30 MODERN DIFFICULTIES 



hensive totality has to be dealt with piecemeal. Ac- 

 cordingly there are many sciences, and each science 

 represents specialization — a more or less exclusive 

 consideration of limited departments or aspects of 

 reality, each having its distinctive methods of investiga- 

 tion and interpretation. It is the fact that certain 

 subject-matters can be successfully investigated by 

 similar methods which causes them to be included 

 within the purview of one science. This is so for the 

 obvious reason that success in scientific work depends 

 upon specialization in method. But such a principle 

 of division causes a certain overlapping of sciences, 

 which are often concerned with the same realities, 

 although with diverse aspects of them, and from dif- 

 ferent points of view. Thus the natural sciences in 

 their several ways deal with nature in its phenomenal 

 and mechanical aspects. As Mr. W. C. D. Whetham 

 says, "the object of Natural Science ... is to fit to- 

 gether a consistent and harmonious model which shall 

 represent to our minds the phenomena which act on 

 our senses." ^ On the other hand theological science 

 treats of nature in superphysical aspects, as exhibiting 

 the handiwork of God and as having place in the divine 

 plan, a determinative interpretation of which has been 

 made possible by supernatural revelation. It is as if 

 nature were cut through in various directions, the 

 several intersecting sections thus laid bare being 

 investigated in different sciences — the physical aspects 



* Recent Development of Physical Science, p. 15. The whole 

 chapter is valuable. 



