PHYSICS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 157 



latest field added to its estate, science has set itself 

 to examine experimentally the properties and needs 

 of the social organism, and to deal with the needs 

 of the human mind as well in its collective as in its 

 individual aspect. 



But, during the greater part of the period under 

 review, the complication of the social problem was not 

 understood, and social questions were answered in 

 the same confident spirit which was manifested in 

 other branches of science. Thus the cumulative 

 effect of the general tendency, in pure science, in its 

 technical applications, and in social philosophy, 

 became very great. It seemed that the human mind 

 was fast coming to a complete explanation of all 

 things on a mechanical and materialistic basis. 



The diffusion of this limited and one-sided aspect 

 of Nature, unaccompanied by historical or critical 

 insight, among minds unsuited by character and educa- 

 tion to apprehend the underlying deeper problems, 

 produced the narrow and dogmatic type of scientific 

 thought prevalent during a great part of the nineteenth 

 century and generally associated with a materialistic 

 outlook on life. A knowledge of the history of science, 

 an appreciation of the inadequacy and temporary 

 nature of many of its hypotheses which have done 

 good work in their time, together with the realization 

 of the deeper metaphysical questions which lie all un- 

 answered beneath science at every point, are tending 

 to release the human mind from the iron domination 

 of nineteenth-century scientific scholasticism, which 

 was threatening to outlive its period of usefulness as 

 a corrective to the older dogmatism of the modes of 

 thought it superseded. 



