THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 53 



of organic evolution, though his pity par a were the direct 

 ancestors of the modern elements, and though his " mechani- 

 cal" Welfbildung, in which, besides these o-ro^ela, only the 

 forces of Love and Hate play their part, may not so fancifully 

 be compared with the object of physical science as conceived 

 (for example) by Helmholtz.* To be brief, not even the 

 elaborate systems of Democritus and Aristotle can be exenjpted 

 from the general statement that we are dealing here with 

 attempts to render the Objective intelligible which, on the 

 ground of an essential difference in the whole "situation," 

 must be distinguished from Science.! To justify this statement 

 fully would obviously require so much time that I must ask 

 to be forgiven for stating dogmatically a contention the principle 

 of which you will, I hope, be inclined to admit without further 

 argument. 



' - ' 17. 



For the same reason it is impossible to do more than 

 illustrate the fact that my contention also holds good 6f many 

 modern thinkers, who have yet made contributions to the 

 fabric of Science of fundamental importance. In the case of 

 these moderns the individual systems of ideas by which Objec- 

 tive facts were apperceived were dominated by theological as well 

 as philosophical elements. Thus Descartes when, to complete 

 his philosophical system, he turns his attention to the actual 

 particulars of the behaviour of the res extensa, deduces (in an 

 imperfect form) the modern doctrine of the Conservation of 

 Momentum from considerations of the perfection of God t }N A 



* Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft, Einleitung, p. 6 : " Die Naturer- 

 scheinungen zuruckzufiihren auf [Materie und] unveranderliche, anzie- 

 hende und abstossende Kraf te." 



t Cf. Plato's view that "the movements of the stars are only bad 

 diagrams illustrating the truths of ideal astronomy," or Aristotle's 

 conception of laws valid only " cir\ TO TroAv," with Galileo's conviction that 

 unbiassed investigation of matter will explain all apparent anomalies in 

 its behaviour. [Dialogues, Weston's trans., p. 3.] 



\ Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, 2nd part, 36. 



