The Evolution of the Sciences 



laboratories, no wide-open passages from one 

 to the other, and even less interchange of ideas. 

 Everything shows that the unity created by 

 the architect belongs to the fagade alone, and 

 that each has methods, principles and conclu- 

 sions of its own, in which the others take little 

 or no interest. 



The library of the university is the meeting 

 place of all the branches and might be expected 

 to supply the common bond. All the sciences 

 are ranged in it side by side according to the 

 system of classification favoured by the librarian, 

 but this admixture does not constitute union, 

 far less unity. The sciences, though they are 

 such near neighbours in all these rows of books, 

 never coalesce, but each develops as if the 

 others did not exist. Even in those encyclopedias 

 which pretend to synthesise modern knowledge 

 they lie side by side but have no organic union. 



Specialisation carried to its extreme limits 

 is the necessary law of progress. It alone renders 

 possible the form of hypertrophy characteristic 

 of advanced scientific culture. In his youth 

 the future scientist, having taken a degree which 



shows that he has the rudiments of general 



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