III. 



THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE. 



THERE has ever prevailed among men a vague notion 

 that scientific knowledge differs in nature from ordinary 

 knowledge. By the Greeks, with whom Mathematics — 

 literally things learnt — was alon^v considered as knowledge 

 proper, the distinction must have been strongly felt ; and 

 it has ever since maintained itself in the general mind. 

 Though, considering the contrast between the achievements 

 of science and those of daily unmethodic thinking, it is not 

 surprising that such a distinction has been assumed ; yet it 

 needs but to rise a little above the common point of view, 

 to see that no such distinction can really exist : or that at 

 best, it is but a superficial distinction. The same faculties 

 are employed in both cases ; and in both cases their mode 

 of operation is fundamentally the same. 



If we say that science is organized knowledge, we are 

 met by the truth that all knowledge is organized in a great- 

 er or less degree — that the commonest actions of the house- 

 hold and the field presuppose facts colligated, inferences 

 drawn, results expected ; and that the general success of 

 these actions proves the data by which they were guided 

 to hav« been correctly put together. If, again, we say 

 that science is prevision — is a seeing beforehand — is a know- 



