I 



506 



NA TURE 



[March 30, 1905 



isolation from other similar endeavours. Hence it 

 is, that while there is no generally recognised system 

 of arranging the sciences in any rational order, there 

 is a whole series of competing pseudo-classifications, 

 each characterised by the particular qualities and de- 

 fects of its individual originator. One of the un- 

 fortunate results, is that the problem itself has fallen 

 into some disrepute. Prof. Flint's book will help 

 substantially to rescue the problem both from neglect 

 and obloquy. 



With existing resources, what tentative lines of 

 orderly development may be discerned in the evolu- 

 tion of science which may help towards this pre- 

 liminary problem of classification ? Looking at the 

 sciences collectively, and their field of investigation 

 as a whole, we may without transcending scientific 

 limits take several standpoints in turn. These may 

 be held to include the following : — 



(i) Science, collectively considered as a body of 

 knowledge, differentiated from other bodies of 

 knowledge {e.g. common knowledge on the one side 

 and philosophy on the other) by its more systematic 

 character, its greater quantitative precision, its more 

 fully and explicitly known sources of origin and 

 methods of growth, the more certain verifiability of 

 its generalisations, the greater exactitude of its fore- 

 casts. Here, from this standpoint, science appears 

 as a system of symbolism, a methodised scheme of 

 notation, an organisation of interdependent formula 

 — in short, a well-made language, as Condillac said. 



(2) Science considered as a psychological process — 

 I.e. as a power or faculty which, under certain defin- 

 able conditions of heredity, training, and environ- 

 ment, the individual mind may acquire and utilise in 

 the course of its normal growth. Here, from this 

 standpoint, science appears as an artificial Psychic 

 Organ, a p)ortable illuminant like the miner's lamp, 

 a racial eye adjustable to the individual brain — an eye 

 that discerns the obscurities of the present, penetrates 

 the past, and reveals the future. In short, science is 

 here a rational development of instinct, by means of 

 which the individual may be educated to possess him- 

 self more fully of the accumulated social heritage; 

 and, in turn, more fully contribute to it, from his 

 personal experience — the individual being here 

 postulated as unique. 



(3) Science considered as a social process, !.t'. as 

 a growth of racial experience, accumulated by an 

 infinitude of contributions from cooperating individuals 

 and generations in endless succession. It is a social 

 process differing in its development from parallel 

 growths of racial experience, chiefly in being more 

 capable of consciouslv directed control and guidance, 

 and therefore able to yield more verifiable ideals. 

 Here, from this third point of view, science appears 

 as a Social Institution, aiming at the organisation 

 of conimunitary experience by a collective process in 

 which the intervention of any given individual is a 

 negligible quantity. The personality of the individual 

 man of science is here to be observed as a social fact 

 of a definitive order, and interpreted as itself the 

 product of past and contemporary social evolution. 

 The individual is here postulated, not as unique, but as 



NO. 1848, VOL. 71] 



a type. The existing body of men of science make up, 

 at any given moment, the temporary and evanescent 

 personnel of one amongst abiding social institutions. 

 They constitute one of a number of competing and 

 cooperating social groups, composed of types of 

 personality which are material for observation and 

 study, like any other commensurable objects of natural 

 history. And in this observational study of types of 

 scientific personality would, of course, be included the 

 corresponding study of their mental products — i.e. 

 their contributions to science. 



Here, then, are three aspects of science, under 

 which it may approach the problem of its own 

 structures and functions, its own history and ideals. 

 The first approach is that of the nascent science of 

 methodology (inheriting the philosophical traditions 

 of logic and epistemology) ; the second is that of 

 the well-established science of psychology ; and the 

 third, that of the nascent science of sociology (inherit- 

 ing the traditions of philosophy of history and social 

 philosophv). As each of these three sciences develops, 

 it must, in pursuit of the first of scientific ideals — 

 that of an over-evolving order — work out an 

 increasinglv natural classification of the phenomena 

 with which it deals. The whole field of science would 

 be surveyed from each of these points of view, and 

 it would follow that in course of time there must 

 emerge several classificatory schemes, each with a 

 scientific status and validity of its own. But, given 

 these several taxonomic systems — logical, psycho- 

 logical, sociological, and perhaps also sesthetic and 

 ethical — there would, of course, remain the problem of 

 their unification. Here surely would be scope for the 

 activities of the philosopher; and yet the man of science 

 would presumably decline to delegate that supreme 

 taxonomic survey of his own domain. As sociologist, 

 he may even propose a scientific survey of the 

 philosophical field ! For are not systems of 

 philosophv themselves to be observed and classified 

 as sociological facts, and interpreted as products and 

 factors in social evolution ? 



What, then, is the right division of labour between 

 science and philosophy? Is it not expressed in the 

 simple and homely ideal — every man of science his 

 own philosopher? Does not the existing fashion of 

 exclusive devotion, either to speculation or to observ- 

 ation, tend to a multiplication of individuals who are 

 neither philosophers nor men of science, but 

 degenerate variants known to American psychologists 

 as respectively " lumpers " and " splitters "? Is it 

 not an alternation of speculation and observation, of 

 die philosophical and the scientific mood, that most 

 prolongs and intensifies each of these two comple- 

 mentary phases of mental activity? That surely is 

 the lesson to be learned from the lives of the great 

 initiators in science — of Faraday and Darwin, of 

 Virchow and Helmholtz, of Bichat and Claude Ber- 

 nard. The ordinarv working man of science is ready 

 enough, like Claude Brrnard, to put off his imagina- 

 tion with his coat when ho enters the laboratory. 

 Only let him remember, like Claude Bernard, to put 

 it on again when he leaves, for without it he cannot 

 cultivate philosophy. 



