SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 169 



most complicated mental and social sciences. Not schools of 

 thought, theories, or the defeats of conservatives, explain there- 

 fore the expansion of the circle of the sciences, but primarily 

 the slow emergence and maturing of one science after another 

 in a necessarily strictly defined order. 



The relative status of the sciences is also grounded in his- 

 toric advance. The more abstract and therefore simpler sciences 

 are ipso facto more firmly rooted than the less abstract and 

 more complex sciences, and possess consequently superior 

 authority. In time, however, biology, for instance, became 

 almost austerely scientific, and then it was no longer regarded 

 with suspicion. With the passing of a certain number of gene- 

 rations the same remark will come to be applicable to the 

 specio-psychic sciences, until all depreciatory comparisons be- 

 tween sciences will appear out of place. 



It was thus the appreciable chaos which ruled down to a 

 few years ago in the practical life, that suggested to scholars 

 the theory that the man of science should keep to pure theory 

 and pure science, and not crave for the fleshpots of utilitarian 

 results. Repeatedly the student was reminded that he could 

 serve practical ends better by ignoring them, and that meddling 

 in the affairs of life advanced neither theory nor practice. 

 The progress of the simpler sciences and the synchronous 

 clarification of practical issues, slowly invalidated this concep- 

 tion of the relation of science to life. Hence it became in- 

 creasingly practicable for the man of science to devote atten- 

 tion to the life of action, until the distinction between science 

 and the practical life lost much of its point. No one can now 

 doubt that there is illimitable scope for the man of science in 

 industrial laboratories; that commerce and industry are tending 

 to become more and more scientific in procedure; that agri- 

 culture in almost all of its aspects is ceasing to be empirical, 

 and is guided at nearly every step by scientific considerations 

 and methods; and that even the more intimate life of health 

 and happiness, come under the control of science. These drastic 

 changes are not the result of changes in theory, but the out- 

 come of the historic growth and purification of experience, 

 which, in turn, is modifying older theories that confused transi- 

 tional stages with the abiding nature of science. 



The law of relativity proceeds a step further in methodology. 

 The man of science was implored to attend closely to his 

 researches, and leave practical deductions severely alone. When 

 this view widely prevailed, that was excellent advice to give. 

 With the simpler sciences, however, becoming surer of their 

 ground, and the life of practice being better grasped, the danger 

 passed away. This, and this alone, justifies our own view, 

 whereon we have laid such stress, that practical deduction 

 should form an integral part of the process of investigation. 

 That is, what at one time was rightly regarded as hazardous, may 



