March 21, 1902] 



SCIENCE. 



453 



him to believe, and to teach, that ' ' the uni- 

 versal validity of science depends upon the 

 similarity of the perceptive and reason- 

 ing powers of normal civilized men." A 

 writer on the meaning of science, whose 

 name does not appear in our author's 

 bibliography, showed, some two thousand 

 years ago, that the sale of this opinion for 

 money is not honest; for if the verdict of 

 civilized men be the criterion of science, 

 the way to find out what nature- really is 

 must be by ballot. This old writer there- 

 fore says that our author is disingenuous 

 when he asks us to buy and read his book 

 in the hope of learning something which 

 he is not able to deliver to his customers, 

 since he himself believes we can get it only 

 through the verdict of civilized men. If 

 the ' Grammar of Science ' is anything more 

 than a ballot, I see no way to acquit its au- 

 thor of the charge of obtaining money un- 

 der false pretenses. 



Has not the merest savage a criterion of 

 science which will bear him up though all 

 men be against him? May he not appeal 

 to nature in the same confidence that he 

 will bring to his side all normal civilized 

 men who do not wilfully turn away their 

 eyes? ■ 



Herbert Spencer, who also tells us knowl- 

 edge is the analysis and comprehension of 

 facts, tells us, furthermore, that this is one 

 of the proofs that we can never know any- 

 thing as it really is, because -the thing as 

 it really is is separated, by an impassable 

 chasm, from the appearance which is all 

 we can know. 



" For if the successive deeper interpre- 

 tations of nature which constitute advanc- 

 ing knowledge are merely the inclusion of 

 special truths in general truths, and of 

 general truths in truths still more general, 

 it obviously follows that the most general 

 truth, not admitting of inclusion in any 

 other, does not admit of interpretation. 

 Of necessity, therefore, explanation must 



eventually bring us down to the inexplica- 

 ble. The deepest truth we can get at mast 

 be unaccountable. Comprehension must 

 become something else than comprehenr 

 sion, before the ultimate fact can be com- 

 prehended. ' ' 



We undoubtedly comprehend a thing 

 when we know it, but it does not follow 

 that we know a thing when we compre- 

 hend it. The conclusion does not follow 

 from the premises. Knowledge may be 

 comprehension and something more, and 

 the assertion that comprehension is knowl- 

 edge, as well as all the books of synthetic 

 philosophy that are built upon this asser- 

 tion, may, perhaps, turn out to be nothing 

 more than a new illustration of the fallacy 

 of the undistributed middle. 



14. Knowledge must be something more 

 than comprehension, because the known 

 world grows with knowing. 



Here I must stop, for the present, leav- 

 ing for some future occasion the attempt 

 to find out, in the interest of embryolog- 

 ical science, whether this account of Iniow- 

 ing is, or is not, complete. But, before I 

 end, I ask you to take away with you, and 

 to consider, this familiar truth: Each sci- 

 entific discovery shows us new and unsus- 

 pected wonders in nature. The unex- 

 plained things which are brought to our 

 Imowledge by each scientific explanation 

 far outnumber the things it explains. The 

 progress of knowledge is no mere compre- 

 hension, or gathering in. It is more like 

 sowing seed than gathering a harvest, for 

 the known world grows with knowing. 



We are told that ' ' when every fact, every 

 past or present phenomenon of the uni- 

 verse, every phase of present or past life 

 therein, has been examined, classified, and 

 coordinated with the rest, then the mission 

 of science will be complete. ' ' But if we are 

 to judge the future by the past, classifica- 

 tion and coordination will always continue 

 to show us more unclassified and uncoor- 



