THE UNITY OF SCIENCE 33 



ance and the illusions of our sensibility make them appear 

 new ; but in reality, if the mechanical explanation of all phe- 

 nomena be true, there is, first and last, never anything present 

 in the world but the same old imperishable atoms moving about 

 in accordance with the same old laws. This is not the time 

 for a discussion of this radical evolutionism which thus de- 

 pends upon a denial of the unity of natural laws — which, in 

 other words, is based upon what I have called scientific plural- 

 ism. But enough has, I think, been said to show that it pre- 

 sents to the mind a picture of the world we live in which is in 

 highly significant respects different from that which is drawn 

 for us by those who take the contrary view. 



Such are some of the more general aspects of the move- 

 ment of scientific inquiry in our time ; such are some of the 

 broader and essentially philosophic problems upon which the 

 scientific progress of the future may be expected to throw 

 light. These larger and more difficult matters ought, it seems 

 to me, not to be less interesting to us than the more specific 

 results which the special sciences are constantly gaining and 

 may be expected still to gain. It is not beneath the dignity of 

 man to desire to have some general notion of the sort of world 

 it is that he is living in ; it is not beneath the dignity of science 

 to gratify, so far as it can, this desire. To minister to this 

 curiosity — not, indeed, with premature pronouncements, but 

 with verified knowledge or measured statements of probabil- 

 ities — is after all the highest office of scientific inquiry. If 

 the craving for some apprehension of the general nature and 

 drift and meaning of things is to be called the philosophic 

 need, then, in this sense, at least, all natural science must still 

 be reckoned the handmaid of philosophy — though a handmaid 

 upon whose somewhat slow ministrations philosophy would 

 do well to wait with more patience than it has always shown. 

 It is, perhaps, through their subtly cooperative service in this 

 common ministry that a real, and at the same time an increas- 

 ing, unity of the sciences is most undeniable. I feel obliged 

 to say something of this sort in conclusion; for otherwise — 



