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 R SYSTEM 
 
 4i 
 liJ 
 
 8? 
 
 I!
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 107 
 
 It must be admitted that the fields of chemistry 
 and physics are not separated by any defensible 
 boundary-lines, and the two sciences obviously 
 come together in such studies as spectrum anal- 
 ysis and in such theories as the electric struc- 
 ture of the atom. But the distinction is one 
 of considerable convenience and will probably 
 last. 
 
 Some would have even more doubt as to the 
 propriety of separating off Sociology, from Psy- 
 chology for instance. 
 
 The fact is that Sociology is still a very young 
 science; its scope and definition are in its own 
 hands. It is therefore neither necessary nor 
 advisable at present to try to define it with pre- 
 cision; we must see first how far it can go. It 
 is the scientific study of social groups or "societary 
 forms," considered as concrete organic unities, 
 each of them more than the sum of its parts. It 
 necessarily comes into contact with anthropology 
 and history, with economics (which has primarily 
 to do with industrial organization), and with 
 politics (which has primarily to do with the 
 affairs of the state as such), but it has a place 
 and function of its own. 
 
 B. 2. The most important derivative or partic- 
 ulate sciences may be arranged in groups, depen- 
 dent on the five fundamental sciences. Two 
 points have to be kept clearly in mind, and may
 
 108 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 be best illustrated by examples, (a) While the 
 general or fundamental science of Biology is not 
 concerned with the kinds of Plants or Animals, the 
 particulate or derivative sciences of Botany and 
 Zoology emphatically are. (6) Many of the de- 
 rivative sciences are complex or synthetic, Anthro- 
 pology being a good example. They combine 
 the methods and concepts of several of the funda- 
 mental sciences for their own particular purposes. 
 Thus, to take another case, Geology is a synthetic 
 science, the focussing of several sciences in the 
 study of the Earth. It inquires into the struc- 
 ture, activities, and history of the Earth, which 
 it conveniently divides into four shells each, if 
 we like, with its special science the atmosphere, 
 the hydrosphere or oceans, the lithosphere or 
 crust, and the centrosphere or nucleus. For the 
 most part, perhaps, geologists are concerned with 
 the earth's crust, but there are few of them who 
 would consent to be restricted to this territory. 
 As Prof. R. S. Woodward says: "Geology illus- 
 trates better than any other science, probably, 
 the wide ramifications and the close inter-relations 
 of physical phenomena. There is scarcely a 
 process, a product, or a principle in the whole 
 range of physical science, from physics and 
 chemistry up to astronomy and astrophysics, 
 which is not fully illustrated in its uniqueness 
 and in its diversity by actual operations still in
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 109 
 
 progress on the earth, or by actual records pre 
 served in her crust. The earth is thus at once 
 the grandest of laboratories and the grandest of 
 museums available to man." 
 
 Another idea which seems useful is that of 
 sub-sciences, as distinguished from special sci- 
 ences. Let us explain with reference to Biology. 
 (i.) A general or fundamental science is distin- 
 guished partly by its subject-matter, e. g. living 
 organisms; and partly by its point of view, which, 
 in the case of Biology, for instance, is not the 
 physico-chemical point of view. A general 
 science has a well-defined subject-matter to which 
 it applies characteristic methods and concepts. 
 Furthermore, it is concerned with general ques- 
 tions and not with particular descriptions. Biol- 
 ogy is concerned with what is common to all 
 living creatures, and with averages, not individuals. 
 
 (ii.) But under the rubric of Biology we have 
 the special, particulate, or derivative sciences of 
 Botany and Zoology, which divide the world of 
 organisms between them and are both concerned 
 with particular description as well as with general 
 formulation. It might also be convenient to 
 have a special science of Protistology for the 
 minute and simple organisms which seem to 
 hesitate between plant and animal life. And 
 other special sciences may be recognized if de- 
 sired. It is all a matter of convenience.
 
 110 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 (iii.) But within the general science of Biology 
 several quite different questions are asked, and 
 the answers to these are the sub-sciences. The 
 questions that the biologist must ask and answer 
 before he can go far in generalization appear 
 at first sight to be very numerous and varied, 
 but, from a certain distance, we see that there 
 are only four: What is this living creature as 
 regards form and structure? How does it work? 
 Whence has it arisen? How has it come to be 
 as it is? 
 
 (1) What is this in form and structure, in 
 symmetry and internal architecture? It seems 
 a "simple question," but how hard to answer, as 
 we press it farther and farther home, as we pass 
 from external features to internal structure, 
 from organs to tissues, from tissues to cells, as 
 we put one lens after another in front of our own, 
 as we call to our aid all sorts of devices scalpel 
 and forceps, razor and microtome, fixative and 
 stain! "What is this," we say, "in itself and in 
 all its parts? what is this by itself and when com- 
 pared with its fellows and kindred? " and our 
 answer broadens and deepens till it furnishes the 
 raw materials of the sub-science of morphology. 
 
 (2) Close upon the first question What is 
 this? there rises a second How does this work? 
 "It is equally natural and necessary, and through- 
 out the progressive periods in the history of Biol-
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 111 
 
 ogy the two questions have never been far apart. 
 They have evolved together, especially during 
 the last hundred years, prompting one another 
 to a more and more penetrating inquisitiveness. 
 The key-word of the one is structure, or organ- 
 ization; the key- word of the other is function, or 
 activity. The creature which our first ques- 
 tion killed and picked to pieces has to be put 
 together again and made to work! What does 
 it do? how does it do it? how does it go? how 
 does it keep agoing? how does it set other creatures 
 like itself agoing? how long can it go? how does 
 it cease from going? In other words, how does 
 the organism feel and move? how does it grow 
 and multiply? how does it waste, recover itself, 
 and finally, in most cases, die? Above all, what 
 is the secret of its activity and of its power of 
 effective response to the changeful order of 
 nature? " (Darwinism and Human Life, 1909, 
 p. 8.) The attempts to answer these and 
 similar questions have made the science of 
 
 Physiology. 
 
 Physiology is the science of the activity of 
 organisms. It is the study of the working of 
 living things. It considers plants and animals 
 and man in their dynamic relations, just as 
 morphology considers them statically. It takes 
 to do with habit and function, just as morphology 
 takes to do with form and structure. And the
 
 112 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 two sister sciences go hand in hand, for just as 
 taking a watch to pieces is not very intelligent 
 unless we inquire into the working of the various 
 parts, and just as we cannot understand how the 
 watch "goes" unless we know its structure inti- 
 mately, so anatomy and physiology must always 
 be closely linked together. 
 
 There has been a close parallelism in the history 
 of the two sciences. The morphologist began 
 with the form of the intact organism, and passed 
 in succession to the various organs, then* com- 
 ponent tissue, their component cells, and, finally, 
 to the structure of living matter itself. So 
 the physiologist investigates life or activity at 
 different levels, passing from his study of the 
 living creature as a unity with certain habits, 
 to consider it as an engine of organs, as an 
 intricate web of tissues, as a veritable com- 
 munity of cells, and, finally, as a whirlpool of 
 living matter. 
 
 (3) The third question Whence is this? is 
 really double, for we may inquire into the devel- 
 opment of the individual (Embryology) or into 
 the history of the race as it is hidden in the 
 strange graveyards of the buried past, the fossil- 
 bearing rocks (Palaeontology). Since these are 
 both historical or genetic inquiries, the one deal- 
 ing with individual development (ontogeny), the 
 other with racial evolution (phylogeny), it would
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 113 
 
 be useful to have one word like "geneology" 
 (altering a letter in genealogy) to cover them 
 both, 
 
 (4) There remains a fourth question, since 
 Darwin's day asked with a new hopefulness 
 How have these living creatures come to be as 
 they are? What are the originative and what 
 the directive factors in evolution? How has the 
 raw material of progress, which we call variations, 
 been made available throughout the countless 
 ages? and how has this raw material been fash- 
 ioned to shape and use in improved adaptations 
 and endless new departures? The attempts to 
 answer these and similar questions are laying 
 the foundation-stones of the young sub-science 
 of ^Etiology. 
 
 The primary sub-sciences of Biology are thus 
 four: 
 
 Morphology, the study of static relations, of 
 
 form and structure. 
 Physiology, the study of dynamic relations, of 
 
 habit and function. 
 Geneology, the study of development or of 
 
 individual becoming (Embryology), or of 
 
 the rock-recorded facts of racial history 
 
 (Palaeontology). 
 ^Etiology, the study of the factors in racial 
 
 evolution.
 
 114 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 It is evident that these sub-sciences of Biology 
 appear also as particular questions or methods 
 of the special sciences of Botany and Zoology. 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 
 GENEOLOGY 
 
 MORPHOLOGY 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 ETIOLOGY 
 
 For purposes of convenience it seems well to 
 retain the term "Applied Science" for any de- 
 partment of a "Special Science" which has 
 directly to do with the arts and crafts. Thus, to 
 take a familiar illustration, a great part of "Med- 
 ical Science" is "Applied Science" definitely ori- 
 entated in relation to the art of healing. This 
 "Medical Science" is, or may be, just as scien- 
 tific as anything else; it is so in direct pro- 
 portion to the soundness of its foundations in 
 Anatomy, Physiology, Biology, Chemistry, and 
 the like, and in direct proportion to its own scien- 
 tific industry, but not even its most enthusi- 
 astic devotees will maintain that it aims directly 
 at adding to the sciences on which it is based. 
 It does so illustriously, it is true, but incidentally, 
 and it is a fine example of what we may legiti- 
 mately call an "Applied Science." 
 
 Another very clear example is "Agricultural 
 Science," which is orientated in relation to farm- 
 ing, gardening, shepherding, and the like. It is,
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 115 
 
 or may be, just as scientific as any other depart- 
 ment; it is so in direct proportion to the sound- 
 ness of its scientific foundations in Chemistry, 
 Botany, Zoology, Geology, Biology, and the 
 like, and in direct proportion to its own scientific 
 industry, but not even its most enthusiastic 
 devotees will maintain that it aims directly at 
 adding to the sciences on which it is based. It 
 has begun to repay its debts, but not deliberately. 
 It is a fine example of an "Applied Science." 
 
 Many other examples might be given, such as 
 the Science of Education and the Science of 
 Engineering, both of which appear to us to be 
 "Applied Sciences," intermediate between a 
 general or a particulate science (a "pure science") 
 on the one hand and one of the Arts or Crafts 
 on the other. Then* obviously distinctive feature 
 is that they contain a large body of knowledge 
 definitely orientated towards a practical purpose. 
 
 THE INTEREST OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF 
 THE SCIENCES. It may seem to some that, for a 
 small book of this sort, too much space has 
 been given to a very "academic" question, that 
 of the classification of the sciences. But may 
 we briefly indicate its real interest, (a) Perhaps 
 it does not matter very much which classification 
 is adopted, the important thing is to have in the 
 mind some classification which one has made one's 
 own. It is not merely that we should put our
 
 116 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 intellectual house in order a process that tends 
 to clear thinking, but to have a vividly real 
 scheme or map of knowledge is to have a sort of 
 Philosopher's Stone. It adds to the value of 
 our knowledge by always suggesting inter-rela- 
 tions and by serving as a test of completeness 
 and consistency. We all need to be constantly 
 reminded of Plato's demand that the true lover 
 of science shall be interested in the whole of his 
 subject. 
 
 (6) The second great interest of the classifica- 
 tion of the sciences is that it raises the largest 
 and deepest questions. Willy-nilly it expresses 
 a Philosophy. Its boundary-lines express our 
 conclusions as to the autonomy or the depen- 
 dence of Biology and of Psychology, our decisions 
 on the difficult questions of Vitalism and Materi- 
 alism. It is not a matter of indifference whether 
 Sociology should be reckoned as a general science 
 (Comte) or as a branch of Biology (Pearson). It is 
 not by a misprint that we have placed Metaphys- 
 ics beside Mathematics as an Abstract Science. 
 
 As we think over the conflicting classifications 
 of the sciences, we see that a frequent cause of 
 confusion has been the attempt to map out 
 territories as preserves of particular sciences. 
 This implies a wrong idea of the constitution of a 
 science, which is defined not by its subject-matter, 
 but by the categories under which it thinks of
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 117 
 
 that subject-matter. Two sciences may work 
 and often do work at the same material, but with 
 different ends in view, with different fundamental 
 concepts, and with methods different in detail. 
 
 Let us illustrate. An anthropologist may work 
 for years at a particular societary form, and 
 yet his results may be contributions to biology 
 rather than to sociology. A psychologist may 
 devote himself to the study of cats and dogs, and 
 yet his results may not be contributions to biology 
 in the stricter sense. A physicist may give per- 
 sistent and profitable attention to the electrical 
 changes associated with contracting muscle, and 
 yet though he is in a sense dealing with organisms 
 all the time, his results may be contributions to 
 physics rather than to biology. Similarly, the 
 chemist, for purposes of his own, may give his 
 life to the study of the odoriferous substances in 
 flowers, and yet never ask one biological question. 
 
 THE CORRELATION OF THE SCIENCES. From 
 the classification of the sciences and sub-sciences 
 we turn with a feeling of relief to the idea of 
 their Unity. Blocked apart for practical con- 
 venience, treated of in separate books, expounded 
 by different teachers, investigated in different 
 laboratories, the sciences are, after all, parts of 
 one discipline, illustrations of one method, at- 
 tempts to make clear if never to solve the one 
 great problem of the Order of Nature. They
 
 118 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 form, or should form, one body of truth, and they 
 gain in value the more they are correlated. This 
 is the ideal alike of the Philosopher's Stone, of 
 the Encyclopaedia, of the University, and of the 
 most modern scientific synthesis. Let us briefly 
 consider it from various points of view. 
 
 When we think of a living creature with vivid- 
 ness, several major impressions stand out clearly 
 in the mind. In the first place, the organism is a 
 unity. It has many members, but one body; 
 many activities, but one life. It develops and 
 grows and varies and acts as a unity. Therefore, 
 we feel sure that while it has to be made the sub- 
 ject of many different sciences, anatomy, physi- 
 ology, embryology, not to speak of chemistry 
 and physics, and not forgetting psychology, the 
 scientific truth about the living creature cannot 
 be reached unless the results of the various 
 scientific inquiries are pooled, and unless the 
 fundamental fact of the unity of the organism 
 is recognized. 
 
 In the second place, the living creature cannot 
 be isolated or studied in vacua. It has an inani- 
 mate environment from which it is scientifically 
 inseparable, and it sends its tendrils into the 
 lives of many other creatures. If we are to come 
 nearer knowing the truth about the living creature, 
 we must study it in its inter-relations. But that 
 involves the convergence of many sciences, which
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 119 
 
 approach their ideal completeness in proportion 
 as they are correlated. 
 
 In the third place, we have to bear in mind 
 that the living creature is passing by as one of a 
 great historical pageant. It is an heir of the ages, 
 only to be understood as the resultant of num- 
 berless factors mechanical, chemical, physical, 
 and animate which have gone to its shaping. 
 It has gathered into itself the sunshine and haar, 
 the wind and the rain of millennia. It requires 
 a unity of the sciences if it is to be understood. 
 Nor is it merely a passer-by in a great procession, 
 which we can study all too briefly before the 
 torch it carries goes out and it fades away, it is 
 an individualized phase in the ceaseless circula- 
 tion of matter and energy. To change the meta- 
 phor again, it is a whirlpool in the river of time. 
 All of which makes us feel that the sciences are 
 most scientific when they are most united. The 
 higher the subject in the scale of being the more 
 obvious this is, for Man most of all, but even in 
 regard to the non-living the inter-relatedness of 
 things makes a unification of sciences necessary. 
 Who, for instance, can understand the earth as 
 it is apart from its living tenants? The very 
 dust throbs with life. 
 
 The idea which we wish to illustrate is very 
 plain when we think of some big problem such 
 as the physiology of marine organisms and the
 
 120 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 improvement of fisheries as an application of 
 this. The only hope of getting towards an under- 
 standing of such a subject is through the com- 
 bined efforts of chemist and physicist, botanist 
 and zoologist, meteorologist and geographer. 
 
 Worthy of note in this connection is the 
 unthought-out objection which some ultra-con- 
 servative educationists bring against geography, 
 that it is not a well-defined single science, but a 
 combination of many sciences for a particular 
 purpose. The description is correct that Geog- 
 raphy is a circle cutting many other circles, but 
 this is precisely its peculiar scientific merit and 
 virtue, that it expresses a unification or synthesis 
 of complementary disciplines. 
 
 Our intellectual outlook on the world depends 
 on our scientific culture, and its value must vary 
 with the all-roundness and with the correlation 
 of different scientific disciplines. Just as it takes 
 many different rays of light to make sunshine, so 
 it takes many different sciences to give that 
 synthetic view which we call sanity. Thus we 
 stand in unwearying admiration before Goethe 
 because his outlook was at once physical and 
 biological, geographic and psychic. 
 
 It is idle to pretend that the outlook on the 
 order of nature which becomes habitual to the 
 student of mechanics has nothing to gain from, 
 let us say, the very different impressions that
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 121 
 
 reward those who devote themselves to compara- 
 tive psychology. It savours of what we may call 
 scientific Chauvinism to maintain that physico- 
 chemical interpretations, when they go to the 
 formation of our outlook on Nature, require 
 no corrective from the biological, mental, and 
 social sciences. It requires a long-necked ob- 
 server to see the whole firmament out of one 
 window. 
 
 We know how chemistry assists in physiolog- 
 ical inquiry; showing how this and that chemical 
 process occurs in the body, here an oxidation 
 and there a reduction, now a hydrolysis and 
 again a fermentation, thereby bringing into 
 stronger relief the co-ordination and control of all 
 these, which is distinctively vital. But we have 
 also to notice how physiology assists chemistry, 
 a noteworthy instance being the physiological 
 discovery of oxygen by Mayow (1674) a century 
 before the element was chemically isolated. 
 
 The point that we wish to get perfectly clear 
 is this, that the same phenomenon may be con- 
 sidered without irrelevancy under several sciences. 
 Thus when we enjoy looking at a rose, there are 
 chemical, physical, physiological, and psycholog- 
 ical problems involved. At least four sciences 
 have something to say, and what must be realized 
 is that while these sciences are separated off for 
 purposes of human convenience, because they
 
 122 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 pursue different methods, use different tools, 
 sum up in different kinds of formulae, they are 
 simply different modes of one rational inquiry. 
 
 SUMMARY. The classification of the sciences is 
 in detail' a matter of convenience, but it is of great 
 practical importance to have in the mind some 
 clear map of knowledge. The broad lines of the 
 classification depend upon our scientific and phil- 
 osophical convictions, e. g. a* to the independence of 
 Biology and the separateness of Psychology from 
 Physiology. It seems useful to separate, first of all, 
 the abstract sciences which are "methodological," 
 from the concrete sciences which deal with the facts 
 of experience. The fundamental abstract science is 
 Mathematics, and we would regard Metaphysics as 
 supreme in the same division. Th# five__greatj:on- t 
 crete sciences, which may also be catted descriptive ; 
 or experiential, are: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, ' 
 Psychology, and Sociology. Within these there are 
 sub-sciences, thus Biology is divisible into Mor- 
 phology, Physiology, Genealogy (i. e. Embryology 
 and Palaeontology) and Etiology. Dependent on 
 the five general sciences are the numerous derivative 
 or particulate sciences, such as Botany and Zoology. 
 Many of these are complex or synthetic, focussing 
 several sciences on one subject: Geology and 
 Geography are good examples. The term "applied 
 science" is conveniently used for those departments 
 of general or special sciences which have directly to
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 123 
 
 do with the development and evolution of human 
 life, or the arts and crafts. It is a matter for dis- 
 cussion whether there is only one science of Nature 
 or whether it is truer to say that there are several, 
 but all are agreed that the value and the progressive- 
 ness of the sciences depends in part on the degree 
 of their correlation.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "Truth is on a curve whose asymptote our 
 spirit follows eternally." LEO ERRERA. 
 
 The Aims of Science and Philosophy Twofold Relation be- 
 tween Science and Philosophy Limitations of the Scientific 
 Account of Things Problems before which Science and 
 Philosophy Meet Origin of Living Creatures upon the 
 Earth The Secret of the Organism An Illustration 
 The Soul and Body Problem A Question Summary. 
 
 THE AIMS OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 In this little book we have emphasized the view 
 of many modern thinkers, that it is the chief 
 business of the experimental sciences, whether 
 physical or psychical, to discover "descriptive 
 formulae by the aid of which the various processes 
 which make up the physical and psychical orders 
 may be depicted and calculated." The aim of 
 science is descriptive formulation; let us ask of 
 the philosophers how their inquiry is related to 
 ours. 
 
 Prof. A. E. Taylor, to whose Elements of 
 Metaphysics I owe a debt of obligation which I 
 124
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 125 
 
 very gratefully acknowledge, states the differ- 
 ence between Science and Philosophy as follows: 
 "The work of the Philosophy of Nature and of 
 Mind only begins where that of the experimental 
 sciences leaves off. Its data are not particular 
 facts, as directly amassed by experiment and 
 observation, but the hypotheses used by experi- 
 mental science for the co-ordination and de- 
 scription of those facts. And it examines these 
 hypotheses, not with the object of modifying their 
 structure so as to include new facts, or to include 
 the old facts in a simpler form, but purely for the 
 purpose of estimating their value as an account of 
 ultimately real existence. Whether the hypoth- 
 eses are adequate as implements for the calcu- 
 lation of natural processes is a question which 
 Philosophy, when it understands its place, leaves 
 entirely to the special sciences; whether they can 
 claim to be more than useful formulae for calcu- 
 lation, i. e. whether they give us knowledge of 
 ultimate Reality, is a problem which can only be 
 dealt with by the science which systematically 
 analyses the meaning of ^reality, i. e. by Meta- 
 physics. We may perhaps follow the usage" of 
 some recent writers in marking this difference of 
 object by a difference in terminology, and say 
 that the goal of experimental science is the De- 
 scription of facts, the goal of Metaphysics their 
 Interpretation. The difference of aim is, how-
 
 126 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 ever, not ultimate. Description of facts, when 
 once we cease to be content with such description 
 as will subserve the purpose of calculation and 
 call for description of the fact as it really is, of 
 itself becomes metaphysical interpretation." 
 
 We have seen that one of the aims of science 
 is to distinguish what "seems" from what "is," 
 and to do so generally, not particularly, is the 
 chief task of metaphysics. "Metaphysics sets 
 itself more systematically and universally than 
 any other science, to ask what, after all, is meant 
 by being real, and to what degree our various 
 scientific and non-scientific theories about the 
 world are in harmony with the universal charac- 
 teristics of real existence. Hence, Metaphysics 
 has been called "an attempt to become aware of 
 and to doubt all preconceptions"; and again, "an 
 unusually resolute effort to think consistently." 
 
 Something is always going wrong, however, 
 when the boundaries between different disci- 
 plines begin to appear static, like stone walls. The 
 various disciplines are like the functions of an 
 organism, which work into one another's hands, 
 being complementary. Pigeon-holing is simply 
 a device, part of our intellectual division of labour. 
 Scjeaca-js an intellectual inquiry with__plefinite 
 purposes e. g. of discovering uniformities of 
 sequence, and with definite limitations, such as 
 that of not inquiring into the larger significance
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 1*7 
 
 of its results. But it often strains at its self-made 
 leash. 
 
 Let us take an example. It is the business of 
 the zoological evolutionist to discover what he 
 can in regard to the actual history of the various 
 races of animals. He has to discover, for instance, 
 if he can, the pedigree of Mammals. But his 
 task does not end there, he has to inquire into the 
 factors operative in this evolution arguing back 
 from what is known of the laws of variation and 
 heredity, selection and isolation. But the more 
 complete his description becomes, the more inevi- 
 tably, as it seems to us, is he led towards reflec- 
 tion on the evolution of Mammals as a particular 
 chapter in a great book. It cannot be torn out 
 and understood by itself. It came about after 
 preparations that we dimly descry being made in 
 the mist of millions of years ago. It came about 
 in a natural, predetermined fashion, and at a 
 particular stage in the history of other things, 
 such as the Earth itself. Moreover, it was part 
 of the preparation for the Supreme Mammal 
 Man himself. The evolution of Mammals, along 
 with the august process of which it was a part, 
 must here be seen in its larger significance it 
 led on even to the science which, in pursuing 
 this thought, transcends itself. 
 
 TWOFOLD RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND 
 PHILOSOPHY. (1) Those who take life easily,
 
 128 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 sailing their intellectual craft in the lea of their 
 particular shore of well-ascertained fact, are apt 
 to see things in the clearness of a false simplicity. 
 Science has come to know, they tell us, the ins 
 and outs of the stuff the world is made of Matter, 
 whichjsjbuilt jipof molecules, whiclij.reconiposed 
 ofatoms, which consist of Corpuscles or electrons^. 
 And bcience~llas~also^ome^to know, they tell us, 
 the power that is resident in the world Energy, 
 gfaose measure is Force. It is a power of doing 
 work, which is always passing from form to form 
 without any loss or any gain. Give us Matter 
 and Energy, they say, and we will make a world 
 out of them. Just as the chemist can build up 
 urea and sugar and indigo from simple substances, 
 so Nature long ago, in some unknown hotbed, 
 made a synthesis of proteids which combined to 
 form small viable organisms. These multiplied, 
 and spread themselves, and varied under the stim- 
 uli of new surroundings. Given Variations and 
 plenty of time, Selection and Isolation can do 
 the rest. And just as consciousness emerges at 
 an uncertain stage in the development of the 
 individual egg-cell, so in the history of animal 
 organisms there was an evolution of mind. Now, 
 far be it from us to say that there is not consider- 
 able truth in this description of what may have 
 occurred, but it is certainly far too facile and 
 easy-going. It slurs over gigantic difficulties and
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 129 
 
 abounds in equally large assumptions. It may 
 be criticized first scientifically, and that is well; 
 what remains may then be criticized philosophi- 
 cally, which is, for developing a fit and proper 
 frame of mind, still better. 
 
 Now we have in Metaphysics a critical disci- 
 pline in consistent thinking; it has an ideal of 
 complete explanation; and it is able to test 
 scientific theories with reference to this ideal 
 formal standard. In this sense Metaphysics 
 functions as a sublime Logic, testing the com- 
 pleteness and consistency of our scientific descrip- 
 tions, whether of things as they are, or of the way 
 in which they have come to be, and it is desirable 
 for the sake of Science that it should be used. 
 The account that a Science gives of part of the 
 world must be not only self-consistent, and con- 
 gruent with the results of other sciences, it must 
 also submit to the formal requirements of meta- 
 physics. This criticism of categories and systema- 
 tizations is the chief service that Metaphysics has 
 to render to science. 
 
 From this point of view, Philosophy has been 
 called "scientia scientiarum" "a science which 
 determines the principles and conditions, the 
 limits and relations of the sciences." But to this 
 claim vigorous objections have been raised. For 
 it is the strong opinion of many who have made 
 great contributions to science, that the scientific
 
 130 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 Investigator has no right to waive the responsi- 
 bility of determining "the principles and condi- 
 tions, the limits and relations, of the sciences." 
 If he cannot determine these, who can? Now it 
 may be that the definition quoted is an unfortu- 
 nate one, and the objection not without justifica- 
 tion, but the important point is this, that the 
 categories and systematizations of science should 
 be criticized, and this requires expert training. 
 It can only be done by a philosopher to whom 
 the scientific discipline is real, or by a scientific 
 investigator to whom the philosophical discipline 
 is real. But it has to be done. 
 
 When a well-thought-out scientific exposition 
 disturbs the reader's preconceptions, or takes him 
 beyond his usual depth of analysis, he has his 
 revenge in dubbing it "metaphysical." But this 
 is an ignorant sneer, if metaphysics means "the 
 critical and systematic analysis of our concep- 
 tions." It is an intellectual discipline, an actively 
 sceptical inquiry, a criticism of categories and it 
 may be ranked beside Mathematics and Logic in 
 the general scheme of knowledge. 
 
 (2) The various sciences supply partial pictures 
 of the world pictures taken from different points 
 of view. It is fojr_metaghysiGS_to_combine these 
 pictures, not as one makes a composite photo- 
 graph by placing one print on the top of another, 
 but rather as one combines two views in a stereo-
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 131 
 
 scope. In its constructive Junction^ mejgghysicg 
 aims jit ^nTairround and consistentjyiew of the 
 whole system, and it reac^es~tEis, ^should reach 
 this, not m an a priori fashion, but_by taking, 
 account of the raw material which the sciences 
 furnStT. In this way Science contributes to Meta- 
 pKysics. 
 
 If Metaphysics does not intrude into the prov- 
 ince of any particular science, and if it is not 
 another name for a synthesis of the sciences, what 
 is its province? All thinking has to do with facts 
 of experience, and these form the subject-matter 
 of the sciences. Where, then, does Metaphysics 
 come in? The answer that will suffice for our 
 purpose in this volume is simple enough: that 
 Metaphysics seeks to discover the general condi- 
 tions of giving a complete and consistent formu- 
 lation of experience a formulation which has its 
 foundations in the sciences, but transcends them 
 in an attempt to answer imperious questions 
 which Science does not even ask. 
 
 For most men it is quite impossible to remain 
 satisfied with the systematic descriptions which 
 science supplies, they have to go on to form 
 "some coherent conception of the scheme of 
 things to which they belong," and in this they 
 necessarily become metaphysical. Now it seems 
 good sense that they should try to do this con- 
 sciously and not at random, using the experience
 
 132 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 of the ancient science of mental construction 
 whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. Science 
 brings in great wealth of raw material, but the 
 architectural genius must be sought in Philosophy. 
 
 LIMITATIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNT OF 
 THINGS. The plain man's question is, Can you 
 give an account of this? What is this modern 
 modesty of science, that it does not pretend to 
 explain anything? Can you give an account of 
 these phenomena or can you not? Let us consider 
 the limitations of the scientific account of things. 
 
 Science shows, often after much study, that a 
 certain collocation of antecedents and no other 
 will result in a certain collocation of consequents 
 and no other. But the consequents are often very 
 different from the antecedents, and we cannot 
 say that we know how they come about. Even 
 in an exact science like Chemistry this limitation 
 of scientific description is well illustrated. We 
 know that oxygen and hydrogen unite under 
 certain conditions to form something qualitatively 
 very different from either of them, viz. water, but 
 we do not know how it is that water results. 
 Even in more complex cases, we know the condi- 
 tions of the combination, and we have ingenious 
 theories as to how the elements involved change 
 partners and form new linkages, but we do not 
 really understand how the result should be as it is. 
 Still less can we predict what will ensue from the
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 133 
 
 previously untried combination of two highly 
 complex substances. It is like an untried experi- 
 ment in Heredity. 
 
 It comes to this: that the only cases in which 
 we can say that our scientific account is complete 
 and absolutely satisfactory, are cases of mechan- 
 ics most beautifully in Gravitational Astronomy 
 where the resultant is just a new form of the 
 components. Then only can we say with a clear 
 intellectual conscience, "Causa sequat effectum." 
 Science is continually showing that one particular 
 collocation of matter and energy passes into 
 another, but when the chains of sequence that it 
 chronicles are intricate it is no longer plain that 
 the resultant must be as it is and not otherwise. 
 
 Again, the terms of scientific interpretations are 
 not self-explanatory. The biologist's cheques are 
 backed by "Organism," "Protoplasm," "Hered- 
 ity," and so on, and no one can suppose that 
 these are self-explanatory terms. Some term of 
 this sort may be an absolutely necessary postu- 
 late in Biology, but it obviously means starting 
 with a great deal "given." And when we pass to 
 more exact sciences, and find the cheques backed 
 "Gravitation," "Chemical Affinity," and so on, 
 we must again recognize that a good deal is taken 
 as "given." 
 
 It may be said, however, that these terms of 
 description are continually undergoing a process
 
 134 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 of simplification, and that is true. "Heat** 
 and "Light" have yielded to simplifying analysis; 
 perhaps "Chemical Affinity" is at present yield- 
 ing; perhaps the physicist may some day discover 
 the true inwardness of Gravitation, and be able 
 to tell us what really happens in the invisible 
 world when the apple falls in the orchard. It is 
 the aim of Science to reduce the number of abso- 
 lutely necessary concepts, but it does not in so 
 doing make those that remain any simpler. 
 "Matter" and "Energy" or other terms of the 
 same order of magnitude are always, as it were, 
 expanding as others are forced into them, and 
 remain as fundamental terms which are not self- 
 explanatory. 
 
 Taking "matter," for instance, which has 
 seemed to some the most trustworthy bedrock 
 on which to base their theoretical reconstruction 
 of the world, what a visionary thing it has become 
 in the hands of modern physics. The founders 
 of the molecular theory laid down the idea that 
 each kind of matter has its characteristic kind of 
 particle; Dalton showed that we must think of 
 these molecules as built up of atoms; modern 
 work is suggesting that there may be a common 
 basis for matter of all kinds, as if the different 
 kinds of atoms consisted of different numbers of 
 smaller corpuscles of the same kind. These are 
 the negatively electrified particles the corpuscles
 
 SCIENCE AN* PHILI(g*PHY 135 
 
 or electrons which all bodies give off under suit- 
 able treatment, such as raising to incandescence 
 or exposure to ultra-violet light. The atom is 
 now supposed to be built up of units of negative 
 electricity and of an equal number of units of 
 positive electricity, of very much greater mass, 
 the number of either kind being proportional to 
 the atomic weight; and the whole system is in a 
 state of equilibrium or of steady motion. 
 
 We must understand, however, that this elec- 
 trical theory of matter is far beyond verification, 
 that it makes big assumptions, and that it leaves 
 many difficulties. Prof. Poynting writes in regard 
 to it: "The chief value of such a hypothesis lies, 
 not hi its objective truth, but in its success in 
 accounting for, in co-ordinating, what we actually 
 observe, and in predicting results which are after- 
 wards verified. It is to be regarded as a 'working 
 model ' which gives the same results as the actual 
 atom, though, it may be, by quite different 
 machinery." 
 
 So that, after all, the theory of the electric atom 
 does not do more than represent the unknown 
 reality in a faithfully symbolical matter. It is a 
 working thought-model. But how far we are get- 
 ting from the old "matter" of the naive material- 
 ists. And yet the difficulties have only begun, 
 for the matter of physical analysis is an abstrac- 
 tion, whereas the matter of our direct experience
 
 136 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 is in certain conditions the physical basis of "life" 
 and the home of the "soul." And beyond this 
 there is the philosophical aspect of the problem 
 of matter. 
 
 As in its analytic so in its historical treatment 
 of things Science must confess its limitations. It 
 begins, not at the beginning that is impossible, 
 but from something "given," which it does not 
 explain, which in the last resource it cannot explain. 
 From this something given say primitive Amoe- 
 bae much seems to have been evolved, and 
 Biology seeks to discover both the stages and 
 the operative factors in the evolution. But if 
 the primitive Amoebae gave rise "in the natural 
 course of events" to higher organisms, and these 
 to higher, until there emerged the supreme Mam- 
 mal, who by and by had a theory of it all, then 
 the primitive Amoebae which had in them the 
 promise and potency of all this were very wonder- 
 ful Amoebae indeed. There must have been more 
 in them than met the eye! We must stock them 
 with initiatives at least. We are taking a good 
 deal as "given." 
 
 Finally, it must be recognized that the terms of 
 scientific descriptions in their higher reaches are 
 "conceptual formulae." We speak glibly of 
 "Matter," "Energy," "Ether," "Atom," and so 
 on, but these are intellectual counters, rather 
 than the realities themselves. They are, so to
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 137 
 
 speak, counterfoils or symbols of reality. We may 
 well say of them what Hobbes said of words: 
 "They are wise men's counters, they do but 
 reckon by them, but they are the money of fools." 
 
 Yet we must not react too far from the realism 
 of old-fashioned Science! For while it is true 
 that Science only gets at fractions of reality, and 
 that it works with formulae and intellectual 
 counters, scientific conclusions are none the less 
 trustworthy indices of what does actually happen. 
 Otherwise we could not use them as a basis for 
 safe prophecy. No one knows what matter, gravi- 
 tation, inertia, and sp on, really are; but the 
 established formulations which deal with them 
 have certainly a close correspondence with real- 
 ity. We need not do more than refer to the 
 familiar but astounding fact that, given three 
 good observations of a comet, and we can 
 prophesy with absolute certainty when it, barring 
 accidents, will return! 
 
 PROBLEMS BEFORE WHICH SCIENCE AND PHI- 
 LOSOPHY MEET. The world is full of unsolved 
 problems which give it part of its charm and 
 interest, and there is no prospect of the supply 
 running short. Some of these unsolved problems 
 are scientific, and he is rash indeed who will call 
 any of them insoluble. Many of the insoluble 
 problems of our forefathers have their solutions 
 stated in our text-books, and Science is still very
 
 138 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 young. Moreover, some of the very difficult 
 unsolved problems are already being nibbled at 
 by scientific methods, which in itself is hopeful. 
 
 Every one must admit, however, that we are 
 confronted with a number of problems in regard 
 to which we find it difficult to think with clearness, 
 and in regard to which we seem to make little 
 progress. We refer to problems like that of the 
 origin of living organisms upon the earth, or that 
 of the living body as contrasted with an inanimate 
 system, or that of the relation of soul and body. 
 In reference to those and similar problems Science 
 has certain contributions to make, but these have 
 tended to increase rather than lessen the diffi- 
 culties of the situation. Thus it is much more 
 difficult for us to believe in spontaneous genera- 
 tion than it was for Harvey; it is much more 
 difficult for us to accept a mechanistic physiology 
 than it was for Descartes. 
 
 Now in regard to these very difficult problems 
 we should at least know where we stand, and the 
 scientific answer must be ' ' Ignoramus . " In regard 
 to a problem like the origin of life the only scien- 
 tific position at present is one of agnosticism. For 
 most minds, however, the consistently agnostic 
 position is difficult. As scientific inquirers we 
 piously adhere to it, but when we go out into the 
 street we speculate with the best of them. We 
 make hypotheses, the pros and cons of which
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 139 
 
 can be discussed, and we pass insidiously from 
 Science to Metaphysics. It is in the criticism of 
 these hypothetical constructions, which avowedly 
 go beyond verifiable science, that philosophical 
 criticism is of great value. Let us say a little, then, 
 in regard to two or three of the problems before 
 which Science and Philosophy meet. 
 
 ORIGIN OF LIVING CREATURES UPON THE 
 EARTH. In the volume on EVOLUTION in this 
 Library, there is a brief discussion of this old- 
 standing problem, to the solution of which we 
 do not seem to be coming any nearer. We know 
 that the hot Earth must have been tenantless, 
 that until it cooled and consolidated it was quite 
 unfit to be a home of life. But we do not know 
 how living organisms began to be upon the earth. 
 
 Did germs of life come to our earth embosomed 
 in meteorites -from elsewhere, or had they their 
 cradle here the offspring of inorganic evolution? 
 We do not know. May it have been, as Pfliiger 
 and Verworn have suggested, that the cyanogen 
 radical (CN) was the starting-point of the pro- 
 teid molecule which is an essential constituent of 
 the physical basis of life? We cannot discuss the 
 matter, but we must remember (1) that although 
 the synthetic chemist can do wonders in build- 
 ing up complex things from simple things he has 
 not yet come near the artificial synthesis of pro- 
 teids; (2) that we are at a loss to suggest what
 
 140 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 in Nature's laboratory of chemical synthesis a 
 somewhat hypothetical witch's cauldron could 
 take the place of the directive chemist; and (3) 
 that there is a great gap between making rgani 
 matter and making an organism. 
 
 The origin of organisms upon the earth remains 
 a riddle, and the most that we can say is, that the 
 hypothesis of the evolution of the living from the 
 not-living is in harmony with the general trend 
 of evolutionary theory. If it should become a 
 tenable theory, the dignity and value of living 
 creatures and of our own life would not be in any 
 way affected. On the contrary, if the dust of the 
 earth did naturally give rise to living creatures, 
 if they are in a real sense born of her and the 
 sunshine, then the whole world becomes more 
 continuous and vital, and all the inorganic groan- 
 ing and travailing becomes more intelligible. 
 
 We venture to quote in this connection a 
 passage from Prof. Lloyd Morgan's Interpretation 
 of Nature, which seems to us peculiarly useful in 
 a little book like this. "It is true, and should be 
 frankly admitted, that in the present state of 
 natural knowledge the antecedent conditions of 
 the genesis of protoplasm are unknown." . . . 
 But, "those who would single out from among 
 the multitudinous differentiations of an evolving 
 universe this alone for special interposition would 
 seem to do little honour to the Divinity they
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 141 
 
 profess to serve. Theodore Parker gave expres- 
 sion to a broader and more reverent theology 
 when he said: 'The universe, broad and deep and 
 high, is a handful of dust which God enchants. 
 He is the mysterious magic which possesses' 
 not protoplasm merely, but ' the world ' " (Lloyd 
 Morgan, 1905, p. 77). 
 
 How did living creatures begin to be upon the 
 earth? In point of Science, we do not know. We 
 cherish the hypothesis, however, that living crea- 
 tures evolved from not-living matter upon the 
 Earth. We do so mainly because we do not know 
 of any better hypothesis, and because it conforms 
 with our (metaphysical) ideal of continuity and 
 with the general idea of evolution. But we are 
 aware that the hypothesis is beset with very 
 serious scientific difficulties and with not less 
 serious philosophical difficulties. 
 
 Consider, for a moment, a famous passage 
 from Huxley: "If the fundamental proposition 
 of evolution is true, namely, that the entire world, 
 animate and inanimate, is the result of the mutual 
 interaction, according to definite laws, of forces 
 possessed by the molecules which made up the 
 primitive nebulosity of the universe; then it is 
 no less certain that the present actual world 
 reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour, and 
 that an intelligence, if great enough, could from 
 his knowledge of the properties of the molecules
 
 142 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 of that vapour have predicted the state of the 
 fauna in Great Britain in 1888 with as much 
 certitude as we say what will happen to the vapour 
 of our breath on a cold day in winter." 
 
 This very strong and confident statement 
 appears to us to illustrate the need for philo- 
 sophical criticism. As Bergson points out, it 
 denies that time really counts; it also denies 
 that organisms are more than mechanisms. It 
 denies the creative individuality of the organism, 
 which trades with time in an unpredictable 
 way all its own. It may be right in these denials, 
 but the points are arguable. Moreover, the gen- 
 eral idea of evolution does not warrant us in sup- 
 posing that intelligent behaviour, for instance, 
 "reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour" and 
 could be predicted from a "knowledge of the 
 properties of the molecules of that vapour"; for 
 molecules and the like are abstractions of physical 
 science which, for the purposes of that science, 
 may be treated as if they represented the whole of 
 the reality. The "primitive nebulosity of the 
 universe" was a reality which, for the purposes 
 of physical science, would be analysable into a 
 whirling sea of molecules, but that certainly can- 
 not have been the whole truth about it if in it 
 there reposed potentially the present actual world. 
 To take an analogy from development, there is no 
 reason to believe that we should have exhausted
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 143 
 
 the reality of a human ovum if we knew all about 
 the properties of its proteid molecules, nor that 
 we could predict from that knowledge whether 
 the ovum would develop into a genius or a fool. 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE ORGANISM. One of the 
 boundary-lines which is prominent in modern eyes 
 is that between the inanimate and the animate, 
 the not-living and the living. We call the bulk 
 of things we see. "purely physical"; we call a 
 minority "physical and vital." We speak of this 
 distinction as if it were self-evident, but we must 
 not forget the panzoism of the savage and the 
 child, the poet and the philosopher. To the 
 former the distinction is unknown; by the latter 
 it has been transcended. To simple people and 
 to children, not-living bodies are often as alive 
 as birds, and even the matter-of-fact man forgets 
 his conventional philosophy on the golf-course 
 and the curling-pond, commanding and upbraid- 
 ing, encouraging and condemning, his ball or stone 
 as if it were indeed a living creature. In spite of 
 many resolute efforts on the part of philosophers 
 and scientists alike the boundary-line between 
 the living and the not-living remains, and seems 
 likely to remain for long. As it is of some impor- 
 tance in our outlook, let us consider this distinction 
 between plants, animals and persons on the one 
 hand and "mere things" on the other. 
 
 In the first place in regard to the inanimate,
 
 144 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the purely physical order: we almost always 
 know what to expect from a stone; it is among 
 the living that the unexpected happens. There 
 is absolute uniformity of response in the physical 
 order; there is caprice and humour in the ani- 
 mate order. We cannot recognize either individ- 
 uality or purposiveness in inanimate systems. 
 It is true that there is a great deal of effective 
 work done in the purely physical order. The sea 
 sculptures the shore, the river cuts a deep channel 
 in the rock, the glacier wears the mountains 
 smooth but what is done is mechanically deter- 
 mined by the external conditions, not by any 
 freely moving, purposive individuality. And 
 while inanimate objects have a certain power of 
 response to external stimuli, as the gunpowder 
 shows when a lighted match is applied to it, the 
 responses of a living creature in normal surround- 
 ings are of a higher order of efficiency, they make 
 for self-preservation and betterment. 
 
 In discussing the characteristic features of living 
 creatures in the volume on EVOLUTION, we have 
 admitted that it is profitable to compare a living 
 creature to a machine and a fertile method of 
 discovery to press this comparison to its farthest. 
 "Yet the living organism differs from any machine 
 in its greater efficiency, and ... in being a self- 
 stoking, self-repairing, self-preservative, self-ad- 
 justing, self -increasing, self-reproducing engine!
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 145 
 
 And this also must be remembered in comparing 
 a living creature with a machine, that the latter 
 is no ordinary sample of the inorganic world. It 
 is an elaborated tool, an extended hand, and has 
 inside of it a human thought. It is because of 
 these qualities that highly complex machines come 
 to be so like organisms. But no machine profits 
 by experience, nor trades with time as organisms 
 do." Only living creatures have a persistent 
 unified behaviour, a power of profiting by experi- 
 ence, and a creative capacity as genuine agents. 
 Here, then, we have one of the great contrasts 
 in Nature, between the purely physical order and 
 the world of organisms. The scientific question 
 is whether the concepts and formulae that suffice 
 for the description of the inorganic world are also 
 sufficient for the description of vital functions 
 and animate behaviour. The answer of the 
 mechanistic school is "Yes"; all others say 
 "No," but not always for the same reasons. 
 We say "No" for the following reasons: 
 (1) There are many chemical and physical 
 operations in a living body, but as a matter of 
 fact no complete physico-chemical description 
 has yet been given of any distinctively vital 
 activity. It has to be remembered that the most 
 salient fact is the correlation and control of all 
 the manifold chemical and physical processes so 
 that a unified behaviour results.
 
 146 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 (2) It is not a conclusive argument, perhaps, 
 but one of some weight, that if we have not yet 
 succeeded in giving a physico-chemical descrip- 
 tion of a simple vital process, such as the passage 
 of digested food from the alimentary canal into the 
 blood, or the filtering of the blood by the kidney, 
 we need not at present seriously concern ourselves 
 in regard to the possibility of giving a physico- 
 chemical description of growth, cyclical develop- 
 ment, or every-day behaviour. If we think of 
 development for a moment, we cannot but feel 
 that the questions which the facts raise seem 
 very unlikely to receive an answer in terms of 
 mechanism. How are the heritable characters 
 of the race summed up potentially within the 
 minute germ cells? How do they gradually find 
 expression in the individual development, so that 
 what we call differentiation results? What is the 
 nature of the compelling necessity that mints and 
 coins the chick out of a drop of living matter? 
 What is it that regulates the ordered progress 
 which, by intricate and often strangely circuitous 
 paths, leads to the fully-formed organism? It is 
 certainly wonderful the individual unpacking of 
 the racial treasure-box! 
 
 (8) But the most satisfactory reason, perhaps, 
 is the one referred to in the chapter on Scientific 
 Method, that the results of applying physico- 
 chemical analysis to the activities of living crea-
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 147 
 
 ' 
 tures do not make these much more intelligible. 
 
 They do not give us the kind of answer that we 
 want in our endeavour to understand these 
 creatures better. Their development, their be- 
 haviour, and the correlation of their internal 
 activities, cannot be understood except on the 
 assumption that they are historical beings as 
 Bergson has so well insisted. 
 
 Here the scientific position, all too briefly in- 
 dicated, ends; but it is open to the philosopher to 
 go farther. All that we have said is that the 
 mechanistic formulation of living creatures does 
 not answer the distinctively biological questions, 
 but for some minds it is imperative to go farther. 
 Where Science ends Philosophy begins; and in 
 Dr. Hans Driesch's Science and Philosophy of the 
 Organism we have one of the finest recent illus- 
 trations of a welcome partnership of the two 
 disciplines. We need not attempt to discuss his 
 strenuously thought-out theory of Vitalism, the 
 point for us here is simply that after giving three 
 scientific proofs that the mechanistic theory will 
 not work, he goes on to a philosophical construc- 
 tion the conception of the "Entelechy" an im- 
 material autonomous factor which punctuates the 
 transformations of energy that go on within the 
 body. The "Entelechy" is the living creature's 
 innermost secret, its directive soul, and whether 
 Dr. Driesch has been successful or not, he has
 
 148 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 certainly been extraordinarily ingenious in evad- 
 ing the old criticism of crude views that the in- 
 f ynuated immaterial factor, if it is to be effectivej 
 must invalidate physico-chemical laws. 
 
 As an appendix to this brief discussion, we 
 wish to refer to the very strongly expressed con- 
 clusions of the most distinguished physicist of the 
 age Lord Kelvin. He was, indeed, no biologist, 
 but the opinions held by one of his intellectual 
 eminence claim our attention. He knew how far 
 his Physics could go. 
 
 "The only contribution of dynamics to theo- 
 retical biology is absolute negation of automatic 
 commencement or automatic maintenance of life." 
 
 "The opening of a bud, the growth of a leaf, 
 the astonishing development of beauty in a flower, 
 involve physical operations which completed 
 chemical science would leave as far beyond our 
 comprehension as the differences between lead 
 and iron, between water and carbonic acid, be- 
 tween gravitation and magnetism, are at present. 
 A tree contains more mystery of creative power 
 than the sun, from which all its mechanical energy 
 is borrowed. An earth without life, a sun, and 
 countless stars, contain less wonder than that 
 grain of mignonette." 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION. Let us select some instance 
 of animal behaviour and look at it from the 
 mechanist and vitalist point of view. We take a
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 149 
 
 vivid one the Migration of Eels, which has 
 been recently discussed in this connection by 
 Mr. E. S. Russell ("Vitalism," Rivista di Scienza, 
 April, 1911). It is a useful case, because the ani- 
 mal has a brain of a very low order, and we are 
 not warranted in using in regard to it the psycho- 
 logical terms which are indispensable in the case 
 of the more intelligent birds and mammals. 
 
 The eels of the whole of northern Europe prob- 
 ably begin their life below the 500-fathom line on 
 the verge of the Deep Sea away to the west of 
 Ireland and southward on the verge of the dark, 
 cold, calm, silent, plantless world of the abysses. 
 The young eel develops and starts in life, and 
 feeds and grows far below the surface, but the 
 early chapters of the life-history are still quite 
 obscure, and do not at present concern us. It 
 rises to the upper sunlit waters as a transparent, 
 sideways flattened, knife-blade-like larva, about 
 three inches in length, with no spot of colour 
 except in its eyes. It lives for many months in 
 this state known as a Leptocephalus expending 
 energy in gentle swimming, but taking no food. 
 It subsists on itself, and becomes shorter and 
 lighter, and cylindrical instead of flat. It is 
 gradually transformed into a glass-eel, about two 
 and a half inches long, like a knitting-needle in 
 girth. It moves towards the shores. After about 
 a year it is one of a million elvers passing up one
 
 150 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 of our rivers in the wonderful eel-fare which 
 is one of the sights of Spring. If it is not fortunate, 
 it may take much more than a year to reach the 
 feeding-ground those that ascend the rivers of 
 the eastern Baltic have journeyed over three 
 thousand miles. Eventually, however, a large 
 number do pass up the streams, and there is a 
 long period of feeding and growing in the slow- 
 flowing reaches and in fish-stocked ponds. There 
 is never any breeding in fresh water, but after 
 some years restlessness seizes the adults as it 
 seized the larvae a restlessness due to a repro- 
 ductive, not a nutritive motive. There is an 
 excited return journey to the sea and they don 
 wedding garments of silver as they go, and be- 
 come large of eye. They appear to migrate 
 hundreds of miles, often out into the Atlantic to 
 the verge of the Deep Sea, where, as far as we 
 know, the individual life ends in giving rise to 
 new lives. In no case is there any return. 
 
 We ask then what the Machine theory of Life 
 can make of a story like this, and it is only a type 
 of many. Let us keep to the second last chapter, 
 the migration to the spawning-grounds. Like 
 many other fishes, the eel requires specific condi- 
 tions of depth, salinity, and temperature. The 
 North Sea will not serve, for it is too shallow; 
 the Norwegian will not serve, for it is too cold. 
 
 What can the physiology that is only applied
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 151 
 
 physics and chemistry tell us? It can tell us how 
 the energy for the journey is obtained from 
 chemical explosions of reserve material in the 
 muscles of the eel's tail. It can tell us some of 
 the steps in the making of these reserve materials 
 out of the eel's food. It can tell us that the 
 muscles are kept rhythmically contracting by 
 nervous stimuli, and so on for a whole volume, 
 and yet it does not help us to understand the 
 migration to the spawning-grounds. To take 
 items in the process and reduce them (as far as 
 possible) to physical and chemical common denom- 
 inators, does not make any clearer the inter-con- 
 nection of all these items into the single act of 
 migration. Apply physico-chemical methods by 
 all means, the results are always of interest, but 
 the results are not useful in making the biological 
 fact of migration more intelligible. 
 
 Let us linger over the illustration, for it is 
 very instructive. As Russell says: "The migra- 
 tion is, so to speak, a fact of a higher order than 
 any physical or chemical fact, although it is made 
 up of an indefinitely large number of physical and 
 chemical facts. To explain the fact one must 
 accept it as a whole, not seek to conquer it by 
 dividing it, for if one analyses it into its com- 
 ponents one inevitably misses the bond of union. 
 . . . To decompose the act of migration into an 
 infinity of physico-chemical processes is to take
 
 152 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 an infinity of little partial views of the act, but 
 what one needs for an explanation of the fact is 
 a comprehensive view which will unite all the 
 relevant features of it into one picture. To the 
 chemist confronted with this problem there is no 
 fact of migration at all, there is only an intricate 
 enravelment of chemical reaction; to the biolo- 
 gist the fact of migration to a particular region 
 for a particular purpose is cardinal, and the 
 chemical processes involved in the action are 
 negligible." 
 
 But if the mechanistic account of the eel's 
 migration fails, is the vitalistic one any better? 
 Let us think of this for a little. The aim of biol- 
 ogy is not to give ultimate explanations, but to 
 render biological phenomena intelligible; and 
 that means to obtain general conceptions as to 
 their nature. We explain a thing biologically 
 when we relate it to some general fact or formula 
 of living things. 
 
 Therefore if pressed to make the story of the 
 eel less of a curiosity, we should ask to be allowed 
 to start with the concept of an organism with 
 certain at present irreducible qualities one of 
 the biggest of which is simply that it is an histori- 
 cal being. It is determined by the past its own 
 past and the past of its race. Its inheritance is 
 a treasure-store of the ages. Non-living things 
 have no history in the biological sense. The
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 153 
 
 hand of the past has left its impress on them, but 
 the living hand of the past is on the organism 
 for ever. In the organism, as Bergson says, the 
 past is prolonged into the present. Thus we pass 
 on to a new level of explanation or interpretation 
 which is historical. 
 
 And whenever we mention that the eel is one 
 of a deep-sea race which has adventurously 
 taken to colonizing the fresh waters just as 
 the salmon is one of a freshwater race which has 
 taken to exploiting the sea, and notice further 
 that animals in general return to their birthplace 
 to breed then at once a biological light begins 
 to be shed on the eel's strange story. 
 
 THE "SouL AND BODY" PROBLEM. No one 
 understands how living creatures began to be 
 in pre-Cambrian ages in a lifeless world, and 
 no one understands the innermost secret of their 
 activity. Similarly at a higher level: No one 
 understands how thinking creatures began to 
 be, nor understands what the innermost secret 
 of thinking is. But just as the scientific inquirer 
 has a contribution to make to the discussion of 
 the origin of life and the autonomy of the organ- 
 ism, so he has something to say in regard to the 
 perennial question of the relation between body 
 and mind, a question which is, however, essentially 
 metaphysical. 
 
 The scientific contribution is threefold:
 
 154 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 (a) In the first place, while we do not know of 
 any transitions between the not-living and the 
 living, we have a long inclined plane or a long 
 series of steps connecting the very simple reactions 
 of unicellular creatures with the intelligent be- 
 haviour of dogs and horses, and even with the 
 rational conduct of man. This inclined plane 
 or this staircase is very impressive, and must 
 have a bearing on the general problem. There 
 is a fascination in what may be called the begin- 
 nings of behaviour, illustrated by some of the 
 Infusorians. Their daily life seems as if it could 
 be summed up in a sentence. They have only 
 one answer to every question. To all sorts of 
 stimuli they respond in the same way by back- 
 ing off, turning slightly on one side, and then 
 going ahead again. They remind us of a steamer 
 in a river which knocks against a snag, reverses 
 engines, alters its direction a little, and then 
 steams ahead. This is surely the simplest kind 
 of behaviour, where there is only one reaction. 
 
 Slightly higher in the scale, but still very simple, 
 is the behaviour of some Protozoa which have a 
 number of reactions or responses to stimuli, and 
 seem to try one after the other until, it may be, 
 one succeeds. We do not know how much lies 
 concealed in that process of " seeming to try." We 
 know that it is different from the experimenting 
 of a scientist who tries various ways of solving
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 155 
 
 a problem; we know that ?t is different from the 
 experimenting of a burglar who tries which key 
 in a bunch will open a particular door; we know 
 that it is different from the experimenting of a 
 dog trying to take a stick with a hooked handle 
 through the close-set upright bars of a fence; we 
 know that it is different from the behaviour of 
 earthworms trying various ways of transporting 
 leaves to their burrows; but is it not the beginning 
 of the "trial by error" method, common to all 
 these instances? 
 
 (6) In the second place, the "genetic psycholo- 
 gist" has much to tell us of the individual develop- 
 ment of behaviour, of the gradual emergence of 
 capacities of action whether instinctive (involv- 
 ing apparently no inference), intelligent (involv- 
 ing apparently perceptual inference), or rational 
 (involving conceptual inference). Comparative 
 child-study in the wide sense, zoological as well 
 as anthropological, has surely some bearing on 
 the general question. 
 
 (c) In the third place, Science has much to 
 say in regard to the actual correlation between 
 the static and the dynamic aspects, between 
 structure and function. Complexity of brain 
 structure is associated with very intelligent 
 behaviour; increase in the complexity of brain 
 structure from year to year in the individual is 
 associated with increased capacity of intelligent
 
 156 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 behaviour; certain parts of the brain are corre- 
 lated with certain kinds of behaviour such as 
 speech; the health or the disease of the brain 
 is correlated withj the efficiency of behaviour. 
 There are numerous scientific data of this sort, 
 and they have nothing particular to do with 
 the metaphysical theory of "psycho-physical 
 parallelism." 
 
 The scientific inquirer tries to fight shy of 
 the metaphysical problem of the relation of 
 body and mind, but, of course, in vain. He 
 will hold to the unity of the organism (thus 
 making a metaphysical assumption), and it is 
 the behaviour of the creature that he will partic- 
 ularly study. He can watch the dog and de- 
 scribe its behaviour; he can make experiments 
 to test its alertness, its memory, its power of 
 inference, and so on. In the case of birds, whose 
 eggs can be hatched in the laboratory, he dis- 
 covers what capacities are inborn and what have 
 to be acquired by learning. He can do all this 
 without getting into difficulties over the relations 
 of the dog's body and the dog's mind. The biolo- 
 gist prefers to keep to the dog. In this practical 
 monism he is confirmed by the philosophers who 
 make it clear that "body" and "soul" are equally 
 abstractions. "The severance of the original 
 unity of experience into a physical and a psy- 
 chical aspect is entirely a product of our own
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 157 
 
 abstraction-making intellect. 'Body' and 'soul' 
 are not given actualities of experience, but arti- 
 ficial mental constructions of our own" (Taylor, 
 1903, p. 314). We are the realities, who pigeon- 
 hole for purposes of study our "mind" and our 
 "body." 
 
 The scientific inquirer may try to remain as 
 a student of "the original unity of his experience," 
 agnostically confronting one of the great mysteries 
 of the world, but as a man he soon strains at his 
 self-made tether. And he is likely to be soon 
 back at the old questions: Which is primary 
 the Brain or the Mind? Is the brain the instru- 
 ment or means, rather than the condition or 
 cause, of mental development? Do the bodily 
 changes form an unbroken causal series, some- 
 times associated with states of consciousness, 
 which are effects, but never causes? Or is there 
 a curious double series of cerebral events and 
 psychical events, running "parallel" (whatever 
 that may mean) but not causally connected? Or 
 are there two series of processes going on which 
 interact, causally influencing one another at 
 different points, sensation being a mental state 
 which has bodily processes (in the nervous stimu- 
 lation) among its immediate antecedents, and a 
 motor reaction similarly a bodily process with 
 mental antecedents (our will)? We need not go 
 farther: the scientific inquirer has landed in the
 
 158 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 discussion of the metaphysical theories of "epi- 
 phenomenalism," "parallelism " and " interaction." 
 Apart from frankly metaphysical specula- 
 tion, the possibilities are (1) to remain content 
 with an agnostic position, or (2) to push on the 
 scientific study yet farther. 
 
 (1) We may illustrate the first possibility by 
 a quotation from Huxley (1863): "I must ad- 
 here to what seems to my mind a simpler form 
 of notation i. e. to suppose that all phenomena 
 have the same substratum (if they have any), 
 and that soul and body, or mental and physical 
 phenomena, are merely diverse manifestations 
 of that hypothetical substratum. In this way, it 
 seems to me, I obey the rule which works so well 
 in practice, of always making the simplest possi- 
 ble suppositions." . . . "My fundamental axiom 
 of speculative philosophy is that materialism 
 and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same 
 absurdity the absurdity of imagining that we 
 know anything about either spirit or matter" 
 (Huxley, 1863). 
 
 (2) We may illustrate the second possibility 
 by a quotation from Prof. W. MacDougall: "We 
 observe a constant concurrence or concomitance 
 of events of the two orders the physical and the 
 psychical; and this constant concomitance leads 
 even the most unreflecting man to assume some 
 orderly relation between them. The fact of the
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 159 
 
 relation has therefore always been recognized 
 since men first began to reflect. But the nature 
 of this relation that so clearly obtains between the 
 physical and psychical worlds remained a sub- 
 ject of speculation only until long after the scien- 
 tific method has been applied with success to 
 each of these realms independently. In fact, it 
 was not until the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury that the scientific method was brought to 
 bear upon the problem of the nature of this 
 relation; and it was this, the application of the 
 scientific method to this problem, that led to 
 the development of that youngest branch of 
 science known as psycho-physics. 
 
 "For psycho-physics may be broadly defined 
 as the application of the scientific method to the 
 investigation of the relation between the psy- 
 chical and the physical. This step was taken, and 
 this new branch of Science was founded, by 
 Gustav Theodor Fechner, Professor of Physics 
 at Leipzig, with full consciousness of the nature 
 and importance of the step. In his celebrated 
 work, Elemente der Psycho-physik, published in 
 1860, Fechner says: 'By psycho-physics is to be 
 understood an exact study of the functional 
 relations, or relations of dependence, between 
 body and soul, or, in more general terms, between 
 the bodily and the mental, the physical and the 
 psychical worlds." (See MacDougall: "Psycho-
 
 160 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 physical Method," in Lectures on the Method of 
 Science, Oxford, 1906, p. 114.) 
 
 A QUESTION. In regard to "the soul and 
 body problem" and also in regard to "the secret 
 of the organism," some reader may be inclined 
 to press the following question: This discussion 
 of "the unity of the organism " and " the autonomy 
 of the organism " is all very well, but do you mean 
 that there is in the living creature more than 
 matter and energy, or not? To this and similar 
 questions the scientific answer must be that the 
 question is not rightly put. We do not know 
 what matter really is, nor what all the energies 
 of matter may be. What we do know is, that 
 physico-chemical formulae do not make the 
 living creature intelligible, and that we have 
 no warrant for asserting that the physical con- 
 cepts of "matter" and "energy," abstracted off 
 for special scientific purposes, exhaust the reality 
 of Nature. 
 
 We have known of a school where the distinc- 
 tive feature was solidarity, loyalty, and esprit 
 de corps. No one ever saw this esprit de corps, 
 but it was, in a way, the most real thing about 
 the school. So, though we may not be able to 
 understand it, the hierarchy of Nature is full of 
 illustrations, on an ever grander scale as we 
 ascend the series, of the fact that the whole may 
 be greater than the sum of its parts. Thus we
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 161 
 
 feel sure that organisms reveal a deeper aspect 
 of reality than crystals do, and that in this sense 
 there is more in the plant than in the crystal, 
 more in the animal than in the plant, more in 
 the bird than in the worm, more in man than in 
 them all. 
 
 Let us try to state our personal position in a 
 few words. With our biological prepossessions 
 it seems clear to us that students of science would 
 breathe more freely if they could rid themselves 
 of the influence of the hypothesis, so character- 
 istic of Kant, that there is but one science of 
 Nature and that the category of mechanism is 
 the only one we need. It seems to us that there 
 are several sciences of Nature, and that other 
 than mechanical categories are required in two 
 of these. 
 
 (1) There is the physical order of Nature 
 the inorganic world where mechanism reigns 
 supreme. (2) There is the vital order of Nature 
 the world of organisms where mechanism proves 
 insufficient. (3) There is the psychical order of 
 Nature the world of mind where mechanism 
 is irrelevant. Thus there are three fundamen- 
 tal sciences Physics, Biology, and Psychology 
 each with characteristic questions, categories and 
 formulae. 
 
 It is evident, indeed, that the physical order 
 overlaps the vital, for the life of the organism
 
 162 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 implies a succession of chemical and physical 
 processes. But, as we have seen, the life of the 
 organism also implies a co-ordination, a purposive- 
 ness, an individuality, a creative agency, a power 
 of trading with time, a history in all of which 
 it transcends mechanism. Similarly, both the 
 vital and the physical overlap the psychical with- 
 out, as we understand it, affecting the autonomy 
 of psychology. 
 
 Looking at the question historically, we recog- 
 nize that there was for millions of years, in the 
 development of the earth, only a physical order 
 as far as met the eye. That is to say, everything 
 (short of the origin of life) that happened during 
 these millions of years was capable of descrip- 
 tion in physico-chemical terms. These are so 
 " true to Nature" that just as we can predict the 
 return of a comet, so in many cases we can safely 
 speak of great events that occurred before there 
 was any life whatever upon the earth. It is quite 
 another matter, however, to say that physico- 
 chemical categories exhausted the reality of Nature 
 in these pre-organic days. Indeed, if life and 
 mind and man have evolved from the reality 
 which was physically describable as a nebula, we 
 may safely say that the physical description is 
 certainly not exhaustive. 
 
 In the same way, there were long ages, in the 
 evolution of organisms, during which (in addi-
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 163 
 
 tion to the physical) there was only a vital order. 
 No brains worthy of the name had yet been 
 differentiated, and everything might have been 
 described in biological terms, just as we may de- 
 scribe the ongoings of an amoeba or of a fresh- 
 water hydra. It is quite another matter, however, 
 to say that biological categories exhausted the 
 reality of animate Nature in these pre-mental 
 days. Indeed, if intelligent behaviour and hu* 
 man reason evolved from the reality which was 
 biologically describable as a number of simple 
 organisms, we may safely say that the biological 
 description is certainly not exhaustive. The 
 same holds good in regard to the development of 
 the individual human being. 
 
 In questions like this, which are perhaps be- 
 yond, the limits of human intelligence, diagrams 
 and metaphors are apt to do more harm than 
 good, but we might compare the order of Nature 
 which we study to a great fabric passing from the 
 loom of time with a pattern slowly changing as 
 the ages pass. It is woven of threads of different 
 colours which it is the business of the several 
 sciences to follow, unravelling the web. We 
 can well imagine that there are areas of fabric 
 in which certain threads seem to be absent, where, 
 indeed, their hidden presence may be ignored, 
 except in reference to further stretches of the web. 
 In the area that we call the physical order we
 
 164 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 can afford to act as if the only threads were 
 mechanical, but in truth it may be otherwise. 
 In the area which we call the biological order 
 the mechanical threads are continued, but they 
 are no longer dominant. In the area which we 
 call psychical the organic threads are continued, 
 but others form the pattern. As we pass from 
 inorganic to organic, from organic to psychical, 
 the mechanical warp becomes as it were less 
 important, and new aspects of Reality find freer 
 expression. But the metaphor is hopeless in its 
 suggestion of threads that are passively twisted 
 and interlaced. We have to think of living 
 threads, like those of some of the simplest 
 Protists which spin a changeful web. We have 
 to think of living threads that share in working 
 out the pattern of the web. 
 
 SUMMARY. The aim of Science is the descrip- 
 tion of facts, the aim of Philosophy their interpre- 
 tation. There is much need for critical Metaphysics 
 to function as a sublime Logic, testing the complete- 
 ness and consistency of scientific descriptions, 
 whether of things as they are or of the way in which 
 they have come to be. On the other hand, meta- 
 physics should not reach forward to its constructive 
 system without taking account of the raw material 
 which the sciences furnish. The scientific account 
 of things is self-limited by the nature of its descrip- 
 tions: Only in mechanics can we say " The Cause
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 165 
 
 is equal to the Effect," ifce terms of scientific de- 
 scription require themselves to be explained;) the 
 beginnings from which Science starts contain much 
 that is "given" or taken for granted; the terms of 
 scientific descriptions are "conceptual formulae." 
 Before problems such as the origin of living creatures 
 upon the earth, the secret of the organism, the rela- 
 tion of soul and body, Science and Philosophy 
 must meet. Science offers certain contributions to 
 the discussion and must then remain qua Science 
 agnostic. To most minds it seems imperative to 
 go on to metaphysical theory, and it is better to do 
 this frankly and deliberately than unconsciously 
 or at random.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 
 
 "For double the vision my eyes do see, 
 And a double vision is always with me: 
 With my inward eye 'tis an old man grey, 
 With my outward a thistle across my way." 
 
 BLAKE. 
 
 Inter-relations of Science' and Art ^Esthetics Man's Emo- 
 tional Relation to Nature Fundamental Impressions of 
 Nature Nature more than a Mirror Raw Materials 
 of Poetry Opposition between Science and Feeling 
 Summary. 
 
 INTER-RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND ART. 
 The connection of the Sciences with the arts and 
 crafts is well known, but it is generally supposed 
 that Science and Art (both with very large capi- 
 tals) are as the poles asunder. And this in spite 
 of the "Science and Art" Department an$ its 
 examinations, so familiar thirty years ago! 
 
 Of a truth, however, the ideal which these 
 expressed, perhaps not always wisely or well, 
 was a sound one, for Science and Art have close 
 relations. In the first place, there is a scientific
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 167 
 
 jjitudy of aesthetics, a psychology of^Art a sub- 
 ject ^o~HfficIirrtEat we cannot do more than refer 
 to it here. In the second place, it is certain, though 
 rarely realized, that Science has precious gifts 
 to place in the hands of Art that she may fashion 
 tfiem magically into beautyT Science has enor- 
 mous^ treasure-caves full of what we cannot but 
 describe as the raw materials of poetry. And just 
 as the famous painter told his questioner that he 
 mixed his colours "with brains," so it is beyond 
 doubt that Science, with its subtle revelations 
 of the order of Nature, may ^njianee ^yen the 
 artist's visions. In the third place, in spite of 
 what we have just said, there is a very interesting 
 opposition between the two moods. They may 
 help one another, but^ when one isjnjthe saddle 
 it must keep the other at a spear's length. 
 
 "There is anether'pdssible relation between 
 Science and Art which well deserves to be thought 
 over. Is it not the case that in its higher reaches 
 Science often becomes artistic? Thus Mr. Bran- 
 ford writes 
 
 "Routine-skill, scientific skill, and artistic 
 skill form an ascending series of human power 
 and activity. For true art, in whatever occupa- 
 tion it may be developed, is the final and highest 
 expression of our whole character, powers, and 
 personality whether the artist be a handicrafts- 
 man or a headcraftsman, or both. Above and
 
 168 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 beyond their scientific skill, all great scientists 
 possess much of this artistic skill, the very por- 
 tion, indeed, of their experience and experimenting 
 which they themselves never fully understand, 
 though the source of their greatest discoveries, 
 and which, essentially incommunicable, necessarily 
 dies with the possessor" (Branford, 1904, p. 12). 
 ^ESTHETICS. As we have indicated, it is be- 
 yond our power in this short Introduction to do 
 more than refer to the interesting study called 
 aesthetics. It inquires into the characteristics 
 of that familiar experience which we call enjoy- 
 ing Nature or Art, and of the rarer experience of 
 productive artists. It asks such questions as 
 the following: How does the sense of beauty 
 differ from other states? The pleasure that we 
 get from music or from the silence that is in the 
 starry sky, from the restless sea eternally new or 
 from the sleep that is among the lonely hills; 
 how does it differ from other pleasures? What 
 is the meaning of those sensations that follow 
 changes in breathing, circulation, and the like, 
 when we enjoy beautiful scenery and music? 
 What gives aesthetic pleasure its peculiar quality 
 of "relative permanency," a thing of beauty 
 being "a joy for ever" though we never see it 
 again? What can be known of the "artistic 
 instinct" or of the artist's creativeness? How 
 is the art-instinct linked to the play-instinct?
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 169 
 
 What have been the factors in the evolution of 
 Art? 
 
 It goes without saying that aesthetics has its 
 philosophical as well as its scientific side, and we 
 may perhaps best illustrate the former in a brief 
 space by quoting the views of a leading sesthe- 
 tician on the relations of the True and the Good 
 and the Beautiful. Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall 
 suggests that "the Beautiful is the Real as dis- 
 covered in the world of impression; the relatively 
 permanent pleasure which gives us the sense of 
 beauty being the most stable characteristic of 
 those parts of the field of impression which inter- 
 est us." He proposes the following scheme 
 
 THE REAL 
 
 or 
 
 THE TRUE 
 
 (in the broad 
 
 sense of the 
 
 term). 
 
 The Real of Impression 
 The Beautiful. 
 
 The Real of Expression 
 The Good 
 
 The Real in Realms exclu- 
 sive of a and /3 The True 
 (in the narrower sense of 
 the term). 
 
 MAN'S EMOTIONAL RELATION TO NATURE. 
 It is part of "man's chief end" not only to know 
 Nature which is Science, but to enjoy her for 
 ever. We are men of feeling, and Nature speaks 
 to our heart, though we are not fond, unless we
 
 170 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 are poets, of saying much about it. But we listen 
 with gladness, with awe, sometimes, perhaps, 
 with fear, surely always with wonder. The 
 grandeur of the star-strewn sky, the mystery of 
 the mountains, the sea eternally new, the way of 
 the eagle in the air, the meanest flower that blows 
 somewhere, sometime, somehow, every one con- 
 fesses with emotion, "This is too wonderful for 
 me." When we consider the abundance of 
 power in the world, the immensities, the intri- 
 cacy and vitality of everything, the wealth of 
 sentient life, the order that persists amid inces- 
 sant change, the vibrating web of inter-relations, 
 the thousand and one fitnesses, the evolutionary 
 progress that is like "the unity of an onward 
 advancing melody," and the beauty that is 
 through and through, we are convinced that 
 our wonder is reasonable. 
 
 As we come to know Nature better, we find 
 that everything is equally wonderful if we know 
 enough about it, for, as Meredith says, with his 
 wonted insight: "You of any well that springs, 
 may unfold the heaven of things." As Whitman 
 says 
 
 "A leaf of grass is no less than the journey- 
 work of the stars, 
 
 And the ant is equally perfect, and the grain 
 of sand, and the egg of the wren,
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 171 
 
 And the tree-toad is a masterpiece for the 
 
 highest, 
 And the running blackberry would adorn the 
 
 parlours of heaven, 
 And the narrowest hinge on my hand puts to 
 
 scorn all machinery, 
 And the cow crunching with depressed head 
 
 surpasses any statue, 
 And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger 
 
 sextillions of infidels." 
 
 As we begin to feel at home in Nature, our 
 wonder grows into delight and what may almost 
 be called affection. This is true of those who 
 have what Meredith called "love exceeding a 
 simple love of the things that glide in grasses and 
 rubble of woody wreck." In many ways we are 
 drawn close to Nature by emotional cords which 
 we sever at our peril. 
 
 Historical inquiry shows that in the culture of 
 the mood which dominates the man of feeling 
 there have been two great schools human life 
 itself and Nature. It is evident that without 
 schooling in the human drama, with its joys and 
 sorrows, achievements and failures, Man would 
 have made much less of Nature emotionally. 
 One may go farther and say that without age- 
 long schooling in the Humanities, Man would 
 have made much less of Nature. On the other
 
 172 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 hand, from the first till to-day schooling in Nature 
 has deepened humane feeling, as many of the 
 poets have confessed; and our position is that 
 schooling in Nature has been and remains an 
 essential part of the discipline of the developing 
 human spirit. Think of the past for a moment. 
 
 Man was cradled in Nature and brought up 
 in close contact with Nature, and the influences 
 of Nature have supplied the raw materials of, 
 perhaps, half the poetry and art in the world. 
 From language and literature, from religion and 
 rites, and from what may be seen still among 
 simple peoples, it seems certain that the influences 
 of Nature took a very firm grip of Man in the 
 making. Very largely, perhaps, in a half-con- 
 scious way, just as in our own childhood, but 
 none the less firmly. The poet tells us of the 
 child who went forth every day, and what the 
 child saw became part of him for a day, or for 
 years, or for stretching cycles of years; and what 
 is true of the individual has been equally true of 
 the race. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL IMPRESSIONS OF NATURE. It 
 is unlikely that the impressions borne in on 
 our early ancestors were essentially different 
 from those that come to us, though the particular 
 form and colour of the impression must vary 
 from age to age. What, then, are the essential 
 impressions? When we reflect on this in the
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 173 
 
 silence of a starry night, or in the bewilderment 
 of a storm, or in the detachment of mid-ocean, 
 or with the exalted feeling that rewards a long 
 climb, we recognize various elements which com- 
 bine in the complex feeling of Wonder. 
 
 First, there comes to us a sense of the world- 
 power, its dynamic a sense of the powers that 
 make our whole solar system travel in space 
 toward an unknown goal, that keep our earth 
 together and whirling round the sun, that sway 
 the tides and rule the winds, that mould the dew- 
 drop and build the crystal, that clothe the lily 
 and give us energy for every movement and 
 every thought in short, that keep the whole 
 system of things agoing. Looking at radium- 
 containing rock and the like with modern spec- 
 tacles, we get a glimpse of the powers like 
 charmed genii that may be imprisoned in the 
 apparently inert dust. Even more vividly to 
 some of us there comes a sense of the power 
 of life so abundant, so insurgent, so creative. 
 "The narrowest hinge on my hand puts to scorn 
 all machinery"; a fire-fly is a much more eco- 
 nomical light-producer than an arc-lamp; a fish 
 is a far more efficient engine than those which 
 move a steamship; and an invisible pinch of 
 microbes could kill all of us in a few hours. 
 
 Secondly, there comes to us a feeling of the 
 immensities. It was a red-letter day in our child-
 
 174 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 hood when we first climbed to the summit and 
 saw over the hills and far away strath beyond 
 strath, and then the sea; and the simple, open 
 mind has always been impressed with the "big- 
 ness" of Nature, with the apparently boundless 
 and unfathomable sea, by the apparently un- 
 ending plains, by the mountains whose tops are 
 lost in the clouds, by the expanse of the heavens. 
 And even when we take the sternest modern 
 science for our pilot precise and cautious to a 
 degree we find that we are sailing in a practi- 
 cally infinite ocean. For leagues and leagues 
 beyond there is always more sea. 
 
 Thirdly, there comes a sense of pervading order. 
 Probably this began at the very dawn of human 
 reason when man first discovered the year with 
 its magnificent object-lesson of regularly recur- 
 rent sequences, and it has been growing ever since. 
 Doubtless the early forms that this perception 
 of order took referred to somewhat obvious uni- 
 formities; but is there any essential difference 
 between realizing the orderliness of moons and 
 tides, of seasons and migrations, and discovering 
 Bode's law of the relations of the planets, or Men- 
 deleeff's "Periodic Law" of the relations of the 
 atomic weights of the chemical elements? 
 
 Fourthly, there comes to us a feeling of the 
 universal flux, in spite of which order persists. 
 As Heraclitus said, iravra pet, all things are in
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 175 
 
 flux. "The rain falls; the springs are fed; the 
 streams are filled and flow to the sea; the mist 
 rises from the deep and the clouds are formed, 
 which break again on the mountain side. The 
 plant captures air, water, and salts, and, with 
 the sun's aid, builds them up by vital alchemy 
 into the bread of life, incorporating this into 
 itself. The animal eats the plant; and a new in- 
 carnation begins. All flesh is grass. The animal 
 becomes part of another animal, and the reincar- 
 nation continues." Finally, if we can use such 
 a word, the silver cord of the bundle of life is 
 loosed, and earth returns to earth. The microbes 
 of decay break down the dead, and there is a 
 return to air and water and salts. All things 
 flow. It may be that the old naturalists had not 
 such a vivid conception of the circulation of mat- 
 ter as we have to-day, but the essential idea is 
 certainly ancient. 
 
 Perhaps we have said enough to illustrate this 
 part of our simple argument (which we have 
 developed further in The Bible of Nature, 1908) 
 that there are certain inevitable and fundamental 
 impressions borne in on man by Nature which 
 have meant much to man throughout the ages, 
 which are strengthened, not weakened, by modern 
 science. They have not changed in their essen- 
 tial character since ancient days, but they have 
 become deeper and more subtle the impressions
 
 176 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 of power, of immensity, of order, and of flux. 
 These are probably the most widespread and 
 fundamental impressions, but every open-eyed 
 observer to-day has doubtless others that have 
 meant much to him in the way both of stimulus 
 and of mental furniture. 
 
 There is the impression of wealth, exuberance, 
 and manifoldness. Star differs from star in glory 
 and their numbers are beyond reckoning; every 
 mountain, every stream, has its individuality; 
 there are over eighty different kinds of chemical 
 elements; the number of minerals is legion; there 
 are four hundred and forty-two species of birds 
 in the list for the small islands of Great Britain 
 and Ireland; and there is many a class of animals 
 that has far more different species than we see of 
 stars on a clear night. 
 
 An allied impression is that of intricacy. As 
 President Jordan says, "The simplest organism 
 we know is far more complex than the consti- 
 tution of the United States." The body of an 
 ant is many times more intricate visibly intri- 
 cate than a steam-engine; its brain, as Darwin 
 said, is perhaps the most marvellous speck of 
 matter in the universe. The physicists tell us 
 that the behaviour of hydrogen gas makes it 
 necessary to suppose that an atom of it must 
 have a constitution as complex as a constellation, 
 with about eight hundred separate corpuscles.
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 177 
 
 Another impression of a basal sort is that the 
 world is a network of inter-relations. Nature 
 is a vast system of linkages. There is a corre- 
 lation of organisms in Nature comparable to the 
 correlation of organs in our body. There is a 
 web of life. Cats are connected with the clover 
 crop, rats with plague, earthworms with our food- 
 supply, the spring sunshine with mackerel. The 
 face of Nature is like the surface of a gently 
 flowing stream, where hundreds of dimpling 
 circles touch and influence one another in an 
 intricate complexity of action and reaction beyond 
 the ken of the wisest. 
 
 These impressions of manifoldness, of intri- 
 cacy, of inter-relatedness are relatively modern, 
 as is also a sense of the crowning wonder of the 
 world, that the succession of events has been in 
 the main progressive. What we more or less 
 dimly discern in the long past is not like the 
 succession of patterns in a kaleidoscope; it is 
 rather like the sequence of stages in the individual 
 development of a plant or an animal stages 
 whose import is disclosed more and more fully 
 as the development goes on. It is not a phan- 
 tasmagoric procession that the history of animate 
 Nature revels: it is a drama. As Lotze said, 
 there is "the unity of an onward-advancing 
 melody." 
 
 NATURE MORE THAN A MIRROR. We are
 
 178 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 seeking to suggest that there are a number of 
 strong impressions borne in on man by Nature 
 which have formed and should continue to form 
 the raw materials of poetry and the impulses of 
 other forms of art. But before continuing this 
 simple argument, we must pause for a moment 
 to protest against the not uncommon heresy that 
 Nature is man's creation! We are told that 
 Nature has no suggestions of her own, that what 
 we see in Nature depends on the arts that have 
 already influenced us, that Wordsworth found 
 in stones the sermons which he had himself hidden 
 there. 
 
 But this seems to us an extreme subjectivism. 
 It is indeed the function of Art to read into 
 Nature, but the impressions which we have been 
 discussing have scientific validity. And if it be 
 urged that it is difficult to free even science from 
 anthropomorphism, as has been illustrated in the 
 volume on EVOLUTION in this Library, we should 
 answer that this applies rather to theoretical 
 interpretations than to the great data of expe- 
 rience. When a scientific impression is really 
 sound, it is not something that may be accepted 
 or rejected as one will, it does not depend on 
 individual outlook, it stands the test of veri- 
 fiability by all normal intelligences. 
 
 RAW MATERIALS OF POETRY. Our argument, 
 then, is this, that the fundamental impressions
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 179 
 
 of Nature, some of which we have indicated, 
 have scientific validity. They are borne in on 
 man and not artistically projected from him. 
 They are cumulative syntheses of facts of expe- 
 rience, and some of -them, though varying in form 
 and colour from age to age, are very ancient. 
 They have never"ceased to supply the raw mate- 
 rials of poetry. Demonstrably, indeed, a large 
 part of the world's poetry from Homer to Tenny- 
 son, from the Nature-Psalms to Meredith, has 
 been saturated with their influence. 
 
 In ancient days there were those who knew 
 Nature well and loved her well, who felt that 
 while they could discover certain secrets that 
 cleared their outlook and made for practical 
 advantage, yet there remained much that was 
 elusive and mysterious. So they did what Man 
 has always done, they used art to express their 
 feeling of Nature's powers and immensities, of 
 the pervading order amid a restless flux. For 
 instance, they fashioned what we sometimes 
 call Fairy Tales, many of which are artistic 
 expressions of very sound science. Many of them, 
 for instance, reveal a very penetrating insight 
 into the gist of natural phenomena, especially 
 of the march of the seasons. Let us take one 
 instance. 
 
 "There was Dornroschen, the Sleeping Beauty 
 (our fair Earth), wounded by a spindle (the
 
 180 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 frost of winter), who slumbered, as the seeds do, 
 but did not die. One after another strove, so 
 the story runs, to win a way through the barriers 
 which encircled the place of her sleeping, but at 
 length the Prince and Master came, to whom all 
 was easy the Sunshine of the first spring day; 
 and as he kissed the Sleeping Beauty, all the 
 buglers blew, both high and low, the cawing rooks 
 on the trees, and the croaking frogs by the pond, 
 each according to his strength and skill. All 
 through the palace there was reawakening: of 
 the men-at-arms, whether bears or hedgehogs; 
 of the night watchmen, known to us as bats; even 
 of the carpet sweepers, like dormice and hamsters 
 all were reawakened. The messengers went 
 forth with the news, the dragon-flies like living 
 flashes of light, the bustling humble-bees refresh- 
 ing themselves at the willow catkins by the way, 
 the moths flying softly by night." 
 
 If these are not good interpretations, there are 
 other exegeses to choose from. (See Frazer's 
 Golden Bough and our Biology of the Seasons, 
 1911.) 
 
 Fine as are the old Nature myths and fairy 
 tales, it seems obvious that each age should make 
 its own, if it can. And the possibility depends on 
 two things. First, on keeping close to the funda- 
 mentals, sojourning with Nature, for it is touching 
 and handling that counts; listening to sounds,
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 181 
 
 not to echoes of sounds; experiencing day and 
 night, summer and winter, cold and heat, not 
 simply reading about them. "Nur was dufuhlst, 
 das ist dein Eigenthum." "Only what you feel 
 is your very own." And second, on enriching 
 the mind with the results of science, with its 
 fresh facts, its new outlooks, its revised laws. 
 Only thus may there arise a new Nature-poesy 
 a new heaven and a new earth such as each gener- 
 ation has a right to make for itself. 
 
 What an emotional asset, for instance, in the 
 facts regarding the Earth's relation to the Sun 
 which is its "mother-country"! "All energy is 
 a transformation of the sun, the logs which feed 
 our hearths are warehoused from the sun, the 
 locomotive moves by an effect due to that power 
 of the sun which has been lying dormant for ages 
 in the subterreanean beds of coal, the horse draws 
 its strength from crops which are also produced 
 by the sun," and so the familiar story runs to 
 water-mills and windmills and how much more 
 all owing their power to the sun. 
 
 The emotional assets furnished by astronomy 
 are well known. They are so great that we can 
 well understand the poet's conviction that "the 
 undevout astronomer is mad." We have referred 
 to the immensities of Nature, but better than big 
 words is the picture in the volume on ASTRONOMY 
 in this Library. "Imagine a model in which the
 
 182 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 sun is represented by a grain of sand one-hun- 
 dredth of an inch in diameter, and the earth 
 by a quite invisible speck one inch away. Upon 
 this scale the nearest star will be another grain 
 of sand some four miles away." . . . The sun 
 would take at his present speed in space some 
 seventy thousand years to reach his nearest 
 neighbour. . . . "Despite the richness of the 
 sky, the emptiness of space is its most striking 
 characteristic. ' ' 
 
 The great concepts of physics such as the 
 law of gravitation, the luminiferous ether, and 
 the conservation of energy are assets in the life 
 of feeling. "In accordance with the conception 
 of the conservation of energy there is no real 
 cessation of energy motion, there is only an 
 alteration hi its mode; thus the sum total remains 
 for ever the same, one mode changing to another 
 without any energy ceasing or being lost in the 
 transformation." And speaking of this, Prof. 
 Gotch continues: "Such an imaginative flight 
 is far beyond all sense experience. To the thought 
 of a scientific man the universe, with all its suns 
 and worlds, is throughout one seething welter of 
 modes of motion, playing in space, playing in the 
 ether, playing in all existing matter, playing in 
 all living things, playing, therefore, in ourselves. 
 Now locked together in more intimate embrace, 
 potential energy, now unlocked and streaming as
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 183 
 
 kinetic energy through space, continually alter- 
 nating between these two settings, this eternal 
 motion never ceases, is never dissipated, and is 
 never recreated; it simply exists. The concep- 
 tion thrills the imagination like a poem" (Gotch, 
 1906, p. 55). 
 
 One of the great changes in modern intellectual 
 development has been the transition from a 
 static to a dynamic way of looking at things. 
 What began in astronomy spread to geology and 
 thence to biology, and now every science owns to 
 the change. The subject-matter is considered 
 in its becoming, in its present activity, and as in 
 process of evolution. Everything is seen "in the 
 light of evolution." And this familiar intellec- 
 tual transition has given a thrill to art. 
 
 Again, it is well known that modern progress 
 in chemistry and physics has given us a much 
 more vital conception of what has been labelled 
 or libelled as "dead matter." To speak of inert 
 matter, at any rate, is an anachronism. We 
 believe that every one who feels something of the 
 witchery and mystery of precious stones will 
 admit that his vision is illumined and intensified 
 by what modern science has to tell of the internal 
 activity or "life" of jewels. 
 
 And, again, it is characteristic of at least a 
 large school of modern biologists that they assert 
 the autonomy of then* science and the transcen-
 
 184 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 dence of life over mechanism. We cannot give a 
 mechanical interpretation of an animate system 
 that in some mysterious way is more than the 
 sum of its parts, that has unified effective be- 
 haviour from the start, that has experience and 
 profits by it, that has a history behind it and 
 never ceases itself to trade with time. Thus the 
 Neo-Vitalists have made a home for the Dryad, 
 which some of them think they have even demon- 
 strated. With a suitable constituency of serious 
 students, the severer the biological discipline is 
 the more vital do things become. The old wood- 
 man who planted and tended his tree often had 
 an almost personal or parental interest in his 
 charge; the modern forester may lose this with 
 the change in the world's pace, but there comes 
 to him instead, in proportion as he knows his 
 business, a vision of the tree translucent, with its 
 intricate architecture and its intense life. "The 
 Dryad, living and breathing, moving and sensi- 
 tive, is again within the tree." 
 
 Let us collect a few Natural History illustra- 
 tions. Many voyagers across the Atlantic have 
 watched the sun set in the water, lingering for a 
 minute or two like a ball of fire balanced on the 
 tight string of the horizon, and have waited after- 
 wards till it was quite dark except for the stars 
 and the "phosphoresence" a multitude of glow- 
 ing suns above and a greater multitude of gleam-
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 185 
 
 ing animalcules below! There is a cascade of 
 sparks at the prow, a stream of sparks all along 
 the water level, a welter of sparks in the wake, and 
 even where the waves break there is fire. So it 
 goes on for miles and hours the luminescence 
 of the rapid burning away of pinhead-like crea- 
 tures, so numerous that a tubful contains more 
 of them than there are people in London and New 
 York together. This is just one of a thousand 
 vways of feeling the abundance of life. 
 
 Many have enjoyed one of the great pleasures 
 in life, that of crossing an Alpine pass of moderate 
 height, where we get near the lasting snows and 
 are among the bare, inhospitable rocks. There 
 is much to enjoy the air, the near peaks and 
 glaciers, and the distant view. But many must 
 have received another impression of the insur- 
 gent nature of life. Not only are there many 
 beautiful flowers coming up at the thinned edge 
 of the snow on most inhospitable ground, but 
 there is a rich insect life and quite a number of 
 birds, besides hundreds of things unseen. Very 
 conspicuous are the large, white-bellied Alpine 
 swifts, perhaps the most rapid of all birds in 
 their flight, continually swirling about in the cold 
 air, with a note of victory in their cry, the very 
 emblems of insurgent life. Shy marmots whistle 
 among the rocks and strange flocks of white moths 
 float up in the mist, rising like the souls of animals
 
 186 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 that have died far below. Everything is unpropi- 
 tious, yet life is abundant; we feel what Berg- 
 son calls the elan, the spring, the impetus that 
 is characteristic of livingness. We feel the in- 
 surgent, indomitable, self-assertive character of lie- 
 ing organisms, something foreign to the purely 
 physical. 
 
 On the links, perhaps nearer home for most of 
 us, the whole surface of the grass is sometimes 
 covered for acres with threads of gossamer. If 
 we bend down we see the earth quivering as far 
 as the eye can reach. In some of the hollows 
 still unsunned, we see what R. L. Stevenson meant 
 by "the fairy wheels and threads of cobwebs 
 dew-bediamonded." When the sun catches the 
 quivering threads, the silvery robe changes to 
 one of gold. Who can see this without thinking 
 of Goethe's words about Nature: "She moves 
 and works above and beneath, working and weav- 
 ing, an endless motion, birth and death, an infi- 
 nite ocean, a changeful web, a glowing life." The 
 beauty of it is increased, not decreased, if we 
 happen to know a little about the natural history 
 of gossamer, for most of these threads are the 
 residues of the ballooning activity of thousands 
 of small spiders. The sight as we see it is a good 
 emblem of the intricacy of the web of life. 
 
 Three examples are as good as three hundred, 
 for what we mean is simple enough. Whether
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 187 
 
 we watch the literal myriads of starlings circling 
 over one of their favourite resorts, resembling 
 from a mile off the thick smoke writhing over a 
 crater, or a swarm of locusts darkening the sky 
 with a thick curtain of wings, we feel the abun- 
 dance of life. When we watch the flying fishes 
 rising in hundreds before the prow of the steamer, 
 like grasshoppers before us as we walk through a 
 rich meadow; or the storm-petrels flying over the 
 waves with dangling feet, never touching land 
 except to nest; or the salmon leaping the falls; 
 or the elvers on then* journey upstream; we feel 
 the insurgence of life. When we gaze at the cut 
 stem of a huge American Sequoia, whose annual 
 rings show us that it was a sapling a few years 
 after the fall of Rome, we are in the presence of 
 another form of the Will to Live. And what 
 shall we say of the emotional value of looking 
 backward over the history of organisms, to see 
 life slowly creeping upwards through the ages, 
 adapting itself to every niche of opportunity, 
 expressing itself with increasing freedom and 
 fulness, with more and more emergence of Mind? 
 Wherever we turn in our Natural History we 
 are brought up against the abundance, the insur- 
 gence, the effectiveness, the intricacy, and the 
 mystery of life in all of which, in addition to 
 the great gift of unsolved problems, there is 
 unstinted food for fancy, an unending supply of
 
 188 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the raw materials of poetry, and a continual 
 reinvigoration of those primary and fundamental 
 Nature impressions without which we cannot 
 really make our heritage our own. And when 
 what Science gives us is transfigured by Art, 
 then if we may wrest a little the words of an 
 artistic genius: "The very aspect of the world 
 will change to our startled eyes. . . . Dragons 
 will wander about in waste places, and the phoe- 
 nix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. 
 We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk and see 
 the jewel in the toad's head. Champing his 
 gilded oats, the hippogriff will stand in our stalls, 
 and over our heads will float the blue-bird singing 
 of beautiful and impossible things, of things that 
 are lovely and that never happen, of things that 
 are not and that should be." 
 
 OPPOSITION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND FEELING. 
 We have been trying to suggest, indirectly 
 rather than formally, that Science and Art are 
 complementary. Science has a great deal to offer 
 to Art in the way of raw materials, and these 
 of a kind that Art is ennobled in working with 
 them. On the other hand, Science is cold with- 
 out Art. But while this is so, it cannot be denied 
 that the artistic and the scientific mood are 
 in some measure opposed. There is an antithesis 
 which easily becomes an antipathy between 
 them. The reason for this is obvious: Science
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 189 
 
 aims at being unemotional and impersonal; Art 
 is intrinsically emotional and personal. 
 
 We have spoken of the pleasure which Man has 
 in the contemplation and study of Nature, but 
 it must be granted that the scientific mood often 
 intrudes on our delight, elbowing us away from 
 the emotional window. Yet the end is always 
 that the window is widened. Darwin once ex- 
 pressed the delight he had when on a rare occa- 
 sion he surrendered himself under the trees to 
 the child's pleasure of just watching the birds 
 and insects and all the rest, without vexing him- 
 self for once over the problems of origin. But how 
 he has widened the emotional window for man- 
 kind, for all who feel the grandeur of the evolu- 
 tion-idea! 
 
 Keats could not forgive Newton for robbing 
 mankind of the wonder of the rainbow, but 
 when minor mysteries disappear, greater mysteries 
 stand confessed. Science never destroys wonder, 
 but only shifts it, higher and deeper. When the 
 half-Gods go, the Gods arrive, to the aesthetic 
 as well as to the religious mood. For it is our 
 experience that there is always something finer, 
 higher, grander than we saw at first. Should 
 we not get back oftener to the emotional reali- 
 zation of height above height, which is expressed 
 in Emerson's picture of the little child looking 
 up through the maple branches?
 
 190 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 "Over his head were the maple buds, 
 And over the tree was the moon, 
 And over the moon were the starry studs 
 That drop from the angels' shoon." 
 
 Our general position is a very simple one. We 
 are enthusiastic believers in the value of Science 
 in furnishing descriptive formulae which facili- 
 tate both our intellectual and our practical grasp 
 of Nature. But we do not feel that the general- 
 izations of Science are by themselves satisfying 
 to us. Rightly or wrongly we share the ordinary 
 human longing for explanations, and we are not 
 affected by being told that it is an unhealthy 
 appetite. We believe that nature-poetry and 
 religious feeling are alike complementary to 
 Science. Both aim at getting beyond Science by 
 other methods, intuitive and instinctive rather 
 than intellectual and we do not think that they 
 fail. 
 
 SUMMARY. There are three relations between 
 Science and Art: (1) there is a scientific study of 
 (esthetics; (2) Science has enormous stores of what 
 may be called the raw materials of Art; and (3) 
 there is an interesting psychological opposition 
 between the two moods. ^Esthetics is a psychological 
 science which inquires into the characteristics of 
 that familiar experience which we catt enjoying 
 Nature or Art, and of the rarer experience of pro-
 
 SCIENCE AND ART 191 
 
 ductive artists. Man's emotional relation to Nature 
 is primal and fundamental. The fundamental and 
 ancient impressions are of the world-power, of the 
 immensities, of the pervading order, and of the 
 universal flux. To these modern science has added 
 impressions of manifoldness, intricacy, inter-related- 
 ness, and evolution. Nature is more than a mirror 
 of our moods; the fundamental impressions are 
 impersonal. While they have scientific validity, 
 they are hardly less important in supplying the 
 raw materials of poetry. Yet there is undoubted 
 opposition between the scientific and the artistic 
 mood; when either is in the saddle it must keep the 
 other at a spear's length.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 
 
 "Have a glimpse of incomprehensibles; and 
 thoughts of things which thoughts but tenderly 
 touch. Lodge immaterials in thy head; ascend 
 into invisibles; fill thy spirit with spirituals, 
 with the mysteries of faith, the magnalities of 
 religion, and thy life with the honour of God." 
 Sm THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 The Aim of Science and the Attitude of Religion From 
 Practical Problems to Religion From Emotional Strain 
 to Religion From the Riddles of the Universe to Religion 
 The Voices of Nature The Conflict between Science 
 and Religion Herbert Spencer's Position Contributions 
 of Science to Religion Summary. 
 
 MUCH has been written on the relations be- 
 tween Science and Religion, and the history of 
 the so-called conflict between them is long. What 
 we propose to do in this short chapter is to explain 
 a certain point of view which appears to us to 
 make for clearness of thought. Our view is that 
 Science and Religion are incommensurables, that 
 there is no true antithesis between them. Let 
 us explain. 
 
 192
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 193 
 
 THE AIM OF SCIENCE AND THE ATTITUDE OF 
 RELIGION. As we have already seen, the aim 
 of Science is to discover the general laws of what 
 goes on, to formulate the sequences in the simplest 
 possible terms, terms which are either the im- 
 mediate data of experience or verifiably derived 
 from these. It has a definite aim, which is to 
 describe things as they are and as they have been, 
 and to discover the laws of all processes; it has 
 definite methods of observation and experiment; 
 it has its own "universe of discourse" which does 
 not include transcendental concepts and offers no 
 ultimate explanations. 
 
 We cannot define Religion, but we use the 
 word to include all recognition whether practi- 
 cal, emotional, or intellectual of an independent 
 spiritual reality. It is evidently something alto- 
 gether different from Science; it is beyond the 
 high tide-mark of everyday emotion and it is oil 
 the far side of intellectual curiosity. 
 
 JR^digip^impliea a Tealiaatien^of^a higher order 
 of things than those of sense-experience, arioTit 
 has the usual three sides of feeling, intellectual 
 conviction, and activity. "Religion," said Prof. 
 James, "has meant many things in human history. 
 ... I use the word in the supernaturalist sense, 
 as declaring that the so-called order of nature, 
 which constitutes this world's experience, is only 
 one portion of the total universe, and that there
 
 194 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 stretches beyond this visible world an unseen 
 world of which we now know nothing positive, 
 but in its relation to which the true significance 
 of our present mundane life consists. A man's 
 religious faith (whatever more special items of 
 doctrine it may involve) means for me essentially 
 his faith in the existence of an unseen order of 
 some kind in which the riddles of the natural 
 order may be found explained" (The Will to 
 Believe, 1903, p. 51). Prof. A. E. Taylor writes: 
 "Specifically religious emotion, as we can detect 
 it both in our own experience, if we happen to 
 possess the religious 'temperament,' and in the 
 devotional literature of the world, appears to 
 be essentially a mingled condition of exaltation 
 and humility arising from an immediate sense of 
 communion and co-operation with a power greater 
 and better than ourselves, in which our ideas of 
 good find completer realization than they every 
 obtain in the empirically known time-order" 
 (Elements of Metaphysics, 1903, p. 390). 
 
 Taking these descriptions as typical we see 
 that Religion includes what a man does, and feels, 
 and thinks when he has reached the limit of his 
 ordinary practical, emotional, and intellectual 
 tether. It transcends the ordinary and implies a 
 certain exaltation of feeling apart from which 
 its activity, its art, its ideas are quite undis- 
 cussable. Its language is not that of the street,
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 195 
 
 nor of the studio, nor of the laboratory. And 
 just as it is impossible to speak two languages 
 at once, so it is false antithesis to contrast 
 scientific and religious interpretations, they are 
 incommensurable. 
 
 We wish in a simple historical way to consider 
 some of the pathways that have led and still 
 lead men to religious experience. In this way we 
 may be able to discern in part how it is that the 
 growth of Science influences Religion, although 
 they are incommensurables. We would remind 
 ourselves and our readers that the whole subject 
 should be treated with reverence and sympathy, 
 for it is hardly possible to exaggerate the august 
 role of religion in human life. Whatever be our 
 views, we must recognize that just as the great 
 mathematicians and metaphysicians represent 
 the aristocracy of human intellect, so the great 
 religious geniuses represent the aristocracy of 
 human emotion. And in this connection it is 
 probably useful to bear in mind that in all dis- 
 cussions about religious ideas or feelings we should 
 ourselves be in an exalted mood, and yet "with 
 a compelling sense of our own limitations," and 
 of the vastness and mysteriousness of the world. 
 
 FROM PRACTICAL PROBLEMS TO RELIGION. 
 Man has three main relations with Nature and 
 with his fellow-men, practical, emotional, and 
 intellectual and along each of these three lines
 
 196 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 there is a pathway to religion. For untold ages 
 Man has been dependent upon Nature, and she 
 has had many hard lessons to teach him as to 
 food and safety, as to health and conduct. Na- 
 ture has trained her "insurgent son" so that he 
 has entered more and more fully into his kingdom. 
 This has happened partly because Man listened 
 to good purpose to the voices of Nature and to 
 voices which do not belong to Nature at all, but 
 partly because Man, having in him the central 
 secret of life which we call variability, has changed 
 progressively from generation to generation as he 
 has been subjected to Nature's sifting in the Strug- 
 gle for Existence. These three words, which tell 
 half of pain and half of happiness, mean for Man 
 that he fought with wild beasts till he worsted 
 them or tamed them, that at great cost he sifted 
 out the wholesome from the poisonous herbs, 
 that, cowering and crouching for ages, he watched 
 the elemental forces of Nature till he wrested from 
 them their secrets, that he has been to his fellows, 
 too, since the beginning, the strangest mixture 
 of self-assertiveness and sympathy, and that he 
 has kept up an age-long endeavour after well- 
 being always at his best when rowing hard 
 against the stream. 
 
 Nature's has been a stern school; she has let 
 no slackness go unpunished; and the voice that 
 we hear echoing down the ages is Struggle, En-
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 197 
 
 deavour, Struggle. Sparing only those who will 
 accept the life of ease which we call parasitism 
 Nature has always tended to eliminate the 
 sluggish, the unbalanced, the uncontrolled, the 
 unwholesome. Wild animals in Nature have para- 
 sites, but the occurrence of organic disease amongst 
 them is rare, and its elimination is rapid. Nature 
 is all for health. And for those who get anything 
 of a fair start, health is a curiously sensitive index 
 of morals, and not for the lower reaches only. 
 
 Civilization has indeed mitigated the severity 
 of Nature's Spartan methods, and has thrown off 
 the yoke of Natural Selection, but it has not 
 put an end to struggle nor the need for it. We 
 interfere with Nature's winnowing at every turn, 
 and we are awakening to realize the penalty we 
 have to pay for having abandoned Nature's 
 policy without adopting a really humaner one of 
 our own. We are face to face with ugly and terri- 
 ble social arrears the results of our easy-going 
 regime in which superiority does not necessarily 
 profit by the rewards of superiority, in which 
 inferiority is shielded from the evils it entails.' 
 Since we cannot return to Nature's stern regime, 
 which Plato approved, it behoves us more strenu- 
 ously to substitute for Natural Selection a similar 
 method on a higher turn of the spiral namely, a 
 stringent policy of Rational and Social Selection 
 which will not be afraid to be firm in the present
 
 198 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 so that we may be less cruel to the future. We 
 cannot return to Nature's tactics, but we must 
 adhere to her strategy or perish miserably. 
 
 Huxley insisted with his usual incisiveness 
 that our only chance of ethical progress was to 
 combat the cosmic process, for what he saw in 
 Nature was a vast gladiatorial show, a ubiquitous 
 Ishmaelitism, every living creature for itself and 
 .extinction taking the hindmost. But he did not 
 Adequately appreciate the fact that throughout 
 the struggle for existence in Nature, there is often 
 a pathway to survival and success through in- 
 creased co-operation, kindliness, and mutual aid, 
 as well as through increased competition and 
 self-assertion. And it is this line of combination 
 and mutual aid that man must especially follow; 
 it is the one he has followed in making some of his 
 greatest advances. 
 
 Moreover, is it not generally admitted that 
 the moral ideal is one of self-realization by work- 
 ing for our social group, by being good citizens 
 in fact, a self-realization which implies our 
 private subordination to the general weal? And 
 is not this the deeper aspect of Nature's strategy, 
 that the individual living creature realizes itself 
 in its inter-relations, and has to submit to being 
 lost that the welfare of the whole may be served? 
 There is much indeed to be said for the thesis: 
 that the ideals of ethical progress through love
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 199 
 
 and sociality, co-operation and sacrifice, may be 
 interpreted not as mere Utopias contradicted by 
 experience, but as the highest expressions of the 
 central evolutionary process of the natural world. ' 
 
 To return to our general theme, we must ad- 
 mit that for long ages Man learned in a hard 
 school, and that the severity of the lessons often 
 brought him to his knees. It seems to be an 
 historical fact that many a man has become 
 religious when he reached the limit of his practical 
 endeavour and was baffled. When our naive an- 
 cestors had done all they could and felt themselves 
 powerless and were afraid, they offered gifts, 
 or sacrifices, or prayers. It is surely true that 
 the fear of Nature has sometimes led men to the 
 fear of the Lord. 
 
 But as Man has become more and more master 
 of Nature, he has ceased to offer sacrifice or to* 
 pray for rain; and this pathway to religion is 
 not so well trodden now as it was in ancient days. 
 Let us think vividly of our ancestors living in 
 caves, fearful of wild beasts, often dying of 
 hunger or of poison, without wood- work or metals, 
 without fire, without foresight, and quite unable 
 to look to the general weal. What a contrast 
 between this picture and our life to-day. For 
 now-a-days, the serpent that bites Man's heel is 
 in nine cases out of ten microscopic; year by year 
 Man increases his mastery over the physical
 
 200 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 forces; he coins wealth out of the thin air; he 
 annihilates distance with his deep devices; he 
 makes the ether carry his messages; he is extend- 
 ing his kingdom to the heavens; and he is making 
 experiments on the control of life. And there is 
 nothing to lead us to believe that Man has more 
 than begun to enter into his kingdom. 
 The increasing mastery of Nature and the as- 
 sociated enormous increase in human comfort 
 and prosperity must be traced to the application 
 of science, and perhaps this is one of the indirect 
 ways in which scientific development hinders 
 rather than helps the growth of religious feeling.. 
 This is a very simple consideration, but surely 
 one of importance, that the scientific strengthen- 
 ing of Man's foothold in the struggle for existence 
 tends, for rougher minds at least (and "we are 
 not all the finest Parian"), to close one of the 
 pathways to religion. In saying this we are not 
 unaware that the practical tasks ahead are stern 
 enough. For man has still a very imperfect 
 mastery of himself and our civilization is full 
 of misery. In face of the often terrible failures 
 of human endeavour, the element of tragedy 
 in things as they are, and the chill that follows 
 the vision of our fair earth and all that it contains 
 becoming cold and cindery as the moon, many a 
 one of great repute in the world of science we 
 think of men like Clerk Maxwell or Kelvin seeks
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 201 
 
 to steady himself in the thought of some Abiding 
 Reality, saying as of yore, "I will lift up mine 
 eyes unto the hills." 
 
 FROM EMOTIONAL STRAIN TO RELIGION. We 
 have already spoken of Nature's appeal to the 
 human emotions, which seems to us to be one 
 of the big formative influences in human evo- 
 lution. Admitting that the emotional note varies 
 with our science, from age to age, and from race 
 to race, we venture to say that a love of Nature 
 is an essential human relation lost for a while 
 in ultra-urban conditions which makes all the 
 world kin, and is one of the saving graces of life. 
 
 Our present point is that the sense of wonder, 
 for instance, in the presence of Nature, which 
 lies near the roots of science and of philosophy, 
 is and will continue to be one of the footstools 
 of religion. Nature is at times so overpowering 
 in its beauty or in its awesomeness, that we feel! 
 it too big for our humanity. Thus at the limit 
 of his emotional tension Man has often become 
 a worshipper. Some indeed poets and painters 
 and musicians find relief in their art, and in this 
 some maintain that there is an essentially reli- 
 gious quality. What seems to us quite clear when 
 we consider such magnificent pieces of poetic 
 literature as the Nature-Psalms is this, that men 
 surcharged with emotion in the contemplation 
 of Nature may keep their sanity by finding a
 
 202 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 religious expression. To the author of Psalm 
 xxix, for instance, the thunder-storm that passed 
 over the country was a revelation of God. We 
 miss the whole point if we suppose that the poet 
 meant to say that the thunder was caused by 
 God speaking. "He was not in the passionless 
 and prosaic state of seeking an explanation of the 
 thunder; he was expressing religious experience 
 of the most exalted kind." He was far beyond 
 the confines of science, he has been greatly thrilled 
 by the storm, and in his exalted state of feeling 
 his emotion became religious, he heard God's 
 voice. 
 
 1 Similarly in Man's emotional relations with 
 his fellows there are heights of joy and depths of 
 sorrow from which the transition to religious 
 feeling is natural, to certain temperaments at 
 least. 
 
 Can it be said that the development of science 
 has in any way affected the frequency with which 
 the emotional pathway to religion is followed? 
 It may be that in the rapid extension of scien- 
 tific thinking and scientific knowledge some have 
 lost the sense of wonder that is due to relative 
 ignorance without gaining that which comes 
 from knowledge. It may also be that the exten- 
 sion of psychological analysis to all manner of 
 emotions has induced a curious self -consciousness 
 that inhibits spontaneity of feeling.
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 203 
 
 TVe think, however, that if there is a decadence 
 of delight and reverence in the presence of Nature, 
 it must be due rather to the conditions of modern 
 urban civilization than to the spread of Science. 
 Many men, some by choice, and some under 
 coercion, have got quite out of touch with Nature, 
 to their own great loss. For Man was cradled 
 and brought up in Nature, and if, because of 
 civilization, he cannot any longer continue to live 
 in the old home, it is a condition of emotional 
 sanity that he should periodically return there, 
 as the migratory birds do. It is this old-estab- 
 lished association, we think, that gives deep 
 import to that "uprush of feeling from below 
 the ordinary level of consciousness" which we 
 experience when we allow the beauty of Nature 
 to play upon us. In Emerson's transcendental 
 language, "Nature is the organ through which 
 the universal spirit speaks to the individual." 
 
 FROM THE RIDDLES OF THE UNIVERSE TO RE- 
 LIGION. Having referred to Man's practical and 
 emotional relations with Nature and with his 
 fellows, we come to the third relation, which is 
 intellectual or scientific. The first voice of Na 
 ture is Endeavour, the second is Enjoy, the third 
 is Enquire. For hundreds of thousands of years, 
 Nature has been setting Man problems, leading 
 him gradually from the practical to the more 
 abstract. On the one side there is Man inquisi-
 
 204 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 tive like an animal, but with deeper devices; on 
 the other side there is Nature, a rare collection 
 of riddles. The sciences are the solutions. 
 
 In olden times when the natural sciences were 
 young, when few methods of investigation were 
 known, Man found himself hemmed in by the 
 unknown and mysterious, so oppressively at 
 times that a religious formulation was sought 
 as a welcome refuge. At the end of his intel- 
 lectual tether, Man has never ceased to become 
 religious. 
 
 Now-a-days, however, the rapid development 
 of Science has cleared away a hundred minor 
 mysteries. Problem after problem has been 
 solved, and the correctness of the solutions has 
 been verified in practical mastery of Nature. 
 Man's intellectual tether has been greatly length- 
 ened, and there are not a few who give the 
 ignorant to understand that most of the enigmas 
 of Nature have found their answers. 
 
 But, as we have already seen, the solutions that 
 Science offers have obvious limitations. They 
 do not satisfy most men, who will persist in ask- 
 ing questions which Science never asks, ques- 
 tions about beginnings and ends, about meanings 
 and values. Let us recall for a moment some of 
 the limitations. Scientific formulations are always 
 in terms of something "given" which is unex- 
 plained. In its historical treatment of things
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 205 
 
 Science always begins not at the beginning, for 
 that is impossible, but from something "given" 
 which it does not explain. Moreover, in linking 
 happenings together, it is only in a limited set of 
 cases that Science can tell how the result is as it is. 
 
 In the common denominator to which Science 
 reduces things, in the sequences where the result- 
 ants seem qualitatively different from their ante- 
 cedents, in the origins from which science starts 
 in its genealogies, there is mysteriousness. All 
 our scientific experience is rounded with mystery. 
 As Sir E. Ray Lankester has said: "No sane man 
 has ever pretended, since science became a definite 
 body of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope 
 to know or conceive of the possibility of knowing 
 whence the mechanism has come, why it is there, 
 whither it is going, and what may or may not be 
 beyond and beside it, which our senses are in- 
 capable of appreciating. These things are not 
 'explained' by science and never can be." 
 
 If we will have for our human satisfaction 
 some answer to questions such as these, which 
 lie beyond Science, then it must be a transcendental 
 answer, and that means for most men, who prefer 
 to think naively, a religious answer. As Coleridge 
 Baid: "All knowledge begins and ends with 
 Wonder, but the first wonder is the child of 
 ignorance; the second wonder is the parent of 
 adoration."
 
 206 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 THE VOICES OF NATURE. Let us draw 
 together the threads of this simple argument, 
 which is meant to show how, from the nature of 
 the case, the progress of science must influence 
 the growth of the religious mood. Nature is so 
 great perhaps infinitely great that we need 
 not be too much afraid of verbal personification, 
 nor of speaking, for purposes of convenience, 
 of the three voices of Nature when we simply 
 mean the impulses that come from the threefold 
 practical, emotional, and intellectual relation 
 between Man and Nature. We are thinking, of 
 course, of wordless voices, as is said with sub- 
 lime contradiction in the nineteenth Psalm: "Day 
 unto day is welling forth speech, and night unto 
 night is breathing out knowledge; yet there is 
 no speech, and there are no words; their voice 
 has no audible sound, yet it resonates over all 
 the earth." 
 
 We have hinted at the historical fact that in 
 listening to these voices, men have often passed 
 into religious experience, almost by a kind of 
 coercion. When a man after extreme struggle 
 is utterly baffled practically, he may kneel in 
 prayer; when a man is penetratingly thrilled with 
 jbmotion he may be borne by its ecstasy into wor- 
 ship; and when a man at the end of his scientific 
 tether is entirely unsatisfied with his formulae 
 necessarily as cold as they are true he may
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 207 
 
 pass by a third portal into conviction of religious 
 truth. 
 
 These seem to us to be historical statements. 
 Though the three pathways indicated may not 
 be the only ones, nor the best, they are three 
 pathways along which men have passed to re- 
 ligion. Not that they lead inevitably to religious 
 experience, for the practically baffled may become 
 a resigned and even cheerful fatalist, the emotion- 
 ally thrilled may find a solution in some form of 
 art, and the unsatisfied scientific inquirer may 
 settle down into a contented positivist. But a 
 religious result is just as common. In some de- 
 gree the pathways may be called coercive, indicat- 
 ing at sort of bad-weather recourse to religion, 
 but perhaps bad weather of the sort indicated 
 is part of a normal human experience. 
 
 It seems fair to add another consideration, 
 that in listening to what we have called the three 
 voices of Nature, man may be disciplined to hear 
 even more august voices. Man's struggles for 
 food and foot-hold may give him grit that helps 
 towards and in much higher grades of endeavour; 
 to be thrilled with beauty may be a step to loving 
 goodness; and to try to find out what is scienti- 
 fically true in Nature may be the beginning of 
 "waiting patiently upon the Lord." 
 
 While we are convinced that to listen to what 
 we have called the three voices of Nature is a
 
 208 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 normal and necessary discipline of the developing 
 human spirit, we do not think that Man can find 
 abiding satisfaction in Nature's voices alone. 
 Invigorating, inspiring, and instructive they cer- 
 tainly are, but, as we have seen, they are full of 
 perplexities, and it is with a certain sad wist- 
 fulness'that we hear their echoes dying away in 
 the quietness of our minds like the calls of curlews 
 on the moorland as they pass farther into the 
 mist. Happy, then, in that quietness are those 
 who have what Sir Thomas Browne called "a 
 glimpse of incomprehensibles, and thoughts of 
 things which thoughts but tenderly touch." 
 
 It must be carefully noted that we have spoken 
 only of those pathways to religion which the 
 growth of Science has most directly affected. 
 We have not spoken of the ethical approach to 
 religion, by which many take refuge from the 
 contradictions of moral experience, nor of the 
 approach to religion which is followed by those 
 who are able to see in history, and especially in 
 the Founder of Christianity, a direct Revelation 
 of what is otherwise only groped after. 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELI- 
 ,GiON. It was Clerk Maxwell who spoke of the 
 absurdity of trying to keep "idea-tight compart- 
 jments" in our minds, and although some men 
 appear to achieve considerable success in keep- 
 ing their scientific convictions unrelated to their
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 209 
 
 religious convictions, there is an element of gro- 
 tesqueness in the feat. Insulation of this sort is 
 unnatural, and when very successful it is patho- 
 logical. Obviously our whole life should be cor- 
 related, and it is the endeavour after unification 
 that is in part responsible for the long-drawn- 
 out "conflict between science and religion" a 
 conflict which is often deplored, whereas it means 
 a wholesome keenness of interest and an ideal 
 of clearness and consistency. 
 
 The "conflict between science and religion'* 
 has several forms, which must be distinguished 
 from one another, (a) In the first place, religious 
 feeling is usually associated with a content of 
 beliefs, directly based on religious experience or 
 dependent on an interpretation of human history 
 and of Nature. In many cases the beliefs that x 
 rest on interpretation form part of a tradition 
 accepted unquestioningly by facile minds, or 
 independently tested by those who are suffi- 
 cient for such inquiries. To some extent, but to a 
 continually decreasing extent, these religious 
 beliefs touch the world of the concrete, and a 
 clashing with science must arise whenever and 
 wherever the form of the religious belief is incon- 
 sistent with the results of science. A typical 
 instance occurred in the infancy of experimental 
 science when Galileo's new astronomy could not 
 but clash with a religious belief which was for
 
 210 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the time being wrapped up with the assumption 
 that the earth was the steadfast hub of the so- 
 lar system. Now-a-days, however, the religious 
 mind is not in the least excited over the question 
 whether the earth goes round the sun, or the sun 
 round the earth, and this has been one of the 
 uses of the "conflict between Science and Reli- 
 gion," that the particular "body" which a reli- 
 gious idea takes, has been more and more sublimed. 
 In most cases the religious idea has become clearer 
 in the process. 
 
 We may say, then, that if the form or expres- 
 sion of a religious belief is contradictory to a well- 
 established fact in the order of Nature, then 
 clashing is inevitable. But to see in this an an- 
 tithesis between the scientific formula and the 
 religious idea is a misunderstanding. 
 , (6) In the second place, conflict and confusion 
 have arisen by misguided attempts to combine 
 religious and scientific formulations in the hope 
 iof thus making things more intelligible. An 
 instance may be found hi the history of theories 
 of organic evolution. The business of the scien- 
 tific evolutionist is to show how verifiable factors 
 may have co-operated to produce the marvellous 
 results which we see around us to-day. It goes 
 without saying that this task has not yet been 
 crowned with success. The results often seem 
 strangely out of proportion to the known causes,
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 211 
 
 In particular it is difficult to give a scientific 
 account of the "big lifts" in the history of the 
 world of life. It gives us pause to think of the 
 origin of Vertebrates, of Birds, of Mammals, of 
 Man. We cannot speak with much confidence 
 of the operative factors. In spite of this unsatis- 
 factory ignorance, however, the scientific mind 
 recoils with a jerk from the assumption of "spir- 
 itual influxes" or mystical powers of any sortl 
 interpolated from outside to help the evolv- 
 ing organism over the stiles of difficulty. The 
 scientific task is certainly unfulfilled; it may 
 be beyond human attainment to complete it; 
 but we must not try to speak two languages at 
 once. 
 
 (c) In the third place, just as religion is often 
 associated with forms of belief which are unes- 
 sential to it, and which may be inconsistent with 
 scientific conclusions,! so science often goes beyond 
 its own sphere and becomes associated with phil- 
 osophical doctrines which are unessential to it, 
 and which may conflict with religious convictions. ! 
 Thus, to take a familiar instance, materialism 
 is not a scientific conclusion, but a philosoph- 
 ical doctrine which many students of science 
 have embraced. And materialism is inconsistent 
 with most forms of religious belief and experience. 
 The point that we wish to make is that the an- 
 tagonism in this case is not between religion and
 
 212 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 science, but between religion and a particular 
 philosophy. 
 
 (d) In the fourth place the application of scien- 
 tific methods of investigation to the forms of 
 religious activity, tends, in the eyes of some at 
 least, to rob them of that mystic atmosphere 
 apart from which the religious spirit cannot 
 breathe. The genetic method has penetrated into 
 the realms of religion, and we read of the evolu- 
 tion of religious ideas, feelings, and rites. They 
 are "explained" and their survival is accounted 
 for. Moreover, the psychologist and even the 
 physiologist has had his innings, and it seems to 
 some as if religious phenomena were losing all their 
 religious character. Like tender plants drawn out 
 from shadowy recesses, they wither quickly in the 
 glare of common day. Little wonder, then, that 
 those to whom religious experience is the greatest 
 reality of their life should regard science as a foe. 
 i (e) In the fifth place, there is an indubitable 
 Icontrast between the scientific and the religious 
 paood; they cannot be simultaneous; they are 
 not likely to be equally strong in the same indi- 
 vidual; and there are reasons why the culture of 
 the former is not favourable to the latter. It 
 is important to inquire into these reasons. How 
 far is the opposition essential and necessary? 
 How far is it due to the limitations of our faculties 
 and to misunderstanding?
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 213 
 
 It cannot be that Science is satisfied with what 
 it has done in the way of giving an account of 
 things, or supposes that it will soon be able to 
 congratulate itself on having cleared up all myste- 
 ries and explained everything. That is a view 
 held only by the vulgar and half-educated. As 
 we have said so often, Science gives no ultimate 
 explanations. It is not its business to try to do 
 so. When Laplace, answering Napoleon's ques- 
 tion about God, said that he "had no need of 
 that Hypothesis," he obviously meant that that 
 august concept was foreign to the astronomical 
 "universe of discourse." Nor can it be said that 
 Science engenders an irreverent spirit; the biog- 
 raphies of all the greatest scientific investigators 
 show the reverse. The irreverent and the un- 
 wondering are to be found among those who 
 know least, not among those who know most. 
 It is true that minor mysteries disappear, or, at 
 least, that they cease to be mysterious in a super- 
 ficial way, but it has been the experience of many 
 a student of Science that when the half -gods go 
 the gods arrive. 
 
 To understand the antithesis we must remember 
 how our habitual occupation influences the mind. 
 It is the everyday business of Science to work with 
 facts, to describe these, testing and measuring, 
 to search out causes, to discover chains of sequence 
 and all in such a way that the work done may
 
 214 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 be universally verifiable by all competent inquir- 
 ers. A scientific datum should be quite imper- 
 sonal, and the statement of it should be quite 
 uncoloured by any emotion. This habitual occu- 
 pation is bound to react on the organism; it 
 does not in itself favour that subjectivity which is 
 characteristic of religious feeling. 
 
 We have to remember also that the scientific 
 spirit has been slowly learning the great lesson, 
 driven home by positivism that its formula- 
 tions must be freed from the vague and verbal. 
 Science ever brandishes "William of Occam's 
 razor": "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond 
 necessity." 
 
 Furthermore, it seems that some importance 
 must be attached not only to the sceptical habit, 
 which is distinctively scientific the testing, veri- 
 fying spirit but also to the agnostic frame of 
 mind. The scientific inquirer is aware of so 
 many enigmas, so many unsolved or half-solved 
 problems, that it is almost habitual to him to 
 say: "I do not know," "I do not understand." 
 He has learned to refrain from formulation when 
 the data are insufficient; he is accustomed to be 
 agnostic. Not that he folds his hands saying, 
 "We do not know and we shall never know," 
 his is an active agnosticism. But being accus- 
 tomed to patience, and having seen the solution 
 of much that his forefathers called insoluble,
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 215 
 
 he will not make haste to adopt transcendental 
 explanations of particular events. As Prof. 
 Boutroux puts it: "The history of science proves 
 that we have a right to affirm a continuity be- 
 tween what we know and what we do not know. 
 This is why the expression, ' scientifically inexplic- 
 able,' is really without meaning. A mysterious 
 force, a miraculous fact, assuming that the fact 
 exists, what is it but a phenomenon which we 
 are unable to explain with the help of the laws 
 that we at present know. If the impossibility is 
 confirmed, science will go on to seek for other 
 laws." 
 
 In this connection, we venture to quote a 
 well-known passage from the late Prof. William 
 James's Will to Believe (1903). "When one turns 
 to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, 
 and sees how it was reared; what thousands of 
 disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its 
 mere foundations; what patience and postpone- 
 ment, what choking down of preference, what sub- 
 mission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought 
 into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely 
 impersonal it stands in its vast augustness, 
 then how besotted and contemptible seems every 
 little sentimentalist who comes blowing his vol- 
 untary smoke-wreaths, and pretending to decide 
 things from out of his private dream! Can we 
 wonder if those bred in the rugged and manly
 
 216 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 school of science should feel like spewing such 
 subjectivism out of their mouths?" We must 
 remember, however, James's subsequent conclu- 
 sion that "our passional nature not only lawfully 
 may, but must, decide an option between prop- 
 ositions, whenever it is a genuine option that 
 cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual 
 grounds." 
 
 Our own position is this. Science seeks to 
 answer certain kinds of questions in regard to 
 Nature and Man and the history of both. These 
 answers are very far from being complete, for 
 the world is very large and science is very young. 
 But even if the answers were as complete all 
 round as they are already in parts, and if there 
 were also answers to all the scientific questions 
 which we do not yet foresee nor know how to ask, 
 yet they would not be of a kind to satisfy the 
 whole nature of the ordinary man. We get hints 
 of complementary answers in poetic and religious 
 feeling, and we see no reason to believe that the 
 only approach to Truth or Reality is by the scien- 
 tific method. The satisfaction we reach in poetic 
 and religious feeling is transcendental, on a 
 different plane from scientific satisfaction. It 
 is unverifiable, incommunicable, mystical, but 
 for ourselves true. In its mystical character 
 there is danger, but the safeguard is in steadying 
 the mind with Science and Philosophy with
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 217 
 
 which our poetry and religion must be harmo- 
 nious. Apart from this, another test of the valid- 
 ity of our mystical feelings and transcendental 
 constructions is their value in our life. 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER'S POSITION. As we have 
 referred to the religious convictions of intellectual 
 giants like Clerk Maxwell and Lord Kelvin, so 
 we would in fairness illustrate a different posi- 
 tion by reference to Herbert Spencer, who also 
 belonged to the kingdom of genius. Disagree 
 with his views as one may, one cannot doubt 
 either the magnitude of his intellect or his pas- 
 sionate sincerity. 
 
 In early days he was an uncompromising critic 
 af particular theological doctrines and religious 
 customs, but a wider knowledge convinced him 
 almost against his will that some sort of religious 
 cult has been an indispensable factor in social 
 progress. He looked forward to a stage in which,! 
 "recognizing the mystery of things as insoluble,! 
 religious organizations will be devoted to ethical* 
 culture. 
 
 "Thus I have come more and more to look 
 calmly on forms of religious belief to which I had, 
 in earlier days, a pronounced aversion. Holding 
 that they are in the main naturally adapted to 
 their respective peoples and tunes, it now seems 
 to me well that they should severally live and 
 work as long as the conditions persist, and, fur-
 
 218 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 ther, that sudden changes of religious institutions, 
 as of political institutions, are certain to be fol- 
 lowed by reactions. 
 
 "If it be asked why, thinking thus, I have 
 persevered in setting forth views at variance 
 with current creeds, my reply is the one elsewhere 
 made: 'It is for each to utter that which he 
 sincerely believes to be true, and, adding his 
 unit of influence to all other units, leave the 
 results to work themselves out. ' " 
 
 Largely, however, Spencer's change of mood 
 in regard to religious creeds and institutions 
 resulted from "a deepening conviction that the 
 sphere occupied by them can never become an 
 unfilled sphere, but that there must continue to 
 arise afresh the great questions concerning our- 
 selves and surrounding things; and that, if not 
 positive answers, then modes of consciousness 
 standing in place of positive answers must ever 
 remain." 
 
 We venture to quote a somewhat lengthy 
 passage because of its quite unique interest 
 in regard to the relations between science and 
 religion: 
 
 "By those who know much, more than by those 
 who know little, is there felt the need for ex- 
 planation. Whence this process, inconceivable 
 however symbolized, by which alike the monad
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 219 
 
 and the man build themselves up into their 
 respective structures? What must we say of the 
 life, minute, multitudinous, degraded, which, cov- 
 ering the ocean-floor, occupies by far the larger 
 part of the Earth's area; and which yet, growing 
 and decaying in utter darkness, presents hundreds 
 of species of a single type? Or, when we think 
 of the myriads of years of the Earth's past, during 
 which have arisen and passed away low forms 
 of creatures, small and great, which murdering 
 and being murdered, have gradually evolved, 
 how shall we answer the question: To what end? 
 Ascending to wider problems, in which way are 
 we to interpret the lifelessness of the greater 
 celestial masses, the giant planets, and the 
 Sun; in proportion to which the habitable planets 
 are mere nothings? If we pass from these rela- 
 tively near bodies to the thirty millions of remote 
 suns and solar systems, where shall we find a 
 reason for all this apparently unconscious exist- 
 ence, infinite in amount compared with the exist- 
 ence which is conscious a waste Universe as 
 it seems? Then behind these mysteries lies the 
 all-embracing mystery whence this universal 
 transformation which has gone on unceasingly 
 throughout a past eternity and will go on unceas- 
 ingly throughout a future eternity? And along 
 with this rises the paralysing thought: What if, 
 of all that is thus incomprehensible to us, there
 
 220 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 exists no comprehension anywhere? No wonder 
 that men take refuge in authoritative dogma! 
 
 "So is it, too, with our own natures. No less 
 inscrutable is this complex consciousness which 
 has slowly evolved out of infantine vacuity 
 consciousness which, during the development of 
 every creature, makes its appearance out of what 
 seems unconscious matter; suggesting the thought 
 that consciousness in some rudimentary form is 
 omnipresent. Lastly come insoluble questions 
 concerning our own fate: the evidence seeming 
 so strong that the relations of mind and nerv- 
 ous structure are such that the cessation of the 
 one accompanies dissolution of the other, while, 
 simultaneously, comes the thought, so strange 
 and so difficult to realize, that with death there 
 lapses both the consciousness of existence and the 
 consciousness of having existed. 
 
 "Thus religious creeds, which in one way or 
 other occupy the sphere that rational interpre- 
 tation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the more 
 it seeks, I have come to regard with a sympathy 
 based on community of need: feeling that dis- 
 sent from them results from inability to accept 
 the solutions offered, joined with the wish that 
 solutions could be found" (Spencer, 1893). 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. ( 
 Some people are disappointed because scien-; 
 tific investigation gives no direct support to
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 221 
 
 religious convictions, but this shows a misunder- 1 
 standing of what is meant by science and by reli- 
 gion. Science establishes conclusions which the 
 religious mood may utilize, just as philosophy 
 utilizes them, and transfigure, just as poetry 
 transfigures them; but it is the common con- 
 fession of the scientific mood throughout all the 
 ages that we cannot "by searching find out God." 
 
 But is it not much that Science discloses more 
 and more fully the intelligibility, the orderliness, 
 and the progress! veness of Nature? These are 
 big intellectual assets. Is it not much that Science 
 discloses more and more fully the wonder of the 
 world the immensities and the intricacies, the 
 changing order and the orderly changes besides 
 all the beauty in depths and heights which the 
 unscientific eye cannot see? These are big emo- 
 tional assets. Is there not practical value, too, 
 both of encouragement and warning, in the sci- 
 entific view that it is an ascent, not a descent, 
 that is behind us and in front of us too, we hope? 
 Everything seems to indicate that it is an increas- 
 ingly controllable future that lies before us here, 
 and it surely adds zest to our life to feel that we 
 can share in the "increasing purpose" of evolu- 
 tion, in the working out of what seems like a 
 great and beautiful thought. 
 
 It is also fair to recognize that Science has 
 done well by Religion in eliminating much that
 
 222 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 is superstitious, and it seems very unlikely that 
 its useful function in this direction has been 
 completed. As the late Prof. W. James said: 
 k *What mankind at large most lacks is criticism 
 
 id caution, not faith." "What some," he went 
 to say, "most need is that their faiths should 
 ibe broken up and ventilated, that the north-west 
 wind of science should get into them and blow 
 their sickliness and barbarism away." 
 
 SUMMAKY. Science and Religion are incom- 
 mensurables, and there is no true antithesis between 
 them they belong to different universes of discourse. 
 Science is descriptive and offers no ultimate ex- 
 planation; Religion is mystical and interpretative, 
 implying a realization of a higher order of things 
 than those of sense-experience. Men are led to 
 religion along many pathways -from the contra- 
 dictions of the moral life, from the facts of his- 
 tory, and from what is experienced at the limits of 
 practical endeavour, emotional strain, and intel- 
 lectual inquiry. It is not difficult to see why the 
 rapid development of Science should have affected, 
 for a time of transition at least, the frequency with 
 which men tread the last-named three pathways to 
 religion namely, from baulked struggle, strained 
 emotion, and baffled inquiry. The so-called "con- 
 flict between science and religion" depends in part 
 on a clashing of particular expressions of religious 
 belief with facts of science, or on a clashing of
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION 223 
 
 particular scientific philosophies with religious 
 feeling, or on attempts to combine in one statement 
 scientific and religious formulations, or on the ap- 
 plication of psychological inquiry to the phases of 
 religious experience, or on the contrast of the two 
 moods. But the bulk of the conflict is due to a mis- 
 understanding, to a false antithesis between incom- 
 mensurables. While Science can give no direct 
 support to religious convictions, it establishes con- 
 clusions which the religious mood may utilize, just 
 as philosophy utilizes them, and transfigure, just 
 as poetry transfigures them.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 
 
 "The end of our foundation [Salomon's House 
 in the New Atlantis] is the knowledge of causes 
 and the secret motions of things; and the enlarg- 
 ing of the bounds of human empire, to the effect- 
 ing of all things possible." FRANCIS BACON. 
 
 Science for its own Sake Science and Practical Lore 
 Science and Occupation Illustrations of the Practical 
 Utility of the Sciences Danger of Utilitarian Criteria 
 Fundamental Value of "Theoretical Science" Historical 
 Illustrations Socialized Science Summary. 
 
 SCIENCE FOR ITS OWN SAKE. To see things 
 and happenings clearly, both in themselves and 
 in their relations to other things and happenings, 
 is the aim of science. And no one who enjoys 
 scientific work whether at the humble level of 
 accurate description, or at the high level of 
 discovering a formula cares to hear much about 
 the "utility of science." No artist likes utili- 
 tarian valuations of his art, and the scientist 
 understands him in this at least. I also am an 
 artist, he says, or words to that effect, meaning 
 (1) that a scientific investigation is, like a picture, 
 224
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 225 
 
 an endeavour to get at the setting and significance 
 of things or events; (2) that there is a delight 
 and an endeavour in scientific workmanship that 
 is its own reward; and (3) that in the higher 
 reaches of science, the discovery of a formula, a 
 general law, a pedigree, a homology, an inter- 
 relation whatever it may be is in some measure 
 a personal achievement. 
 
 "Science for its own sake," like "Art for Art's 
 sake," is an autonomy worth fighting for. Both 
 scientific inquiry and artistic device are natural 
 and necessary expressions of the evolving human 
 spirit, and for this reason a utilitarian apology 
 for either is gratuitous. Scientific inquiry is 
 noble in itself, and it is its own reward. As 
 Bacon said: "We see in all other pleasures there 
 is satiety, and after they be used their verdure 
 departeth. . . . But of knowledge there is no 
 satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are per- 
 petually interchangeable, and therefore it ap- 
 peareth to be good in itself simply without 
 fallacy or accident." 
 
 SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL LORE. Historical in- 
 quiry shows that the concrete sciences grew out 
 of practical lore, and that even after they began 
 to stand on their own legs as independent theo- 
 retical interpretations of Nature, they have often 
 received fresh stimulus by coming back to prac- 
 tical problems. Did not botany arise out of
 
 226 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 herb-gathering and gardening, and has not 
 botany as a science got an uplift from all its 
 many contacts with human needs? We think 
 of yeast and fermentations, of bacteria and dis- 
 eases, of diatoms and fish-supply, of breeding 
 experiments and the improvement of our food- 
 plants, of plant-associations and inter-relations 
 in then* bearing on the perennial problem of 
 making the most of the Earth for our children as 
 well as for ourselves. 
 
 The lore of the hunter, the fisher, the shepherd 
 is older than all zoology, and every thoughtful 
 naturalist will agree that his science runs a risk 
 of losing vitality and real progressiveness if it 
 gets too far away from the actual life of animals 
 as it is lived in Nature. Nay more, that just as a 
 stimulus has been periodically given to zoological 
 studies by the return of a great expedition, such 
 as the Challenger, with its enthralling splendour of 
 animate spoils, so the tackling of some practical 
 problem of real moment has often been followed 
 by some impulse to pure science. 
 
 It is perhaps going too far to say with Prof. 
 Espinas: "Practice has always gone in advance 
 of theory"; but there is no doubt that science 
 and practice act and react most beneficially upon 
 one another. Science has grown out of practical 
 lore, and it has nothing to gain, but much to lose, 
 by forgetting its origins.
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 227 
 
 Perhaps, however, there is still some danger 
 though it is rapidly diminishing of practical 
 lore refusing the aid of science. The old farmer, 
 who has made his fields and his stock pay for 
 hah* a century, has no use for the new science of 
 the living earth, which teems with Protozoa as 
 well as with Bacteria, and he has no appetite for 
 Mendelism. The old fisherman, who has some- 
 times an almost uncanny skill in reading the 
 riddle of the sea in finding out where he is and 
 where the fish are likely to be is not athirst for 
 ichthyological instruction, though, as a matter of 
 fact, when he is approached sympathetically, and 
 as one who has something to impart as well as 
 as to receive, he often proves himself an effective 
 student. We need not multiply examples, for the 
 point is a simple one. 
 
 Much of the practical lore is thoroughly scien- 
 tific though it may never have been stated. The 
 use of instruction is to make it conscious, com- 
 municable, and more plastic, and to get down to 
 the principles which it unconsciously illustrates. 
 For wonderful as is the lore that comes from 
 instinctive insight to start with and long experi- 
 ence to back this up, it not only tends to die with 
 its possessor, but like instinct, as contrasted with 
 intelligence, in animals, it is apt to be thrown out 
 of gear by some slight change in the conditions of 
 application.
 
 228 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 At the same time we feel bound to admit that 
 the endeavour to formulate practical lore is not 
 likely to have more than partial success, for there 
 is an unanalysable element in its higher reaches. 
 This is well known in the case of some of the ex- 
 perienced physicians of the older school whose 
 insight in diagnosis has often excited the won- 
 der and envy of their more scientific successors. 
 Perhaps there was sometimes more hard work 
 behind it than was usually supposed, but it seems 
 certain that in many fields there are men with 
 a remarkable power of intuition, born not made, 
 of whose methods even self -analysis can give no 
 account. 
 
 There is no doubt that all the sciences not 
 excepting psychology and sociology sprang from 
 concrete experience. Mathematics is abstract 
 enough, but what does its history show? "Man 
 began arithmetic with experience of the number 
 of his fingers and toes, and geometry with expe- 
 rience of the magnitude of his hands, feet, and 
 arms. He went on to use these concrete bod- 
 ies as standards to measure other bodies. Geom- 
 etry means the measurement of lands; and the 
 most ancient Egyptian book of mathematics, the 
 papyrus of Ahmes, about 1700 B.C., measures 
 barns, pyramids, and obelisks, and treats solid 
 bodies before proceeding to abstract surfaces. 
 Mathematics, in short, began with concrete bodies,
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 229 
 
 such as could only be reached by means of expe- 
 rience, and only gradually receded from the con- 
 crete to the abstract, to the units of abstract 
 arithmetic, and the points of abstract geometry. 
 The Greeks achieved this analysis from concrete 
 to abstract, and thus converted mathematics from 
 analysis to synthesis, which begins with the ab- 
 stract unit as origin of number, and with the 
 abstract point as simpler than the line. But 
 the order of discovery was from the concrete and 
 analytical, although afterwards the order of de- 
 velopment was from the abstract and synthetic " 
 (Prof. T. Case, 1906, p. 6). 
 
 It is good history that the sciences sprang out 
 of the lore of occupations, and it is also a fact of 
 no small ethical importance. " We cannot get 
 away from our ancestors. Just as a physical 
 scientist is a smith, so is the botanist a farmer 
 and shepherd, the zoologist a huntsman, the geog- 
 rapher a sailor, the historian a scald, the doctor 
 a wizard or medicine-man, and the lawyer a 
 scribe. As for the mathematician, his material 
 the oldest science of all has been drawn from 
 such a variety of occupations that, if he vividly 
 grasps the spirit of the history of his science 
 (though, unfortunately, this is rarely the case), 
 he should find himself in a very real sense the 
 heir to all the ages, and become imbued with 
 sympathy for all occupations." (Branford, 1904.)
 
 230 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 SCIENCE AND OCCUPATION. In an address 
 with this title (Journal of Education, June, 1904), 
 Mr. Benchara Branford expounds "this deep 
 truth, that all theory, all knowledge, all the broad 
 groups of sciences, originally sprang from the 
 experience gathered by man from one or other 
 of his numerous occupations." "We must not 
 imagine that science floats, as it were, in the clouds, 
 serenely isolated from the hum and bustle and 
 occupations of the busy world, and developing 
 in some mysterious way of its own." "Science 
 ultimately sprang, and is continually springing, 
 from the desires and efforts of men to increase 
 their skill in their occupations by understanding 
 the eternal principles that underlie all dealings 
 of man with Nature and of man with his fellow- 
 men." "And if science ultimately has sprung 
 from, and is continually springing anew from, 
 occupations, science has repaid the debt both 
 by rendering those who follow her teaching more 
 skilled in their occupations and by actually giving 
 rise by her discoveries to absolutely new types 
 of occupations. One of the great conditions of 
 human progress is this unceasing reciprocal 
 relationship between occupation and science, 
 each constantly producing and being produced 
 by the other. Out of many instances I shall 
 choose one striking example of the development 
 of science from occupation.
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 231 
 
 "Monge was bora the son of a French pedlar 
 about 1750. The construction of a plan he made 
 of his native town brought the boy under the 
 notice of a colonel of Engineers, who got him 
 admitted to one of the military schools. His 
 humble birth precluded him from receiving a 
 commission in the Army, but he was taught 
 surveying and drawing; though he was told he 
 was not sufficiently well born to be allowed to 
 attempt problems which required mathematical 
 calculations. At last his opportunity came. He 
 observed that all the plans of fortifications were 
 constructed by long and tedious arithmetical 
 calculations from the original observed measure- 
 ments. Monge substituted for these a geomet- 
 rical process he had invented which produced 
 the plan so quickly that the officer in charge re- 
 fused to receive it, because professional etiquette 
 required that no less than a certain time should 
 be spent over making these drawings. When 
 once examined, its obvious superiority was recog- 
 nized. This geometrical process discovered by 
 Monge was nothing less than a new branch of 
 geometry known to students of engineering as 
 practical solid geometry a science in which, by 
 the now familiar method of plan and elevation, 
 a solid object can be represented adequately 
 by construction on a plane a method whose 
 practical, or, let me say, occupational, value
 
 232 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 can scarcely be over-estimated, and the further 
 development of which by Monge had far-reach- 
 ing effects upon mathematical science itself. 
 Here we have a new and distinct branch of 
 science springing directly from the occupation 
 of war, on its engineering side." 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS or THE PRACTICAL UTILITY 
 OF THE SCIENCES. The long list of what are 
 called "Applied Sciences" a term which Huxley 
 hated so heartily shows the number and the 
 variety of the practical utilizations of Science. 
 We cannot give more than a few examples, 
 which may be multiplied by reference to other 
 scientific volumes, in this Library. Thus while 
 every one knows more or less clearly that astron- 
 omy still continues to be of use in navigation, we 
 find in Mr. Hinks's fascinating volume that the 
 science also earns its living by helping the sur- 
 veyor and the map-maker, and by supplying the 
 world with accurate time. Even to ships upon 
 the sea the astronomers now tell the time of day 
 by wireless telegraphy. 
 
 Numerous chemical arts such as brewing, 
 soap-making and dyeing were practised before 
 there was a science of chemistry, but the multi- 
 plication of these under direct scientific stimulus 
 is past telling. Think only, for instance, of the 
 cyanide processes for the recovery of gold from 
 its ores, of the technical development of ben-
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 233 
 
 zene and its derivatives, of the electro-chemical 
 industry, of the improvement of steel-making, 
 of the synthetic production of substances like 
 indigo which were formerly procurable only as 
 natural products, and of the utilization of the 
 nitrogen of the air in the manufacture of ferti- 
 lizers. Among the many practical benefits 
 resulting from the development of physics, we 
 naturally think first of some of the more recent 
 the telegraph, the telephone, wireless telegraphy, 
 electric motors, and flying machines. From the 
 sciences of the earth man has profited enormously 
 for they have led him to stores of coal and iron 
 and other buried treasures. From oceanography 
 already there are conclusions of importance in con- 
 nection with fisheries, and meteorology, another 
 very young science, has already to be thanked for 
 much saving of life and wealth through its pro- 
 phetic weather reports. 
 
 On the biological side we may mention as 
 diverse illustrations, the applications of bacte- 
 riology in surgery, hygiene, agriculture, and the 
 preservation or improvement of food; the appli- 
 cation of "protozoology" to the study of such 
 diseases as pebrine in silkworms and sleeping- 
 sickness in man; the influence on medicine of the 
 physiological discovery of internal secretions like 
 those of the thyroid gland and the suprarenals; 
 the study of the whole economy of the sea in
 
 234 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 relation to various kinds of fisheries; and the 
 utilization of Mendel's principles of heredity in 
 the practical improvement of domestic animals 
 and cultivated plants. 
 
 In his Wonderful Century Dr. Alfred Russel 
 Wallace made an interesting comparison between 
 the practically important applications of science 
 in the nineteenth century and those in all pre- 
 ceding centuries. Among new departures of the 
 nineteenth century he reckoned thirteen as of 
 first importance, namely railways, steam-navi- 
 gation, electric telegraphs, the telephone, friction 
 matches, gas lighting, electric lighting, photog- 
 raphy, the phonograph, Rontgen rays, spectrum 
 analysis, the use of anaesthetics, and the use of 
 antiseptics. In all preceding time he reckoned 
 only five inventions of the first rank the tele- 
 scope, the printing press, the mariner's compass, 
 Arabic numerals, and alphabetical writing, to 
 which may be added the steam-engine and the 
 barometer, "making seven in all, as against 
 thirteen in one single century." Perhaps this 
 estimate was a little more generous to the nine- 
 teenth century than to those before it, but it is 
 certainly fair enough to bring out in a very inter- 
 esting way the concomitance of the progress of 
 science and practically important inventions. 
 
 DANGER OF UTILITARIAN CRITERIA. The list 
 of practical benefits which Science has con-
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 235 
 
 ferred on man might be greatly lengthened, but 
 what we have given is perhaps sufficiently repre- 
 sentative, and there is much risk of over-empha- 
 sizing the utilitarian criteria. The too intensely 
 practical man has got so accustomed to the 
 fruits of Science that he is apt to forget that these 
 cannot be forthcoming if the roots die. There- 
 fore to the critic who growls over the time spent 
 on studying sea-weeds, when "what we want is 
 more wheat," over embryological research in- 
 stead of fish-hatching, over the theoretical puz- 
 zles of geology instead of the search for more 
 coal and iron, we must answer, first, that man 
 does not live by bread alone; second, that he 
 must be patient if his desired practical results 
 are to be sure; third, that Science is a unity, and 
 the theoretical foundation is essential if there 
 is to be progressive practical application; and, 
 fourth, that, as a matter of fact, it has often been 
 from the most unpromising theoretical investi- 
 gations that great practical discoveries have 
 come. Even for the sake of practice, Science 
 should never submit to the over-practical man's 
 canon which makes immediate utility a strin- 
 gent criterion of worthiness. 
 
 To-day, as much as ever, when the enthusi- 
 asm for "practical results" is so strong, we do 
 well to remember the distinction drawn by Bacon, 
 nearly four hundred years ago, between those
 
 236 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 results of Science which are light-giving (lucifera) 
 and those which are of direct practical utility 
 (fructifera). Regarding which, he came to the 
 memorable conclusion: "Just as the vision of 
 light itself is something more excellent and beau- 
 tiful than its manifold use, so without doubt the 
 contemplation of things as they are, without 
 superstition or imposture, without error or con- 
 fusion, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole 
 harvest of inventions." It is an intolerable nar- 
 row-mindedness which supposes that a science 
 can be judged only by its practical fruits and not 
 also by its virtue of illumination. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL VALUE OF "THEORETICAL SCI- 
 ENCE." This little book will not have been 
 written in vain if it contributes to expose the 
 pernicious fallacy, which has deceived many, 
 that science can be pruned of its theoretical 
 developments and yet continue to bear fruit. 
 It is supposed by the ignorant that these "efflor- 
 escences" could be dispensed with mere luxu- 
 ries of the intelligence, and out of place in a 
 utilitarian age. The fact is that they are the 
 blossoms, which in part become fruits. 
 
 One of the deleterious results of the fallacy 
 is that it has suggested to students and directors 
 of studies at all levels the mistaken policy of 
 trying to secure a "technical education" with- 
 out an adequately substantial scientific training.
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 237 
 
 Perhaps this is a Nemesis on the heels of ultra- 
 academic curricula which might have been orien- 
 tated in relation to practical professional problems 
 without any loss in the thoroughness or all-round- 
 ness of the scientific discipline; but the recoil is 
 resulting in a technician who is insufficiently 
 grounded in the principles. 
 
 Students of Science have indeed primarily to 
 do with the kind of investigation whose results 
 Bacon called lucifera, but our point is that this 
 is the surest, and sometimes even the shortest 
 road to that other kind of result which he called 
 fructifera. In one of his lectures Prof. Karl 
 Pearson makes the following impressive statement 
 of his own experience: "I have been engaged for 
 sixteen years in helping to train engineers, and 
 those of my old pupils who are now coming to 
 the front in life are not those who stuck to facts 
 and formulae, and sought only for what they 
 thought would be 'useful to them in their pro- 
 fession.' On the contrary, the lads who paid 
 attention to method, who thought more of proofs 
 than of formulae, who accepted even the special- 
 ized branches of their training as a means of 
 developing habits of observation rather than of 
 collecting 'useful facts,' these lads have developed 
 into men who are succeeding in life. And the 
 reason of this seems to me, when considering 
 their individual cases, to be that they could adapt
 
 238 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 themselves to an environment more or less differ- 
 ent from that of the existing profession; they 
 could go beyond its processes, its formulae, and 
 its facts, and develop new ones. Their knowl- 
 edge of method and their powers of observation 
 enabled them to supply new needs, to answer to 
 the call when there was a demand, not for old 
 knowledge, but for trained brains." . . . "The 
 only sort of technical education the nation ought 
 to trouble about is teaching people to see and 
 think." . . . "What we want are trained brains, 
 scouts in all fields, and not a knowledge of facts 
 and processes crammed into a wider range of 
 untrained minds." It comes to this: that, on 
 the whole, the deeper and more difficult studies, 
 which stretch our brains most, are of much more 
 value, even technically, than what are called 
 "useful facts." 
 
 In an interesting address on "The Debt of 
 the World to Pure Science," Prof. J. J. Stephen- 
 son points out that the fundamental importance 
 of abstruse research receives too little consider- 
 ation in our time, except, of course, from those 
 who really know. The practical side of life is 
 all-absorbent; and it is forgotten that "the foun- 
 dation of industrial advance was laid by workers 
 in pure science, for the most part ignorant of 
 utility and caring little about it." . . . "The 
 investigator takes the first step and makes the
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 239 
 
 inventor possible. Thereafter, the inventor's 
 work aids the investigator in making new dis- 
 coveries to be utilized in their turn." 
 
 It is quite plain from the history of Science 
 that the practical value of Science is in direct 
 proportion to the precision of scientific methods, 
 and that the most "theoretical" investigations 
 have often had practical results of extraordinary 
 magnitude. It is not merely that the theory 
 forms the foundations of the Science, there is 
 another reason. Scientific descriptions increase 
 in value as they become absolutely impersonal, 
 as they become perfectly precise, and especially 
 as they become condensed general formulae which 
 will be applicable to an infinite variety of par- 
 ticular situations. There is no doubt that the 
 quiet thinkers in the scientific cloisters are, like 
 the poets, the makers and shakers of the world. 
 
 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. Only the ex- 
 tremely ignorant can question the utility of, 
 let us say, the prolonged application of Greek 
 intellect to the laws of conic sections. Whether 
 we think of bridges or of projectiles, of the curves 
 of ships or of the rules of navigation, we must 
 think'; of conic sections. The rules of navigation, 
 for instance, are in part based on astronomy. 
 Kepler's Laws are foundation-stones of that 
 science, but Kepler discovered that Mars moves 
 in an ellipse round the sun in one of the foci by
 
 240 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 a deduction from conic sections. As Laplace 
 said, "Without the speculations of the Greeks on 
 the curves formed from the section of a cone by 
 a plane, these beautiful laws might have been 
 still unknown." Yet the historical fact is that 
 these conic sections were studied as an abstract 
 science for eighteen centuries before they came to 
 be of their highest use. 
 
 Those who doubt the value of "theoretical 
 researches" should study Pasteur's life and ob- 
 serve how his services to mankind were based on 
 inquiries which seemed at first sight remote from 
 human application. It is true that Pasteur may 
 be interpreted as the master-peasant, and the 
 tanner's son (see Evolution, p. 224), but this 
 need not keep us from recognizing that his re- 
 searches form an intellectual chain, the first link 
 of which was a study of the crystalline forms of 
 tartrates. Thus, justly, the list of his achieve- 
 ments, recorded around his tomb, begins with 
 "Molecular dissymmetry, 1848," an almost dia- 
 grammatically theoretical beginning for a series 
 of researches which have had such a deep and 
 extensive influence on the life of Man. 
 
 The twitching of the legs of Galvani's frogs 
 was studied as a theoretical curiosity; who 
 could have foretold that it pointed to telegraphy? 
 It was not for practical purposes that William 
 Smith plodded afoot over England, neither rest-
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 241 
 
 ing nor hurrying in his exploration of the strata, 
 but how much of the exploitation of our country's 
 mineral resources had its origin in his maps? 
 The important method of spectrum analysis had 
 its beginning in some apparently insignificant 
 observations. Who can say that the early steps 
 which led to finding a cave of treasures (not alto- 
 gether without alloy) in coal-tar had, to begin 
 with, any practical outlook? 
 
 From an address on Technical Chemistry, by 
 Prof. C. E. Munroe, we take another striking 
 case. "The experience of the past has repeatedly 
 demonstrated the commercial possibilities that 
 are latent in scientific theories. A famous exam- 
 ple is found in the commercial development of 
 benzene. Lachman, in 1898, after referring to 
 its discovery by Faraday in 1825, and its pro- 
 duction from benzoic acid by Mitscherlich nine 
 years later, says: 'These famous chemists little 
 thought that their limpid oil would one day lay 
 claim to be the most important substance in 
 organic chemistry; that it would give birth to 
 untold thousands of compounds; that it would 
 revolutionize science and technology. The tech- 
 nical development of benzene and its derivatives 
 employs over fifteen thousand workmen in Ger- 
 many alone; the commercial value of the prod- 
 ucts reaches tens of millions of dollars. . . . 
 Nearly all of this tremendous activity is due to a
 
 242 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 single idea, advanced in a masterly treatise by 
 Auguste KeTcuU in the year 1865.'" 
 
 It is a commonplace that the developments of 
 steam-power, electric Telegraphy, Telephony, and 
 Dynamo-electrical machinery, which have changed 
 human life so markedly, have come about in 
 association with new theoretical developments in 
 the sciences of heat and electricity. To substan- 
 tiate this precisely is not difficult, but an analo- 
 gous case will, we think, suffice for demonstration. 
 When Prof. William Thomson published, hi 1853, 
 in the Philosophical Magazine, a stiff bit of 
 mathematical analysis, which laid the founda- 
 tion of the theory of electric oscillations, there 
 can have been few who saw in it the basis of 
 wireless telegraphy. 
 
 In this connection, it is very interesting to 
 hear Lord Kelvin's own opinion, for he excelled 
 alike in theoretical insight and in practical appli- 
 cation. After speaking of "the vast resources 
 which we derive from direct applications of mod- 
 ern science," "of the immense practical impor- 
 tance of the principles of Natural Philosophy," 
 he says: "We must not, however, by considera- 
 tions of this kind, be led to regard applications 
 to the ordinary purposes of life as the proper 
 object and end of science. Nothing could more 
 effectually stop the advancement of knowledge 
 than the prevalence of such views; even the
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 243 
 
 desired practically useful discoveries would not 
 be made if researches obnoxious to the fatal ques- 
 tion cui bono were to be uniformly avoided. . . . 
 Oersted would never have made his great dis- 
 covery of the action of galvanic currents on mag- 
 nets had he stopped in his researches to consider 
 in what manner they could possibly be turned to 
 practical account; and so we should not now 
 be able to boast of the wonders done by the elec- 
 tric telegraph. Indeed, no great law in Natural 
 Philosophy has ever been discovered for its 
 practical applications, but the instances are in- 
 numerable of investigations apparently quite 
 useless, in this narrow sense of the word, which 
 have led to the most valuable results." 
 
 Dr. A. E. Shipley has recently called attention 
 to two diagrammatic illustrations of our theme. 
 "A few years ago no knowledge could seem more 
 useless to the practical man, no search more 
 futile than that which sought to distinguish be- 
 tween one species of gnat or tick and another; 
 yet that knowledge has rendered it possible to 
 open up Africa and to cut the Panama Canal. 
 This witness," Mr. F. A. Dixey remarks, "is 
 true; and it would be difficult to point to a more 
 complete demonstration of the fact that natural 
 knowledge, pursued for its own sake, without 
 any direct view to future utility, will often lead 
 to results of the most unexpected kind and of
 
 244 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the very highest practical importance" (Nature, 
 Sept. 2, 1909). 
 
 We see, then, that undue insistence on the 
 practical utility of science is not historically 
 justified, and that hasty criticism of lines of 
 scientific work as purely theoretical is likely to 
 be very unjust. What practical result may flow 
 from an apparently abstruse and detached inves- 
 tigation no one is wise enough to predict, and 
 inventions usually rest on a patiently established 
 theoretical basis. Minerva-like birth of dis- 
 coveries is rare. As Prof. Stephenson puts it: 
 "Discoveries which prove all-important in secon- 
 dary results do not burst forth full grown; they 
 are, so to say, the crown of a structure raised 
 painfully and noiselessly by men indifferent to 
 this world's affairs, caring little for fame and 
 even less for wealth. Facts are gathered, prin- 
 ciples are discovered, each falling into its own 
 place until at last the brilliant crown shines out, 
 and the world thinks it sees a miracle." 
 
 The ultra-practical man's impatient "What's 
 the use of it?" may be occasionally a sound 
 corrective, since science, as well as art, requires 
 to be socialized. But it often reveals an intel- 
 lectual shortsightedness. As Sir Lyon Playfair 
 once said: "Truer relations of science to industry 
 are implied in Greek mythology. Vulcan, the 
 god of industry, wooed science, in the form of
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 245 
 
 Minerva, with a passionate love, but the chaste 
 goddess never married. Yet she conferred upon 
 mankind nearly as many arts as Prometheus." 
 
 SOCIALIZED SCIENCE. But how does the idea 
 of science for its own sake harmonize with that 
 expressed in Spencer's sentence: "Science is for 
 Lifei not Life for Science " ? There is no antithesis. 
 
 1. Science is certainly for the development of 
 life, but "life" must not be conceived of nar- 
 rowly. "Is not the life more than meat, and the 
 body than raiment? " 
 
 2. Moreover, for educated men in modern 
 civilized communities, life must be to some 
 extent for science, if it is to have any degree of 
 completeness. 
 
 3. Our point has been that Science will do 
 best for the citizen if it is left to attend to its own 
 business. 
 
 On the other hand, while we may not be able 
 to say of any specialized line of scientific inquiry 
 that it is not of value to human life, there are some 
 which are more promising and urgent than others. 
 Many kinds of quantitative descriptive work, 
 which afford very enjoyable occupation to natu- 
 ralists and very useful disciplining material for 
 apprentices, are not particularly urgent. And 
 eventually we must admit that men of science 
 are the intellectual advisers and educators of the 
 great mass of humanity who are concerned with
 
 246 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 the fundamental problem of bread and butter, 
 with the science known as "Brodwissenschaft." 
 
 Therefore, since scientific investigators are as 
 liable to preoccupation as other men, it is well 
 that prominence should be given to the humane 
 ideal of socialized science. Bacon got at it long 
 ago in the description which he gives of the true 
 spirit of the scientific investigator in a famous 
 passage in the Advancement of Learning: "This 
 is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowl- 
 edge if contemplation and action be more nearly 
 and straitly conjoined and united together than 
 they have been; for men have entered into a 
 desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon 
 a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; some- 
 times to entertain their minds with variety and 
 delight; sometimes for ornament and reputa- 
 tion; and sometimes to enable them to victory 
 of wit and contradiction; and most times for 
 lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to 
 give a true account of their gift of reason to the 
 benefit of man; as if there were sought in knowl- 
 edge a couch whereupon to repose a searching and 
 restless spirit; or a tarasse for a wandering and 
 variable mind to walk up and down with a fair 
 prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind 
 to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding 
 ground for strife and contention; or a shop for 
 profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for
 
 THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 247 
 
 the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's 
 estate." 
 
 But there are two sides to this idea of social- 
 ization, the other being the duty of the State to 
 utilize the resources of Science in the solution 
 of practical problems. Whether we think of the 
 more effective and less wasteful exploitation of 
 the Earth, or of the gathering in of the harvest 
 of the sea, or of making occupations more whole- 
 some, or of beautifying human surroundings, or of 
 exterminating infectious diseases, or of improving 
 the physique of the race we are filled with amaze- 
 ment at the abundance of expert knowledge of 
 priceless value which is not being utilized. 
 
 As to what may be called the moralization of 
 Science this is a subject on which only the high 
 priests in the temple should speak, and we shall 
 not do more than recall the noble words of one 
 of these. Helmholtz writes: "As the highest 
 motive influencing my work though not reached 
 in my early years was the thought of the civil- 
 ized world as a constantly developing and living 
 whole, whose life, in comparison with that of the 
 individual, appears as eternal. In the service of 
 this eternal humanity my contribution to knowl- 
 edge, small as it was, appeared in the light of a 
 holy service, and the worker himself feels bound 
 by affection to the whole human race, and his 
 work is thereby sanctified. This feeling all can
 
 248 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 theoretically understand, but long experience of 
 it alone can develop it into a powerful and steady 
 impulse." 
 
 In this chapter we have used the word utility 
 in the sense of practical utility, having in other 
 chapters said enough to show that Science can 
 justify itself, if necessary, at a higher court of 
 appeal. For Science is a natural and necessary 
 development and discipline of Man; it supplies 
 stimulus and raw material to literature and art; 
 and it has contributed to the store of great ideas 
 which should always be in the saddle and should 
 always rule mankind. 
 
 SUMMARY. Science is justified for its own sake 
 as a natural and necessary human activity. It has 
 groum out of practical lore and always receives 
 fresh stimulus by coming back to practical problems. 
 One of the great conditions of human progress is 
 the unceasing reciprocal relationship between science 
 and occupation. The practical utility of the sciences 
 is so great that there is danger in exaggerating utili- 
 tarian criteria. Nothing is more certain than the 
 fundamental value of "theoretical science." But 
 while the greatest practical gains have come from 
 the prosecution of "pure science," it may be agreed 
 that Science should be socialized, for, after all, Sci- 
 ence is for Life, not Life for Science. As Comte 
 said, "Knowledge is Foresight, and Foresight is 
 Power."
 
 REFERENCES TO BOOKS
 
 REFERENCES TO BOOKS 
 
 N.B. The student cannot do better than begin by reading the 
 various Introductions to the Sciences which this Library afford*. 
 
 BACON, FRANCIS. Novum Organum (1620). 
 BAIN, ALEXANDER. Logic (1870). 
 
 BEROSON, HENRI. Creative Evolution. Translation (1911). 
 This remarkable work deals in great part with the philos- 
 ophy of biology. 
 BOUTROUX, E. Science et Religion (1909). 
 
 So far as we know, the best of the many discussions of the 
 relations of Science and Religion. 
 CAIRO, JOHN. Lectures and Addresses (1899). See Lecture 
 
 on The Progressiveness of the Sciences. 
 CASE, THOMAS. Scientific Method as a Mental Operation, 
 
 in Lectures on the Method of Science (1906). 
 This valuable work contains a series of lectures by leading 
 authorities who discuss the methods of the various Sciences. 
 CLIFFORD, W. K. The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences. 
 
 Also his stimulating Lectures and Essays (1879). 
 DRIESCH, HANS. Science and Philosophy of the Organism, 
 
 2vols. (1908). 
 
 A profound contribution to the philosophy of biology. 
 FLINT, R. Philosophy as Scientia Scientiarum, and a His- 
 tory of the Classification of the Sciences (1904). 
 A very learned account of the numerous attempts to classify 
 knowledge. 
 
 FOSTER, SIR MICHAEL. Presidential Address at the Meeting 
 of the British Association at Dover in 1899. Report, 
 Brit. Association for the Advancement of Science (1899). 
 A noteworthy discourse on the characteristics of the scien- 
 tific mood. 
 
 Ml
 
 252 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 
 
 GOTCH, FRANCIS. On Some Aspects of the Scientific Method, 
 
 in Lectures on the Method of Science (1906). 
 HILL, ALEXANDER. Introduction to Science. 
 
 A wise and attractive little introduction. 
 HOUSSAY, F. Nature et Sciences naturelles (1908). 
 HUXLEY, T. H. Collected Essays, e. g. Method and Results, 
 Science and Education. 
 
 JEVONS, W. STANLEY. The Principles of Science, a Treatise 
 on Logic and Scientific Method. 3rd Ed. (1879). 
 
 LANKESTER, SIR E. RAY. The Kingdom of Man (1906). 
 A powerful book showing what Science has done and what 
 
 it might at present be doing for the commonwealth of Man. 
 
 McDouGALL, W. Psycho-Physical Method, in Lectures on 
 the Method of Science (1906). 
 
 MACH, E. Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886). 5th Ed. 
 
 1906. 
 A classic statement of the view that science is description. 
 
 MERZ, J. T. A History of European Thought in the Nine- 
 teenth Century. Vol i. Introduction. Scientific Thought 
 (1896). Vol. ii (1903). 
 A work of magistral scholarship and deep insight. 
 
 MIVART, ST. GEORGE. The Groundwork of Science (1898). 
 
 MORGAN, C. LLOYD. The Interpretation of Nature (1905). 
 A fine introduction to the philosophical questions raised 
 
 by Science. 
 
 NATOHP, P. Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissen- 
 schaften (1910). 
 
 OSTWALD, W. Natural Philosophy (1910). 
 
 A very important discussion of the principles of chemical 
 and physical Science. 
 OTTO, R. Naturalism and Religion (1907). 
 
 A competent and fair-minded statement of the scientific 
 position, with an explanation of the religious. 
 PEARSON, KARL. The Grammar of Science. 2nd Ed. 
 (1900). New Ed. (1911). 
 
 An indispensable and quite unique book. 
 PICARD, EMILE. La Science moderne et son etat actuel 
 (1909).
 
 REFERENCES TO BOOKS 253 
 
 POINCARE', H. La Science et I'Hypoth&se (1909). La Valeur 
 
 de la Science (1909). 
 POYNTING, J. J. Address, Section "A," Report of British 
 
 Association for 1889. Discussion of "Laws of Nature." 
 SHERRINGTON, C. S. Physiology; its Scope and Method. 
 
 in Lectures on the Method of Science (1906). 
 SPENCEK, HERBERT. The Classification of the Sciences 
 
 (1864). 
 STALLO, J. B. The Concepts and Theories of Modern 
 
 Physics. 
 STRONG, T. B. Scientific Method as Applied to History, 
 
 in Lectures on the Method of Science (1906). 
 TAYLOR, A. E. Elements of Metaphysics (1903). 
 
 We wish to express our great indebtedness to this book, 
 which is remarkable among other qualities for its under- 
 standing of scientific aims and methods. 
 THOMSON, J. ARTHUR. The Bible of Nature (1908). The 
 
 Progress of Science in the Century (1903). 
 TYNDALL, JOHN. Fragments of Science (1871). 5th Ed. 
 
 1876. Including the famous essay on the scientific use 
 
 of the imagination. 
 WARD, JAMES. Naturalism and Agnosticism. 2 vola- 
 
 (1899). 
 
 A classic work, indispensable to those who would inquire 
 into the philosophy of Science. 
 WHITE, A. D. A History of the Warfare of Science with 
 
 Theology. 
 
 A remarkable book which has had a great influence. Now 
 in 16th Ed.
 
 INDEX 
 
 JEschylus, 8 
 
 ^Esthetics, 168-169 
 
 ./Etiology, 113 
 
 Agassiz, 20, 28 
 
 Agnosticism, 214 
 
 Argon, 65 
 
 Aristotle, 36, 58, 60 
 
 Art and science, 166 
 
 Artistic element in science, 167 
 
 Aspects of reality, 160-164 
 
 Astronomy, 66, 133, 181, 232 
 
 Baoon, 7, 20, 29, 59, 81, 83, 237, 
 
 246 
 
 Bain, 91 
 Bateson, 23 
 Beauty, sense of, 169 
 Behaviour, evolution of, 154 
 Benzene, 241 
 
 Bergson, 42, 142, 147, 153 
 Biology. 105; aim of, 53, 109 
 Bio-physics, 97 
 Boutroux, 215 
 Branford, B., 32, 168/230 
 Brooks. W. K., 22 
 
 Case, T., 61, 229 
 
 Causes, kinds of, 42 
 
 Cavendish, 65 
 
 Chemistry, 105 
 
 Circulation of the blood, 72; of 
 matter, 175 
 
 Clarke, Eagle, 67 
 
 Coleridge, 205 
 
 Common sense, 38 
 
 Comte, 54, 57, 85 
 
 Conflict between science and re- 
 ligion, 208 
 
 Conic sections, 239 
 
 Conservation of energy, 182 
 
 Dalton, 134 
 
 Darwin, 30, 58, 176, 188 
 Deduction, 59 
 Description, scientific, 39 
 
 Development, 146 
 
 Driesch, 147 
 
 Dryad in the tree, 184 
 
 Eel, life-history of, 149 
 
 Emerson, 189 j 
 
 Emotional mood, 11 
 
 Energy, 62, 128; conservation of, 
 
 182; transformation of, 182 
 Entelechy, 147 
 Entities, 214 
 Espinas, 226 
 Evolution, 55, 127, 128, 142, 163, 
 
 211 
 
 Experiment, 69 
 Explanation, 41 
 
 Facts, 40, 63 
 
 Fairy tales, 179 
 
 Faraday, 26 
 
 Fechner, 159 
 
 Flint, Robert, 83, 88, 90 
 
 Forbes, Edward, 62 
 
 Formulation, 73 
 
 Foster, Sir Michael, 15, 18 
 
 Galileo, 59, 209 
 ilogy, 113 
 jraphy, 120 
 
 186 
 
 Gotch, 42, 73, 76, 183 
 Gravitation, 134 
 
 Haddon, 100 
 
 Harvey, 72 
 
 Helmholtz, 100, 247 
 
 Hinks, 66 
 
 Hobbes, 137 
 
 Huxley, 21, 22, 23, 24, 37, 51, 83, 
 
 141, 158, 198 
 Hypothesis, 69 
 
 Imagination, scientific use of, 75 
 Induction, 59 
 
 255
 
 256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 James, William, 193, 215 
 Jordan, D. S.. 176 
 
 Kant, 57, 161 
 
 Kelvin, Lord, 29, 46, 47. 64, 67, 
 
 74, 76, 77, 242 
 Kepler, 239 
 
 Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 208 
 
 Laplace, 213, 240 
 
 Laws of Nature, 49 
 
 Life, abundance of, 185; insur- 
 
 gence of, 185 
 Logic of science, 58 
 Lote, 177 
 
 Macdougall, 158, 159 
 
 Man, primitive, 8 
 
 Marshall, H. R., 169 
 
 Materialism, 212 
 
 Mathematics, history of, 228, 229 
 
 Matter, 128, 134; electrical theory 
 
 of, 135 
 
 Maxwell, Clerk, 20, 61, 77, 78 
 Mayer, 62 
 Measurement, 64 
 Mechanistic theory, 145 
 Meredith, 171-172 
 Men, 51 
 Metaphysics, 126; sendee of, to 
 
 science, 129 
 Migration, 67 
 Mill, J. S., 60 
 Monge, 221 
 Morgan, Lloyd, 140 
 
 Nature, 195; emotional relation 
 to, 179; fundamental impres- 
 sions of, 172, 175; love of, 
 171; strategy of, 198; voices 
 of, 206 
 
 Nature-poetry, 179 
 
 Nature-Psalms, 201 
 
 Nebula, primitive. 141, 162 
 
 Neo-vitalism, 184 
 
 Newton, 61 
 
 Observation, 61 
 
 Order of Nature, 174 
 
 Organism, nature of, 118, 143, 
 
 145, 152 
 Origin of living creatures upon the 
 
 earth, 139 
 
 Parasites, 71 
 Pasteur, 71, 240 
 
 Pearson, Karl, 25, 35, 50, 73. 84, 
 92, 237 
 
 Ramsay, Sir. William, 65 
 Rayleigh, Lord, 64 
 Reduction to simpler terms, 46, 68 
 Religion, 193; and science, 192- 
 
 223; approaches to, 208 
 Russell, E. S., 149, 151 
 
 Sciences, abstract, 104; applied, 
 114; classification of, 81-123; 
 correlation of, 117; exact, 107; 
 synthetic, 108 
 
 Science, aim of, 35-56; and feel- 
 ing, 188; and philosophy, 124- 
 165; and practical lore, 225; 
 and religion, 192-223; applied, 
 232; limitations of, 134, 205; 
 utility of, 224 
 
 Scientific method, 57-80 
 
 Scientific mood, 7-34 
 
 Seasons, biology of, 180 
 
 Selection, natural, 197; social, 197 
 
 Shipley, A. E., 243 
 
 Siebold, 71 
 
 Smith, William, 240 
 
 Sociology, 105, 107 
 
 Soul and body, 153, 160 
 
 Spencer, 86, 217 
 
 Stephenson, 243, 244 
 
 Struggle for existence, 196 
 
 Tait, P. G., 37, 74 
 Taylor, A. E., 63, 124, 157, 194 
 Technical education, 237-238 
 Theoretical science, 236 
 Thompson, Silvanus P., 29, 47 
 Tyndall, 62, 75 
 
 Uniformity of Nature, 78 
 Utility of science, 224-248 
 
 Vitalistic theory, 145, 147 
 
 Wallace, 234 
 
 Web of life, 30, 177, 181 
 
 Weismann, 27 
 
 Weldon, 103 
 
 Whitman, 170 
 
 Wonder, sense of, 173, 201
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 OCT 
 
 OCT 25 1W 
 OCT 28 IWt 
 
 ocr ai 
 
 ! CPL LIB DEC 1 4 1964 
 
 DEC 10 1964 
 
 Form L-9-20m-8,'3T 
 
 2 9 !950 
 
 i619 
 
 5 1952 
 
 JAW 
 
 E C E [ V t -: D 
 
 UA!
 
 Q159 
 
 T38i 
 
 W REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 Thomson" 
 
 Introduction'00501103 6 
 
 T38i 
 cop.l