DIVISION A NORMATIVE SCIENCE 



SPEAKER : PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE, Harvard University 







(Hall 6, September 20, 10 a. m.) 



THE SCIENCES OF THE IDEAL 



BY JOSIAH ROYCE 



[Josiah Royce, Professor of History of Philosophy, Harvard University, since 

 1892. b. Grass Valley, Nevada County, California, November 20, 1855. 

 A.B. University of California, 1875; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1878; LL.D. 

 University of Aberdeen, Scotland; LL.D. Johns Hopkins. Instructor in 

 English Literature and Logic, University of California, 1878-82. Instruct- 

 or and Assistant Professor, Harvard University, 1882-92. Author of Re- 

 ligious Aspect of Philosophy; History of California; The Feud of Oak field 

 Creek; The Spirit of Modern Philosophy; Studies of Good and Evil; The 

 World and the Individual ; Gifford Lectures ; and numerous other works and 

 memoirs.] 



I SHALL not attempt, in this address, either to justify or to criticise 

 the name, normative science, under which the doctrines which con- 

 stitute this division are grouped. It is enough for my purpose to 

 recognize at the outset that I am required, by the plans of this Con- 

 gress, to explain what scientific interests seem to me to be common 

 to the work of the philosophers and of the mathematicians. The 

 task is one which makes severe demands upon the indulgence of the 

 listener, and upon the expository powers of the speaker, but it is a 

 task for which the present age has well prepared the way. The spirit 

 which Descartes and Leibnitz illustrated seems likely soon to become, 

 in a new and higher sense, prominent in science. The mathematicians 

 are becoming more and more philosophical. The philosophers, in the 

 near future, will become, I believe, more and more mathematical. 

 It is my office to indicate, as well as the brief time and my poor powers 

 may permit, why this ought to be so. 



To this end I shall first point out what is that most general com- 

 munity of interest which unites all the sciences that belong to our 

 division. Then I shall indicate what type of recent and special 

 scientific work most obviously bears upon the tasks of all of us alike. 

 Thirdly, I shall state some results and problems to which this type 

 of scientific work has given rise, and shall try to show what promise 

 we have of an early increase of insight regarding our common interests. 



