What we Mean by Science. 489 



present attitude of the subject by referring to the re- 

 lations which subsist among the various departments of 

 thought. 



The purely physical sciences, corresponding to the 

 material phases of Nature, are the simplest, and have been 

 developed first. By studying the internal or atomic 

 changes of matter, the science of chemistry has been ar- 

 rived at. Inquiries concerning the air have led to mete- 

 orology, and investigations into the earth's crust have 

 given rise to geology. But the intellectual movement thus 

 exemplified is far from stopping with an exploration of 

 material phenomena. Success here but sharpens the mind 

 for the further research, of truth. These departments of 

 physical study have their highest value as a preparation 

 for something beyond. They are but the training ground 

 of the human intellect for larger spheres of inquiry. The 

 development of the physical sciences has produced grand 

 and beneficent results, as all men know. But the advance 

 of industrial civilization, to which they have led, is far from 

 being their most important effect. Nor is their disclosure 

 of the order of material Nature, by which man has been 

 translated from the darkness of ignorance and superstition 

 into the light and hope of knowledge, by any means their 

 strongest claims to honour. It is in that higher education, 

 and nobler discipline of the human mind, which can alone 

 qualify it to enter upon the more exalted questions of the 

 real nature of man himself, and his true relations to the 

 surrounding world and to his fellow-men ^ it is here that 

 the nobler function of the physical sciences is to be sought. 



That accuracy of thinking, which it is the business of 

 science to enforce, has led to the detection of those uni- 

 formities in the course, of Nature which we term law. More 

 and more clearly is it perceived that all kinds of action ex- 

 emplify cause and effect, and therefore conform to law ; 

 and more and more apparent is it also becoming that all 



