The Evolution of the Sciences 



our minds, a greater diversity separates those 

 who instruct, or have charge of, their progress. 

 Specialisation is the evil of the age, the price of 

 progress. Past ages have had men of universal 

 knowledge, Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, 

 Leibnitz and Laplace, whose minds embraced 

 all the knowledge of their age. Undoubtedly 

 the last of those encyclopaedic geniuses was 

 Berthelot, and he has lately recognised it with 

 mingled feelings of pride and regret. Our 

 brain is too small to contain the growing mass 

 of knowledge. Must we then each sink his own 

 shaft, toiling blindly on, heedless of the work 

 of others? Such is the disquieting problem 

 which we face, and which we must answer at 

 any cost. 



The foregoing observations show where the 

 solution is to be found. Since, to-day, no mind 

 can retain all the sciences, all specialisation 

 must be preceded by an infusion of general 

 science, giving the conditions of our reasoning 

 and of the external world. Mathematics and 

 physics are the veritable " humanities of science." 

 They form the indispensable basis of all study 

 bearing on any science whatsoever, and it is 



XIV 



