418 
while the more definitely organized product 
of special study may be called scientific; 
and, remembering that the processes of ac- 
quiring knowledge are partly unconscious, 
that portion which is organized uncon- 
sciously may be classed as common sense, 
or sagacity, or the wisdom of experience, 
while the consciously organized portion 
may be called science. This summary 
of the mode of organizing knowledge may 
be trite, yet it serves to show that the 
methods of the student of humanity are in 
no wise different from those pursued in the 
physical and natural sciences. 
In brief, knowledge is ever passing from 
the individual to the common and from the 
special to the general, and thereby its 
quantity is constantly increased and its 
utility extended; during recent times it is 
passing also from the empiric to the scien- 
tific, and therefore its quality is improved 
and its beneficence multiplied. 
IW 
When the history of the class of knowl- 
edge called science is scanned certain ten- 
dencies or directions of growth are per- 
ceived, and scrutiny shows that these ten- 
dencies are in harmony with the course of 
development of knowledge in general. 
1. In general, observation and research 
begin with the rare or remote and proceed 
toward the common and thenear. This 
tendency is revealed when the several 
branches of science are compared. Perhaps 
the oldest science is Mathematics, which 
began before history, so that its origin is 
obscure and cannot certainly be traced to 
definite objective basis; but the nearly 
contemporary and closely related science of 
Astronomy rested on observation of the 
celestial bodies, though the observation 
was long clouded by the mysticism of as- 
trology. Then, as wits were sharpened by 
mathematical research and astronomical 
observation, exact knowledge was gradually 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Voz. VI. No. 142. 
brought down to nearer bodies and under 
the guidance of everyday observation, and 
thus the science of Physics arose so gradu- 
ally and inconspicuously that its early his- 
tory is lost. Later, shrewd hermits and 
beldams wrought magic by means of rare 
substances, and alchemy grew up; and as 
time passed the manipulations were ex- 
tended to common things and the ban of 
secrecy was gradually broken, and so Chem- 
istry arose. These four branches of knowl- 
edge concerning the inorganic interacted 
with mutual benefit, and for several cen- 
turies constituted science, in contradistinc- 
tion from the vast body of vague thought 
comprised in scholasticism and folk-lore 
and from the more useful body of common- 
place knowledge not yet consciously organ- 
ized. Still later, attention was attracted 
by things nearer to mankind in place and 
character, and first plants and afterward 
animals were studied systematically, and 
Botany and Zoology arose; but for a long 
time the most attractive organisms were 
the unusual and therefore striking, or speci- 
mens brought by travelers from distant 
lands; indeed, even during the present half 
century scientific museum administrators 
are embarassed by the tendency of the col- 
lector to neglect the common and collect 
the unusual in his own locality, and it is. 
only within a generation or two that the 
ordinary plants and animals supplying man- 
kind with food and clothing and other 
everyday commodities have been subjected 
to scientific research. In like manner, the 
science of Geology began, soon after botany 
and zoology, with the study of rare minerals 
and the ancient rocks of remote mountains ; 
gradually the research extended to the 
nearer hillsand valleys and the later forma- 
tions, and it is only within the present gen- 
eration that the soil-making deposits on 
which human life so largely depends have 
been brought under scientific examination. 
Last of all, the scientific research beginning 
