16 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



and of the humanities and those who are eagerly pursuing 

 the quest for scientific knowledge. Humanistic learning is 

 the learning of the ancients; it is a study of the accumulated 

 thought of mankind so far as it has been transmitted to us. 

 Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, is a development 

 arising from the observation of facts and their classification 

 into patterns. The separation of these two types of learning 

 has always been unfortunate; at present it is serious, and it 

 may, indeed, be disastrous. As Sarton says, "The most omi- 

 nous conflict of our time is the difference of opinion, of out- 

 look, between men of letters, historians, philosophers, the 

 so-called humanists, on the one side, and scientists on the 

 other." * The administrators and organizers of society have 

 been trained chiefly in the humanities and are largely igno- 

 rant not only of the facts of science but of the scientific 

 method. The scientists, on the other hand, are absorbed in 

 their own problems and too often have little time to spare 

 for the study of history, even the history of science. It is 

 essential that a reconciliation bet^veen the two branches of 

 learning should be effected and that the present dichotomy 

 of our cultural and educational systems should be resolved. 

 The humanists must understand what the scientists have 

 done in the past, are doing now, and may do in the future; 

 while the scientists must see their work in the light of history 

 and in relation to the effects that its application to social 

 conditions will produce. 



Now let us turn to the pageant of history and endeavor to 

 see some design in its structure that may reconcile in one 

 general pattern the different conceptions of history that we 

 have discussed. 



* George Sarton, The History of Science and the New Huinanisyn, 

 p. 54, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1937. All quotations from 

 this author are rej^rinted by permission of the publishers. 



