3^8 THK I'HILOSOI'HICAL LIMITS OF SCIF.NCK. 



may be discredited in this way, if they are over fastidi(nis in 

 dealine: witli plain facts. But the remoter applications of in 

 duction are not ])lain facts, nor is the process on which they 

 are based clear. It certainly impresses one with the limitations 

 of the mental instrument that science is compelled to use. 



And in the history of science we have many instances of 

 the pitfalls that the over-confident meet in the use of induction. 

 There is the, enonucus structure of inferences (hat have been 

 built ui)on the skulls of some pre-historic men. We had the 

 .V rays which shone brig^htly enough in some scientific treatises 

 for a year or so, and then went out. There are tlie many atomic 

 theories and those about the ether. Logic marks clearly the 

 limits between hypothesis and law or fact, and limits the results 

 of research accordingly. 



Philosoi)hy also creates a habit of mind, which helps to 

 correct and so to limit the elTects of specialization, which is 

 one of the iiuellectual dangers of scientific practice. There is 

 a body of systematized common-sense, which is the outcome of 

 the best philosophical si)eculation. This forms a check on the 

 liabits engendered b\- the s])ecialist work in confined areas of 

 research. 



Evolutionism is a case in point. It may be defined as the 

 endeavour to extend to the whole universe in all its jjarts the 

 law of evolution, which has been discovered to ol)tain in certain 

 departments of biology. 



For a feneration or two. evolutionism was the received 

 opinion among scientists, and it had become almost a dogmatic 

 tradition. The law of evolution has been found a useful 

 formula to explain and illustrate many processes in future, not 

 formerly well understood. But evolutionism, when analysed 

 by later scientists in the light of general knowledge, has seemed 

 t(^ many a rather hasty generalization from some special ascer- 

 tained facts. 



Philosophy is capable of performing another useful function 

 in delineating the frontiers of the various sciences. As the 

 frontiers are changing pretty constantly, this work is ever being 

 done anew. New maps of the scientific territory are usefully 

 drawn from time to time. 



The history of these classifications is also a history of the 

 encroachments of one science upon the ground of another or of 

 others. Philosophy devises a kind of law of nations, not quite 

 as elastic as its prototype, yet variable enough, and taking 

 account of the general advance of knowledge. 



At the end of last century biology furnished a notable 

 example of the need of these delimitations. There was a ten- 

 dency to push its methods into physics, the social sciences and 

 even psychology. A fair number of scientists seemed inclined 

 to return to the position of the sixteenth-century philosopher 

 Cadran, who said : " not only do the stones live, but they fall 

 ill,- grow old and. die." 



