The Higher Usefulness of Science 75 



gases that would enable one to foresee that the gases 

 might under certain conditions combine and transform 

 into water. There is a far profounder difference than 

 mechanistic reasoning takes cognizance of between the 

 attributes of oxygen by which we know it here and now, 

 and those in virtue of which it produces water upon 

 reacting with hydrogen. 



Bergson has passed much this same criticism on the 

 claim by science of the power of prediction, but his 

 argument makes use of the element of time in a way 

 that, taken in connection with the criticism advanced 

 above, may make more obvious the validity of the criti- 

 cism. Time, Bergson says, "is deprived of its efficacy" 

 by such conception of foreseeing as that proposed by 

 Pluxley. This mode of statement involves Bergson's 

 peculiar view of the nature of time. But we can make 

 the time element help our criticism without commitment 

 to any theory as to what time is. Put it this way: 

 Perceptual knowledge is wholly dependent upon the 

 actual attributes of the perceived object. It is the 

 very quintessence of such knowledge to be thus depend- 

 ent. But all chemical action is known to require a 

 certain amount of time, however small. That is, some 

 time is required for the actual attributes of a chemical 

 product to evolve from their latent condition in react- 

 ing elements. Hence for one to claim that he is able 

 to predict the attributes of the product from the ele- 

 mental substances is equivalent to claiming that he can 

 annihilate the time required in chemical action. Stated 



