The Higher Usefulness of Science 59 



that to science there falls a very definite, very positive 

 share in solving the problem, but that to other depart- 

 ments of human interest and effort fall other shares. 

 If you would have me specific as to other departments 

 I should mention, by way of illustration rather than by 

 way of full enumeration, religion and art, selecting 

 these not so much for their unique importance as for 

 their fundamental distinctness from science. 



An effort must now be made to clarify our statement 

 of the problem. What is the meaning of our words 

 about determining the constitution of nature from 

 the fact that man is a part of nature? Perhaps an 

 illustration from a far simpler realm than that of 

 human beings will help. "A whole is greater than any 

 of its parts." The fact that this saying contains 

 some truth that is self-evident seems to deter us from 

 recognizing that it contains other truth not self-evi- 

 dent when the particular "whole" referred to is a nat- 

 ural object. The earth is greater than the American 

 Continent or the Pacific Ocean in a deeper sense than 

 merely that these are only two among many parts of 

 the earth. The earth's superiority to these is not 

 merely quantitative; it is generative as well. The 

 American Continent and the Pacific Ocean owe their 

 existence to the earth. Except for the interaction of 

 various intra- and inter-planetary forces these lands 

 and waters could not have come into being. 



An exceedingly pervasive and harmful fallacy in rea- 

 soning about natural genesis is that it has made as- 



