THE ARBITER OF ETHICS 217 



cover the causes of phenomena and to simulate the 

 mechanism of natural forces, are as subjective and as 

 dependent on human opinion as any other form of 

 knowledge. And it is just these subjective and meta- 

 physical aspects of science which are concerned in the 

 question of the relation of the external world of 

 phenomena to our internal world of ideas. 



One would naturally turn to the histories of science, 

 not only for the data of scientific experience, but also 

 for that larger aspect of the question, the discussion 

 of the relations between scientific thought and other 

 forms of human activity. But almost without excep- 

 tion our histories of science are mere chronicles of 

 scientific experiments and hypotheses. The work of 

 each man of science is outlined in as great detail as the 

 scope of the history permits, as if everything done in 

 the name of science were important. What we should 

 have, is a discussion of the development of the sub- 

 ject and of the relations between the intellectual forces 

 of a given epoch and the scientific activity of the same 

 period ; for example, there should be shown the relation 

 of the ideas of Galileo, Copernicus, and Descartes to 

 the Renaissance ; at a later date there is a similar close 

 connection between the rise of electricity, the skeptical 

 spirit of the mathematical physicists, and the revolu- 

 tionary and democratic ideas which were prevalent at 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century. 



The most striking evidence of the ineffectiveness 



