sciences in their early beginnings, one can make use of this material 

 to discover a definition of science. The anthropologist, who desires 

 a definition of the word man, does not accept any definition which 

 is suggested, and then make his classification accordingly. The 

 physicist does not define electricity or aether in any haphazard way, 

 neither does the political economist nor the student of morals frame 

 his definitions except after much care. Before *ny scientific defini- 

 tion is made, there is always presupposed a certain amount of data, 

 and definitions arise, when these data are critically consi3ered. 

 Any other definition must, in the nature of the case, be merely" pro- 

 visional. If, for example, there be required knowledge of what rock 

 is, it is necessary to examine, not one rock, but many, and, having 

 gone through this examination, then by analysis it is possible to 

 pick out the essential constituents of rocks, that is, those character- 

 istics, which are common to all the specimens examined. A state- 

 ment then of those characteristics constitutes the definition. So 

 with science. It would be a great mistake to cqnsider only one 

 science, and it might be just as serious a mistake to consider only 

 one period in the history of science. What is common to the whole 

 development will constitute the true definition for which we seek. 

 Obviously, since there has only been presented so far an outline of 

 early science, the definition, which will result, can only be said, 

 strictly speaking, to apply to that period, but it will be seen, as the 

 investigations continue, that the later history of science exhibits 

 the same common characteristics, and, therefore, only serves to 

 corroborate the conclusions here adduced as to the nature of 

 science, even though they be drawn from the limited material 

 already presented. 



That which history has called science appears then to be differ- 

 entiated from the ordinary course of everyday experience by the 

 aim which characterizes it throughout. Now the aim which 

 possessed the early astronomers was to understand certain move- 

 ments of the heavenly bodies, that of the mathematicians to under- 

 stand certain relations of numbers and certain properties of space, 

 while those interested in mechanics tried to understand the motions 

 and equilibrium of ponderous bodies. Often the data, with which 

 these men were acquainted, were relatively very few, and often 



their suppositions were most crude; but these early pioneers had 







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