8 ON THE RELATION OF 



sciences, and to their intellectual contents, and therefore the 

 great amount of labour bestowed on those systems has not 

 been entirely thrown away. 



We see, then, that in proportion as the experimental inves- 

 tigation of facts has recovered its importance in the moral 

 sciences, the opposition between them and the physical sciences 

 has become less and less marked. Yet we must not forget 

 that, though this opposition was brought out in an unnecessarily 

 exaggerated form by the Hegelian philosophy, it has its founda- 

 tion in the nature of things, and must, sooner or later, make 

 itself felt. It depends partly on the nature of the intellectual 

 processes the two groups of sciences involve, partly, as their 

 very names imply, on the subjects of which they treat. It is 

 not easy for a scientific man to convey to a scholar or a jurist a 

 clear idea of a complicated process of nature ; he must demand 

 of them a certain power of abstraction from the phenomena, as 

 well as a certain skill in the use of geometrical and mechanical 

 conceptions, in which it is difficult for them to follow him. On 

 the other hand an artist or a theologian will perhaps find the 

 natural philosopher too much inclined to mechanical and 

 material explanations, which seem to them commonplace, and 

 chilling to their feeling and enthusiasm. Nor will the scholar 

 or the historian, who have some common ground with the 

 theologian and the jurist, fare better with the natural philo- 

 sopher. They will find him shockingly indifferent to literary 

 treasures, perhaps even more indifferent than he ought to be to 

 the history of his own science. In short, there is no denying 

 that, while the moral sciences deal directly with the nearest 

 and dearest interests of the human mind, and with the insti- 

 txitions it has brought into being, the natural sciences are con- 

 cerned with dead, indifferent matter, obviously indispensable 

 for the sake of its practical utility, but apparently without any 

 immediate bearing on the cultivation of the intellect. 



It has been shown, then, that the sciences have branched 

 out into countless ramifications, that there has grown up 

 between different groups of them a real and deeply felt opposi- 

 tion, that finally no single intellect can embrace the whole range 



