372 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the positive sciences knowledge ends; for the naive supposition 

 that an object can exist without a subject; for the marvelous delusion 

 that observation and experiment are capable of revealing things new 

 and old without the aid of mental synthesis or of psychological 

 volition; for the charming inconsequence that we perceive phenomena 

 and are therefore ignorant of reality. But equally, no basis can be 

 found for the idea that philosophy has means of access to some special 

 knowledge denied science; that one can afford to neglect science in 

 favor of rational forms ; that the conclusions of physics, chemistry and 

 biology are subject to revision at a higher tribunal; or that the work 

 of the sciences is a monstrous delusion. On the contrary, there is 

 every reason for insisting that science and philosophy are interwined 

 inextricably — much more inextricably now than they could have been 

 in Newton's time. Both work upon the same closed universe. This is 

 the important fact, even if science inquires, What is it? philosophy. 

 What does it mean? Nay, both questions are unanswerable, and so the 

 two disciplines alike end in approximation and hypothesis. As Eo- 

 manes has put it, "The 'Origin of Species' first clearly revealed to 

 naturalists as a class that it was the duty of their science to take as its 

 motto what is really the motto of natural science in general, 'Felix qui 

 potuit rerum cognoscere causas,' not facts, then, or phenomena, but 

 causes or principles are the ultimate objects of scientific quest." They 

 are the objects of philosophical quest also, as Romanes shows else- 

 where. In a word, to become conscious of its own fundamental prin- 

 ciples, science must transform itself into a kind of philosophy, while 

 to become acquainted with its own illustrative material, philosophy 

 must transform itself into a kind of science. This way lie harmony and 

 progress. We expect the twentieth century to furnish forth the im- 

 perative eirenicon. It can not come too soon. 



