20 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



" I am ignorant." Meanwhile it is idle to be impatient or 

 to indulge in system-making. The cautious and laborious 

 classification of facts must have proceeded much further 

 than at present before the time will be ripe for drawing 

 conclusions. 



Science stands now with regard to the problems of 

 life and mind in much the same position as it stood with 

 regard to cosmical problems in the seventeenth century. 

 Then the system-mongers were the theologians, who 

 declared that cosmical problems were not the " legitimate 

 problems of science." It was vain for Galilei to assert 

 that the theologians' classification of facts was hopelessly 

 inadequate. In solemn congregation assembled they 

 settled that : — 



" The doctrine that the earth is neither the centre of the 

 zmiverse nor ivnnovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, 

 is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, 

 and at the least an error of faith." ^ 



It took nearly two hundred years to convince the 

 whole theological world that cosmical problems were the 

 legitimate problems of science and science alone, for in 

 I 8 1 9 the books of Galilei, Copernicus, and Keppler were 

 still upon the index of forbidden books, and not till 1822 

 was a decree issued allowing books teaching the motion 

 of the earth about the sun to be printed and published in 

 Rome ! 



I have cited this memorable example of the absurdity 

 which arises from trying to pen science into a limited 

 field of thought, because it seems to me exceedingly 

 suggestive of what must follow again, if any attempt, 

 philosophical or theological, be made to define the " legiti- 

 mate problems of science." Wherever there is the slightest 

 possibility for the human mind to know, there is a 

 legitimate problem of science. Outside the field of actual 

 knowledge can only lie a region of the vaguest opinion 



^ "Terrain iion esse centrum Mundi, nee immobilem, sed ?noveri motu 

 etiam diurtio, est item propositio absurda, et falsa in Philosophia, et Theoligice 

 C07tsiderata ad minus erronea in fide'''' (Congregation of Prelates and 

 Cardinals, June 22, 1633). 



