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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 947 



when we apply them to the relations in 

 which the study of man stands to that kind 

 of knowledge which is embodied in the so- 

 called positive sciences. The term science 

 is properly applied to any grouping of 

 knowledges to which has been given sys- 

 tematic form, and which has been based 

 upon evidence that admits of being re- 

 viewed, estimated and, if possible, sub- 

 mitted to some kind of testing by compari- 

 son with other similar experiences. Thus 

 science does not essentially differ from 

 what we call ordinary knowledge; and 

 when we extend the maxim which makes 

 man the measure of all things to the posi- 

 tive sciences, we do not reduce their proof, 

 their claims to acceptance as true pictures 

 of reality, to the testimony solely of imme- 

 diate sense-perception. No science consists 

 solely or chiefly of data that can be seen, 

 heard, handled, tasted or smelled. But all 

 science, like all knowledge, whether we 

 dignify it with the name of science, or not, 

 is either envisaged or implied in data of 

 concrete and individual experiences. And 

 it is man's reasoning faculties which make 

 explicit what is thus implied. For the 

 method of all science is rationalistic, in the 

 broad meaning of the term. In this work 

 of rationalizing, the imagination, the faiths 

 of reason, and even the emotional attitudes 

 of the human mind toward truth and real- 

 ity, play an important part. In every 

 individual case, but more emphatically in 

 the case of the race in general, every par- 

 ticular science is a development, an ever 

 growing and never completed achievement 

 of the human mind. And to this develop- 

 ment, hypothesis, theory, deduction from 

 known or assumed principles, are all as 

 important and indispensable as is the cor- 

 rect and guarded use of the senses in per- 

 ception. 



In the day when our maxim was first 

 enunciated, there was no positive science 



of the physical, chemical or historical sort. 

 There was much acute observation of phe- 

 nomena, especially in the sphere of the 

 moral, political and social life of man. 

 The ancient Greek maxims for the regula- 

 tion of the conduct of life have rarely or 

 never been surpassed. The pragmatism of 

 that day was in important respects, both 

 more dignified and more satisfactory than 

 the pragmatism of the present day. The 

 Sophists were pragmatists of the most ac- 

 complished rank. But neither ancient nor 

 modern pragmatism can ever give us sci- 

 ence, or account for the existence, or the 

 estimate of the values of science, properly 

 so called. As a commentator on this very- 

 Dialogue of Plato has said: 



The want of the Greek mind in the fourth cen- 

 tury before Christ was not another theory of rest 

 or motion, of being or atoms, but rather a philos- 

 ophy which could free the mind from the power 

 of abstractions and alternatives, and show how far 

 rest and how far motion, how far the universal 

 principle of being, and the multitudinous principle 

 of atoms, entered into the composition of the 

 world ; which could distinguish between the true 

 and false analogy, and allow the negative as well 

 as the positive, a place in human thought. 



It is only in comparatively recent times, 

 however, that the diiferent sciences of ex- 

 ternal nature and of man have devoted 

 themselves intelligently and deliberately to 

 the supply of that which was the want of 

 the ancient Greek world of observation and 

 of thought. The Greeks, for example, ob- 

 served that a vacuum was created by the 

 suction of a piston above the water in a 

 pump. But the dictum, "Nature abhors 

 a vacuum," was regarded as a sufficient 

 explanation of the fact for more than two 

 thousand years, before it was observed in 

 jest by Galileo, that nature did not abhor 

 a vacuum beyond ten meters. But Tori- 

 celli was the first really to explain the 

 phenomenon by bringing it under the law 

 of gravitation. Aristotle had observed — 



