116 THE SCIENTIFIC PLAN OF THE CONGRESS 



mathematical. But to be consistent we must really demand that 

 merely the over-individual logical connections are treated in this 

 division. If we deal, for instance, with the aesthetical or ethical acts as 

 psychological experiences, or as historical propositions, they belong 

 to the psychical or historical division. Only the philosophical system 

 of ethics or esthetics finds its place in this division. It is difficult to 

 find a suitable name for this whole system of logical connections of 

 over-individual attitudes. Perhaps it would be most correct to call it 

 the Sciences of Values, inasmuch as every one of these over-individual 

 decisions constitutes a value in our world which our individual will 

 finds as an absolute datum like the objects of experience. Seen from 

 another point of view, these values appear as norms which bind our 

 practical will inasmuch as these absolute values demand of our will to 

 realize them, and it may thus be permitted to designate this whole 

 group of sciences as a Division of Normative Sciences. 



Our logical explanation of the meaning of these four divisions 

 naturally began with the interpretation of that science which usually 

 takes precedence in popular thought - - with the science of nature, 

 that is, and passed then to those groups whose methodological situa- 

 tion is seen rather vaguely by our positivistic age. But as soon as we 

 have once defined and worked out the boundary lines of each of these 

 four divisions, it would appear more logical to change their order and 

 to begin with that division whose material is those over-individual 

 will-acts on which all possible knowledge must depend, and then to 

 turn to those individual will-acts which determine the formulation 

 of our present-day knowledge, and then only to go to the objects of 

 knowledge, the over-individual and the individual ones. In short, we 

 must begin with the normative sciences, consider in the second place 

 the historical sciences, in the third place the physical sciences, and 

 in the fourth place the psychical sciences. There cannot be a scientific 

 judgment which must not find its place somewhere in one of these 

 four groups. And yet can we really say that these four great divisions 

 complete the totality of scientific efforts? The plan of our Congress 

 contains three important divisions besides these. 



5. The Three Divisions of Practical Sciences 



The three divisions which still lie before us represent Practical 

 Knowledge. Have we a logical right to put them on an equal level 

 with the four large divisions which we have considered so far? Might it 

 not rather be said that all that is knowledge in those practical sciences 

 must find its place somewhere in the theoretical field, and that every- 

 thing outside of it is not knowledge, but art ? It cannot be denied 

 indeed that the logical position of the practical sciences presents seri- 

 ous problems. That the function of the engineer or of the physician, 



