THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 531 



dental exegesis of final causes. In the latter we are not 

 — except in honest confession of ignorance and rational 

 definition of knowledge — one whit further advanced than 

 Aristotle, nay, than the primitive savage. The ex- 

 perience of centuries, we might hope, will at last convince 

 the speculative that " the inquisition of Final Causes is 

 barren, and, like a virgin consecrated to God, produces 

 nothing." ^ 



Our grandfathers stood puzzled before problems like 

 the physical evolution of the earth, the origin of species, 

 and the descent of man ; they were, perforce, content to 

 cloak their ignorance with time-honoured superstition and 

 myth. To our fathers belongs not only the honour of 

 solving these problems, but the credit of having borne the 

 brunt of that long and weary battle by which science 

 freed itself from the tyranny of tradition. Their task 

 was the difficult one of daring to know. We, entering 

 upon their heritage, no longer fear tradition, no longer 

 find that to know requires courage. We too, however, 

 stand as our fathers did before problems which seem to 

 us insoluble — problems, for example, like the genesis 

 of living from lifeless forms, where science has as yet no 

 certain descriptive formula, and perhaps no hope in the 

 immediate future of finding one. Here we have a duty 

 before us, which, if we have faith in the scientific method, 

 is simple and obvious. We must turn a deaf ear to all 

 those who would suggest that we can enter the strong- 

 hold of truth by the burrow of superstition, or scale 

 its walls by the ladder of metaphysics. We must 

 accomplish a task more difficult to many minds than 

 daring to know. We must dare to be ignorant. 

 Ignoravms, labormtduni est. 



SUMMARY 



An individual even with the ability of Bacon or Spencer must fail for want 

 of specialists' knowledge to classify the sciences satisfactorily. A group of 

 scientists might achieve much more, but even their system would only have 

 temporary value as the position of a science relative to others changes with its 



1 Bacon : De Augmentis, bk. iii. chap. v. 



