THE PROGRAMME 13 



THE THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT NATURE 



Natural sciences cannot originate before the given 

 phenomena of nature have been investigated in at least a 

 superficial and provisional manner, by and for the practical 

 needs of man. But as soon as true science begins in any 

 limited field, dealing, let us say, with animals or with 

 minerals, or with the properties of bodies, it at once finds 

 itself confronted by two very different kinds of problems, 

 both of them like all " problems " created in the last 

 resort by the logical organisation of the human mind, or, to 

 speak still more correctly, of the Ego. 



In any branch of knowledge which practical necessities 

 have separated from others, and which science now tries 

 to study methodically, there occur general sequences in 

 phenomena, general orders of events. This uniformity is 

 revealed only gradually, but as soon as it has shown itself, 

 even in the least degree, the investigator seizes upon it. 

 He now devotes himself chiefly, or even exclusively, to the 

 generalities in the sequences of all changes. He is con- 

 vinced that there must be a sort of most general and at the 

 same time of most universal connection about all occurrences. 

 This most universal connection has to be found out ; at least 

 it will be the ideal that always will accompany the inquir- 

 ing mind during its researches. The " law of nature ' is 

 the ideal I am speaking about, an ideal which is nothing 

 less than one of the postulates of the possibility of science 

 at all. 



Using for our purposes a word which has been already 

 introduced into terminology by the philosopher Windelband, 



