INTRODUCTORY 37 



truth it has reached is the only form of truth which can 

 permanently satisfy the aesthetic judgment. For the 

 present, then, it is better to be content with the fraction 

 of a right solution than to beguile ourselves with the 

 whole of a wrong solution. The former is at least a step 

 towards the truth, and shows us the direction in which 

 other steps may be taken. The latter cannot be in entire 

 accordance with our past or future experience, and will 

 therefore ultimately fail to satisfy the aesthetic judgment. 

 Step by step that judgment, restless under the growth of 

 positive knowledge, has discarded creed after creed, and 

 philosophic system after philosophic system. Surely we 

 might now be content to learn from the pages of history 

 that only little by little, slowly line upon line, man, by 

 the aid of organised observation and careful reasoning, 

 can hope to reach knowledge of the truth, that science, 

 in the broadest sense of the word, is the sole gateway to 

 a knowledge which can harmonise with our past as well 

 as with our possible future experience. As Clifford puts 

 it, " Scientific thought is not an accompaniment or 

 condition of human progress, but human progress itself" 



SUMMARY 



1. The scope of science is to ascertain truth in every possible branch of 

 knowledge. There is no sphere of inquiry which lies outside the legitimate 

 field of science. To draw a distinction between the scientific and philosophical 

 fields is obscurantism. 



2. The scientific method is mar-ked by the following features : — (a) Careful 

 and accurate classification of facts and observation of their correlation and 

 sequence ; (b) the discovery of scientific laws by aid of the creative imagina- 

 tion ; ((') self-criticism and the final touchstone of equal validity for all 

 normally constituted minds. 



3. The claims of science to our support depend on : — {a) The efficient 

 mental training it provides for the citizen ; (3) the light it brings to bear 

 on many important social problems ; (r) the increased comfort it adds to 

 practical life ; (d) the permanent gratification it yields to the aesthetic 

 judgment. 



LITERATURE 



Bacon, Francis. — ^Novum Organum, London, 1620. A good edition by 

 T. Fowler. Clarendon Press, 1878. 



