The Higher Usefulness of Science 77 



in order to understand rightly her productive powers 

 and to be able to forecast with the highest attainable 

 correctness what in future she may bring forth, it is 

 of the utmost importance to have the broadest, most 

 reliable knowledge possible of her actual products. 

 Due appreciation of this puts one, eo ipso, in the frame 

 of mind for what Whewell has called the natural his- 

 tory method of philosophizing, and on which I dwell 

 somewhat critically in the last essay in this volume. 



From now on our occupation will be with man, and 

 this reference to the natural history method of philoso- 

 phizing is made to carry us across from the logico- 

 scientific argument in which we have been engaged, to 

 the logico-humanistic argument that is to follow. Re- 

 cent philosophic discussion of human history has, we 

 are informed (E. G. Teggart, Prolegomena to History, 

 p. 66), made much of the fact that history is concerned 

 primarily with names and deeds which are individual 

 and largely unique and isolate, while science deals pri- 

 marily with the general principles and laws of nature. 

 This is one of the chief reasons, it is said by some, why 

 a scientific treatment of history is impossible. The 

 much discussed question of whether history in the usual 

 meaning of the word is or can become a science does 

 not directly concern the present argument. What does 

 interest us very closely is the contention widely made 

 that the main if not the sole business of science is with 

 the repetitions and recurrences in nature; in other 

 words with general rules and laws, and that in the 



