8 THE UNFATHOMED UNIVERSE 



that the contributions which each science makes are always 

 partial views, reached by processes of abstraction, by fo- 

 cussing attention on certain aspects of things. Pooling the 

 results of the several sciences does not of itself result even 

 in a scientific system, for that requires correlation. Still 

 less does it result in a philosophic system. This will be 

 clearer if the aims of science are discriminated. 



§ 3. Aims of Science. 



Science expresses a quite specific endeavour to get phenom- 

 ena under intellectual control, so that we can think of them 

 economically and clearly in relation to the rest of our 

 science, and so that we can use them as a basis for secure 

 prediction and effective action. Knowledge is foresight, 

 and foresight is power. The direct motives of science are, 

 in the main, intellectual curiosity, a self-preservative dis- 

 like of obscurities, a desire for unity and continuity in 

 outlook. Often, in particular cases, the immediate motive 

 may have been utilitarian — a desire for mastery; but the 

 great majority of important practical discoveries have be- 

 hind them a long labour of theoretical research pursued 

 for its own sake. 



That the chief end of science is descriptive formulation 

 has probably been clear to keen analytic minds since the 

 time of Galileo, especially to the great discoverers in astron- 

 omy, mechanics, and dynamics. But as a definitely stated 

 conception, corrective of misunderstandings, the view of 

 science as essentially descriptive began to make itself felt 

 about the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, and may be associated with the names of Kirch- 

 hoff and Mach. It was in 1876 that Kirchhoff defined the 

 task of mechanics as that of " describing completely and in 



