36 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



THE MISSION AND LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE. 



By J. T. WiLLAED, of the Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan. 



An address delivered at Topeka, January 1, 1903, before the thirty-fifth annual meeting 

 of the Kansas Academy of Science. 



TT is not my purpose to attemi3t to trace the development and influ- 

 -■- ence of science from its origin to the present time. This would, 

 at best, be largely speculative. I wish, however, at the outset to de- 

 fine the domain of science, so that our thoughts may be directed in 

 the same channels. We all have some idea, it may be more or less 

 vague, as to what is meant by the term "science," but its definition, I 

 fancy, is not easy to any one. I question if any of the body of work- 

 ers commonly called scientists would call mathematics a branch of 

 science, as the term is now generally used, although in no branch of 

 learning is there possible such absolute logic and systematic arrange- 

 ment of the material under discussion, and the dictionary defines 

 mathematics as the science that treats of quantity. Mathematics, 

 however, deals with the abstract. It is the product of intellect work- 

 ing upon itself. While it is applied and is of the most transcend- 

 ent importance to the concrete operations of every-day life and the 

 sciences, it does not essentially deal with the concrete, unless it be 

 true that the axioms of mathematics, which constitute the unprov- 

 able bases of assumption upon which its magnificent superstructure 

 is reared by successive steps of pure logic, are themselves but state- 

 ments of concrete experiences of man in his contact with nature, 

 which have by their unvarying associations become so impressed 

 upon the organization, that all agree that to deny them is an absurd- 

 ity. Be that as it may, mathematics is essentially a matter of pure 

 intellect, and does not come in the field of learning that is included 

 within the term "science" as it is most frequently heard. 



Science deals with facts — that is, occurrences that are matters of ob- 

 servation. It is concerned essentially with the concrete, and with 

 pure reasoning directly applied to the concrete. History considered 

 merely as a record of events or facts is not science. Neither is lit- 

 erature, though it may be rich in facts. As I conceive it, science is 

 the study of occurrences or phenomena of nature in their relation to 

 each other. The study of the relations among facts constitutes the 

 essence of science. When we speak of "the sciences" we must un- 

 derstand that this is merely for convenience. The sciences are but 

 sections, more or less distinct, of science, and in truth the more we 

 learn of the sciences the less distinct they become, and the more and 

 more they merge into the all-inclusive unit, science, which is knowl- 



