DEGENERA TION. 



that passionate desire to know the trutJi, which causes 

 the unceasing advance of her guide and benefactress. 



We may, it seems to me, say that of all kinds and 

 varieties of knowledge that only is entitled to the 

 name " science " which can be described as Knowledge 

 of Causes, or Knowledge of the Order of Nature. It 

 is this knowledge to which the great founder of 

 European science — Aristotle the Greek — pointed as 

 true knowledge : rore kiriaTayi^Oa oiav rrjv alrlav 

 6lBcd/jl€v. Science is that knowledge which enables 

 us to demonstrate so far as our limited faculties 

 permit, that the appearances which we recognise 

 in the world around us are dependent in definite 

 ways on certain properties of matter : science is that 

 knowledge which enables, or tends to enable us, to 

 assign its true place in the series of events consti- 

 tuting the universe, to any and every thing which we 

 can perceive. 



The method by which scientific knowledge is 

 gained — knowledge of the causes of nature — is pre- 

 cisely the same as that by which knowledge of causes 

 in every-day life is gained. Something — an appear- 

 ance — has to be accounted for : the question in both 

 cases is " Through what cause, in relation to what 



