CHARACTER OF SPECULATIVE PROBLEMS 391 



be in view of the fact that it lies outside the field of science 

 and is therefore presumably not demonstrable by recognized 

 scientific techniques. 



A brief analysis of each of the types of problem from the 

 point of view of these three features will be helpful as an 

 introduction to the discussion which is to follow. A more 

 detailed examination will be given in the specific chap- 

 ters. 



(1) The classification of the sciences, (a) The data in this 

 problem are drawn exclusively from the sciences, except in 

 so far as they must include the studies of the religious, 

 esthetic, and moral aspects of human life — which are usually 

 presumed to lie outside of science. The point is, merely, 

 that any classification of the sciences must include not only 

 the sciences proper, e.g., the mathematical, physical, biolog- 

 ical, social, and psychological sciences, but the historical 

 disciplines and all those normative pursuits which examine 

 man's valuational responses. The data may be, as will be 

 seen, either the subject matter of the various disciplines, or 

 the methods. But unless they are drawn from a sufficiently 

 inclusive realm the resulting picture will be partial rather 

 than complete. (6) The inference is inductive in character, 

 and endeavors by synthetic operations to ascertain the char- 

 acter of the whole into which the individual sciences may be 

 presumed to unite. The whole is commonly taken to be an 

 hypothesis rather than a construct, since it is employed for 

 the purpose of explaining the individual sciences. The infer- 

 ence is from parts to whole, or from parts as unrelated to 

 parts as interrelated, (c) The inferred fact is the classifica- 

 tory scheme itself, which shows the precise interrelations 

 of general, special, and coordinate sciences, pure and applied 

 sciences, historical and non-historical sciences, composite 

 and simple sciences, concrete and abstract sciences, experi- 

 mental and non-experimental sciences, and so on. The aim 

 of such a scheme is to reveal those relations between the 

 sciences which are the most fruitful hypotheses for the 

 understanding of the sciences themselves. 



