SCIENCE AND CULTURE 17 



irreducible to science, is henceforth possible. 

 Science is herself theory and practice — truth 

 and action — the abstract and the concrete — 

 knowledge and life. 



Ill 



Before asking ourselves if that conception 

 is true or false, it might perhaps be interesting 

 to try to form a picture of what human life 

 would become if it were actually governed in 

 all its parts by science and only by science. 

 It is one thing indeed to sing hosannas in 

 honor of science; it is another thing to see 

 clearly all the consequences which the exclu- 

 sive sovereignty of science would bring to 

 pass. If it appears that these consequences 

 would be enormous and paradoxical, it by no 

 means follows that the principle is false, be- 

 cause the mission of truth is not to be agree- 

 able to us, yet such an outcome of the principle 

 will be an additional reason for not accepting 

 it without a close examination. 



Auguste Comte loved to repeat that to sur- 

 render human life to the men of learning and 



