PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 27 



his subject matter with a different attitude, a different 

 method, and a different aim. 



In the third place the emergence of the philosophy of 

 science occurred as a result of a fact which was essentially 

 social in character. The last century was, by all odds, a 

 period of outstanding scientific progress ; the present century 

 promises even to surpass it in the extent of knowledge, in 

 the application of this advance to the improvement of com- 

 fort and convenience, and in the effect which this increased 

 information is certain to exert upon individual and social 

 values. The fact is that we are better informed than we were 

 a hundred years ago, and the difference is essentially due to 

 science. Science has been so much popularized in recent 

 years that the average layman knows more today than the 

 specialist of a century ago. Furthermore, the advance in 

 knowledge has not been of a purely theoretical sort; instead 

 it has resulted in revolutionary transformations in the man- 

 ner of life of the ordinary individual. Man is today more 

 comfortable than he has ever been, and he has more oppor- 

 tunities for cultural advancement, education, and travel 

 than his ancestors ever dreamed of. Moreover, science is 

 claiming the right to legislate over his entire life; the cry 

 is to make religion scientific, to make behavior scientific, 

 to make politics scientific. Our age has been properly 

 characterized as the scientific age. Certainly it is scientific 

 in the sense that its ideals are essentially the ideals of sci- 

 ence, the spirit with which it approaches its problems is 

 preeminently the spirit of science, and the solution to its 

 problems seems to lie in further scientific knowledge. 



All of this has turned man's attention to science. Science 

 is no longer being taken for granted; it is no longer a negli- 

 gible aspect of the social scheme, free to pursue its independ- 

 ent course. It has emerged as a dynamic factor, exerting 

 influences upon all phases of the contemporary scene — 

 religion, morality, art, education, and the cultural life in 

 general. Inevitably man, fundamentally a rational animal, 

 begins to ask the question: what is science? What is this 



