JcxE 7, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



555 



means. Symmetrical old age is beautiful, 

 not ugly. For along with slowness to grasp 

 new ideas, there is increase in toleration 

 and in benevolence. The growth of the 

 mind has given place to growth of the heart 

 and so "the best is yet to be." It is asym- 

 metrical old age which is ugly. It is mental 

 rigidity without spiritual growth which, 

 like old-sightedness in the young, is so much 

 to be regretted. 



The scientific attitude is not only ag- 

 nostic but also universal. To the scientific 

 mind there are no isolated facts or discrete 

 phenomena, but all are integral parts of the 

 great structure of knowledge. To him the 

 separate sciences and subsciences become 

 of importance and significance only as he 

 sees them as elements of more comprehen- 

 sive units, which in turn make up the ulti- 

 mate unit which he calls Nature, Welt- 

 anschauung or world picture. 



In his "Nature of Truth" Joachim shows 

 how such bald statements as "Caesar 

 crossed the Rubicon," "This tree is green," 

 or "A whale is a mammal," represent not 

 only a minimal degree of truth but possess 

 no importance nor significance whatsoever. 

 To be fully cognizant of the meaning con- 

 tained in these statements, one should view 

 each in its proper "setting." But what is 

 to limit the indefinite expansion of this 

 setting? Nothing. And it is a fact which 

 need only be expressed to be grasped that 

 none of these apparentlj* simple statements 

 can be completely comprehended except by 

 a mind wliich is omniscient.'^ 



Or again if I say "This is a lead pencil" 

 the meaning of my remark will depend 

 upon the mind to which it is addressed. 

 To the child the remark will have relatively 

 a small content ; to the learned the connota- 

 tion of the word "lead pencil" will be ex- 



" Harold H. JoacUm, "Nature of Truth," on 

 degree of truth in Chap. III., 1906. 



traordinarily extensive. The pencil has a 

 chemistry and phj-sics, even an astronomy. 

 It has a manufacture and a manufacturer 

 with his anatomy, phj'siology and sociology. 

 Naj' more, it may be found to form an inte- 

 gral part of art and ethics and religion! 

 We are all accustomed to being told that the 

 world of to-day can not be understood with- 

 out its historical background, but the con- 

 ception just presented leads one step fur- 

 ther and we may add no fact is completely 

 intelligible or significant except when seen 

 against the background of universal knowl- 

 edge.'^ 



This, then, is what is meant by the term 

 "universality" and we ask what limitations 

 are there to this attribute of the scholarly 

 mind ? Promptly comes the answer that to 

 demand of the scientist that he should view 

 every fact of nature in the light of omnis- 

 cience is absurd. Doubtless this is true, but 

 that his thinking should bear some traces 

 of this universality is not too much to ex- 

 pect. His strict attention is naturally di- 



13 It is most interesting to note in passing how 

 closely this conception of the universal element of 

 the scientific mind parallels Schleiermacher 's con- 

 ception of religious feeling. The religious feeling, 

 says Schleiermacher (Friederich Schleiermacher, 

 "Eeden Uber die Religion," 1799; trans, of John 

 Oman, 1893, entitled "On Religion, Speeches to 

 its Cultural Despisers," 1893) may arise from the 

 contemplation of the universe or of any part of it, 

 of all that lives and moves, all growth and change, 

 all doing and suffering. This then is the immedi- 

 ate cause of the religious feeling, but what is the 

 character of this feeling f It is a "sense of the 

 whole. ' ' When he looks at a finite object the re- 

 ligious man sees it not in its discrete individuality 

 but always as a "fragment of the whole." The 

 soul and life of the individual is felt by the re- 

 ligious man to be of significance only because it is 

 a part of the universal soul or life which he calls 

 God. With Schleiermacher the feeling is religion 

 and the whole is God. With the scientist there ia 

 an imperfect acquaintance with a whole which is 

 nature. To each the feeling of fragmcntariness is 

 an accompaniment of finite impressions. 



