78 The Higher Usefulness of Science 



individual, the unique, the exceptional, science has only 

 a passing and uncompelling interest. This theory of 

 the nature and aim of science is in large measure re- 

 sponsible for the view that science touches only the 

 edges of human life. Man's social and all higher life is 

 too personal, too single, too exceptional, it is affirmed, 

 to admit reduction to law, and consequently is in- 

 capable of scientific treatment. 



Now I insist that the natural history mode of 

 dealing with nature can not possibly be ignored by con- 

 sistent science, and that this method is a natural cor- 

 rective and filling out of the partial view of science 

 above indicated. From this standpoint the present 

 essay is a complement to the one referred to a few 

 sentences back, in which the cardinal aim is to show 

 the essentiality and indispens ability of description, 

 definition, and classification for all departments of 

 biology. The argument there is designed to show that 

 occupation with individuals individual organisms and 

 individual parts of organisms in endless array is ex- 

 actly one of the most distinctive features of biology, 

 and that such occupation is of the very essence of the 

 natural history method. In the present essay I have 

 tried to show that when dealing with the genesis of 

 living things, or for that matter of all natural things, 

 regard for single objects and events, even objects and 

 events which have much of uniqueness about them, is in 

 reality unescapable. Science can do absolutely nothing 

 with magnetism apart from individual magnets. 



