30 WHAT IS SCIENCE? 



IS THERE UNIVERSAL AGREEMENT ? 



But objections are probably crowding in upon the 

 reader's mind. The more he thinks about the matter, 

 the more impossible it will appear to him that truly and 

 perfectly universal agreement can be obtained about 

 anything. The scientific criterion, he will think, may 

 be an ideal, but surely even the purest and most abstract 

 science cannot really live up to it in a world of human 

 fallibility. Let us consider for the moment some of the 

 objections that will probably occur to him. 



In the first place, he may say that it is notorious that 

 men of science differ among themselves, that they accuse 

 each other of being wrong, and that their discussions are 

 quite as acrimonious as those of their philosophical or 

 linguistic colleagues. This is quite true, but the answer 

 is simple. I do not say that all the propositions of 

 science are universally accepted nothing is further from 

 my meaning ; what I say is that the judgments which 

 science studies and on which its final propositions are 

 based are universally accepted. Difference of opinion 

 enters, not with the subject-matter, but with the conclu- 

 sions that are based on them. 



In the second place, he may say that, if absolutely 

 universal agreement is necessary for the subject-matter 

 of science, a single cantankerous person who chose, out 

 of mere perversity, to deny what every one else accepted 

 could overthrow with one stroke the whole fabric of 

 science ; agreement would cease to be universal ! Now 

 this objection raises an important issue. How do we 

 judge what other people think, and how do we know 

 whether they do agree ? We have already discussed 

 this matter from the standpoint of common sense and 

 stated our conclusion on p. 25. But, here again, science, 

 though applying generally the same criterion as common 

 sense, insists on a much stricter and deeper application 



