REAL NATURE OF SCIENCE 45 



is said that after all scientific work smacks of 

 materialism and that the God whom we would 

 worship is a spirit. It is true that science works 

 with brain and hand; it is not true that its aims 

 are unspiritual. 



After all this is the real point at issue. Latin 

 and Greek, Philosophy and History are to many 

 the mainstay of education; science is an extra 

 like dancing. The humanities would show the 

 relations between man and man, and between man 

 and his God. Science is a cold collection of soulless 

 facts. If that were all, then indeed there would 

 be no plea for science. But it is not so; on the 

 one hand science is a living growing thing, full of 

 human triumphs and failures; on the other hand 

 it is an equipment necessary for the man who 

 would live and help as he should. All the humani- 

 ties of the world centre in the two great command- 

 ments of the Christian religion ; if it is the business 

 of the humanities to honour and set forth these 

 commandments it is the part of science to furnish 

 the equipment for carrying them out. This is the 

 idea which must be recognised before we can hope 

 to change the general attitude, and in particular 

 the educational attitude, to science. We have to 

 destroy the idea that we would substitute something 

 sordid and material for that which is spiritual and 

 noble. To point to the material usefulness of 

 science will only bring a reluctant consent to its 

 full admission into educational schemes, and that 



