in SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 209 



domain of experience. She busies herself with many 

 things which hitherto have not concerned her. Science, 

 theory of knowledge, and metaphysics find themselves 

 on the same ground. At first there may be a certain 

 confusion. All three may think they have lost some 

 thing. But all three will profit from the meeting. 



Positive science, indeed, may pride itself on the 

 uniform value attributed to its affirmations in the 

 whole field of experience. But, if they are all placed 

 on the same footing, they are all tainted with the same 

 relativity. It is not so, if we begin by making the 

 distinction which, in our view, is forced upon us. The 

 understanding is at home in the domain of unorganized 

 matter. On this matter human action is naturally 

 exercised ; and action, as we said above, cannot be set 

 in motion in the unreal. - Thus, of physics, so long 



r J o 



as we are considering only its general form and not 

 the particular cutting out of matter in which it is mani 

 fested, we may say that it touches the absolute. On 

 the contrary, it is by accident chance or convention, 

 as you please that science obtains a hold on the living 

 analogous to the hold it has on matter. Here the use 

 of conceptual frames is no longer natural. I do not 

 wish to say that it is not legitimate, in the scientific 

 meaning of the term. If science is to extend our 

 action on things, and if we can act only with inert 

 matter for instrument, science can and must continue 

 to treat the living as it has treated the inert. But, in 

 doing so, it must be understood that the further, ,i 

 penetrates trie depths of life, the more symbolic, the. 

 more relative to the contingencies&quot; oF action, the know 

 ledge it supplies to us becomes. On this new ground 

 philosophy ought then to follow science, in order to 

 superpose cm scientific truth a knowledge of another kin&amp;lt;^ 



