362 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the fence, to familiarize themselves with the scientific attitude and 

 temper, while the gradual entry of the sciences into the usual under- 

 graduate course at our colleges has not left the earlier education of 

 those who come afterwards to specialize in philosophy so utterly void 

 of scientific knowledge as it used to be. Moreover, the long com- 

 merce of our ablest students with German culture cannot but have pro- 

 duced similar modifications. Be this as it may, the point I desire to 

 emphasize is that no conflict can exist properly between science and 

 philosophy, and that a most interesting — possibly the most hopeful — 

 trait of recent thought may be traced precisely in the inclination 

 towards an alliance. It ought to be said, too, that some few, whose 

 work appears to lie in the immediate future — to present symptoms 

 of decided vitality — tend clearly in this direction. And, when we stay 

 to reflect for a moment, why should it not be so? Science and 

 philosophy possess this in common — they search for the truth free 

 from all trammels of dogmatic presupposition. If they prove true to 

 themselves, their object must be the same, even if they view it from 

 different sides and for different purposes. Take them from what 

 standpoint you please, both are 'science' in the broad sense of the un- 

 translatable term, Wissenschaft. It may be of interest, therefore, to 

 devote some attention to the new-old question. What is the relation be- 

 tween science and philosophy ? 



Approaching the problem historically, it proves something of a 

 shock to learn that the so-called opposition had no existence seventy 

 years ago. Nay, from the time of Descartes' 'Discours de la Methode' 

 (1637) till the enunciation of the cellular theory (Schleiden and 

 Schwann, c. 1838), free interaction, often conscious cooperation, pre- 

 vailed. Eecall the full title of Descartes' epoch-making tractate, 

 'Discours de la Methode pour bien conduires sa raison, et chercher la 

 verite dans les sciences; plus la Dioptrique, les Meteores et la 

 Geometric, qui sont des Essais de cette Methode'; recall Spinoza, the 

 optician; recall Leibnitz and his calculus; recall the sober, scientific 

 temper of the entire British school, from Hobbes to Hume; recall 

 Kant's cosmogony, the precursor of modern ethereal physics, and re- 

 member that the critical philosopher likened himself, not to Plato or 

 Bacon, but to Copernicus; you find no ground for controversy, but 

 every symptom of mutual good-will. The contrast between this two 

 hundred years' truce, covering the history of thought from the Eefor- 

 mation till the French Eevolution, and the undignified, profitless 

 squabbles, still fresh in the memory of many middle-aged men, is so 

 striking that a call for reasons goes forth at once. If this matter can 

 be elucidated, much will have been done to explain away the recent 

 unfriendliness. At the same time, the case presents peculiar diffi- 

 culties, because the evolution of thought in this connection furnishes 



