THE TWO ASPECTS OF SCIENCE 11 



the term when used in this connexion, are particularly 

 human. Common sense divides the world into three 

 great divisions man, animals and plants (or living beings 

 other than man), and inanimate objects. To the third 

 division the idea of morals is clearly inapplicable, whether 

 it refers to all mental processes or more particularly to 

 right conduct ; and it is applicable only in a very limited 

 degree to the second ; the first is its proper province. 

 The distinction between natural and moral philosophy 

 suggests at once that the latter is concerned especially 

 with man and his ways ; the former with everything 

 that is foreign and external to man. F Nature means 

 practically the part of the world which man regards as 

 external to himself.^ 



Accordingly it is suggested that science should be 

 defined as that branch of pure learning which is concerned 

 with the properties of the external world of nature. Its 

 business is to find out accurately what those properties 

 are, to interpret them, and to make them intelligible to 

 man ; the intellectual satisfaction at which it aims 

 would be secured completely if this external world could 

 be reduced to order and be shown to be directed by 

 principles which are in harmony with our intellectual^ 

 and moral desires. On the other hand, science will not, 

 on this view, be concerned with anything distinctively 

 human ; it will not consider human thoughts and actions, 

 ask what those thoughts and actions are, or examine and 

 criticize them. And this suggested definition of science- 

 would probably have been accepted very generally 

 at the time when science was first distinguished from 

 other branches of learning under the name of natural 

 philosophy. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in 

 accepting it. For, according to the view that has 

 been put forward, all pure learning arose ultimately 

 from man's desire to understand the world ; it was 

 his opposition to the external world of nature 



