304 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 307 



invited. The subject was ' Philosophy and Specialties ; ' and in 

 the pubUcation of an abstract we are compelled to omit all the or- 

 namentation. 



Colonel Mallery said that only three centuries ago the chief seats 

 •of learning were successfully challenged by a scholastic knight- 

 errant to a dispute on any subject and all subjects, or, as it was 

 ■derisively phrased, " de oiiuiibus rebus et quibusdam aliis." In 

 the days of the Admirable Crichton it was possible for one mind to 

 grasp the total of existing knowledge, and this was because science 

 had not yet risen above the misty horizon. The study of facts and 

 their co-ordination had not supplanted the two most prominent 

 schools depending severally upon revelation and intuition. 



The quality of revelation prohibited discussion upon it even as 

 an explanation of phenomena, but allowed of reasoning from it 

 within the usual limits of orthodoxy to be decided by the physically, 

 not mentally, strongest battalions. So all that once represented 

 science was mythology, especially in its grand division of demon- 

 •ology. 



An opposite scholastic system, prevalent in its time, started in 

 the tenet that intuitions should decide on the nature of things and 

 the perfect type of their origin, to be ascertained by man's own 

 ddeals, not from observed data. The examination of a sound mind 

 in a sound body being difficult, he was then the greatest teacher who 

 had most enormously tumetied his inner consciousness, and could ex- 

 hibit its morbidity with the most pretentious diagnosis. Subject to 

 this leadership in introspection, every man was his own universe. 

 Though specimens of such effete concepts still survive in folios, 

 ■they are not found in the working libraries of science. 



When, therefore, there was no attention to facts as such, and 

 knowledge was either a commentary on revelation or a ratiocina- 

 tion on self, it was not so difficult to know every thing. To-day 

 the pretender to universal knowledge will be denounced as know- 

 ing nought. This judgment is carried to an extreme. Even the 

 •exceptional minds, whose multiplied facets scintillate brightness 

 ■in diverse angles, are denied glory as light-bringers on each line. 



This is necessary, for phenomena are infinite, and science must 

 ■deal with all as observed. In the formulation of its induced laws, 

 ■no compromise is admitted, as in politics or ethics. But this infi- 

 nite is composed of the infinitesimal, — atoms, molecules, proto- 

 iplasras, or whatever name mav be invented by our ignorance, — 

 and it is by the study of these minutise that science exists. So this 

 ts the era of specialties. No freshly discovered fact is without its 

 significance, and may in its relations solve the most obscure prob- 

 lems. The original investigator now must not only be a special- 

 ist, but must work in some subdivision of a specialty. 



This was illustrated in several of the sciences, in the professions 

 •of law and medicine, and also in art. The recent progress of 

 specialization was shown by the fact that nine years ago the Philo- 

 sophical Society was the only scientific society in Washington, em- 

 bracing all branches. Since then the Anthropological, Biological, 

 Chemical, and Geographic were founded, and the Mathematical 

 Section of the Philosophical Society established. An account of 

 these, with their several functions, was given. 



However essential division of labor, specialization, and analysis 

 may be, they are nevertheless only means to the ultimate aim of 

 generalization and integration, which constitute wisdom, and its 

 construction is by synthesis. 



Within the most circumscribed of specialties there must always 

 be an attempt to reach law through details. The solution of a 

 problem without application of it is like playing a game of solitaire 

 where time and skill give no result. Mathematics, apart from their 

 gymnastic training, would be useless if their integrals should re- 

 main meaningless. Each asserted fact must be tested by varied 

 ■experiment, which often results in failure. The truth of to-day has 

 sometimes been the paradox of yesterday, and may become the 

 falsehood of to-morrow. Admitted facts must be compared with 

 all other facts related to them. Confutation must be challenged. 

 Without this process, science would be a jumble of inconsistent 

 ■opinions, so that cavillers might have excuse for a jibe that what- 

 ever is not sense is science. While such testing and comparative 

 discussion should exercise its function in each specialized society, it 

 is yet more important that the results, as appearing to its special- 

 ists, should be examined with the greatest freedom by specialists 



in other lines ; and this examination is not only for further verifica- 

 tion and comparison, but to extend the area of acquired science. 

 Practically science is only the existing condition of human knowl- 

 edge, which of necessity is incomplete ; though its form, to be sci- 

 ence, should not be a broken surface, but a series of steps by which 

 greater heights are gained. For these reasons all specialties should 

 be tried before a court of general jurisdiction, — an Areopagus. In 

 course of time, doubtless, the press brings forth scattered judg- 

 ments of such a universal tribunal ; but a hand-to-hand contest 

 must be more active and decisive than a protracted war, conducted 

 by the discharge of heavy books at long range, or by the skirmish- 

 ing shots of pamphleteers. If scientific association is to do the 

 most good, some time and place for trial by battle should be pro- 

 vided, which cannot be done in any or in all of the specialized so- 

 cieties by their separate work. 



The propriety of scientific contest on a common plane is readily 

 illustrated by the yet undetermined controversy between geologists 

 and physicists respecting the age of our earth. As neither side 

 can yet speak without contradiction by the other, neither should 

 speak except in the hearing of the other. A more popular illustra- 

 tion is in the historic fight between ordnance and engineers ; that 

 is, scientific attack by artillery or its equivalent, and material de- 

 fence by fortifications or similar protection. In no systematized 

 war department can either the officer of ordnance or of engineers 

 be confided in, except when, after experiment satisfactory to his 

 own corps, his demonstration shall overcome the corps of his com- 

 plementary antagonist. 



Thus by the interrelation and counteraction of specialties there 

 is mutual correction, ascertainment of truth, and promulgation of 

 law. 



After discussing the work and functions of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, the Congress of American 

 Physicians and Surgeons, and other organizations, the term ' phi- 

 losophy ' was more closely examined. The old ' philosophers,' 

 while professing to seek the truth, did not do so, but asserted that 

 they had it already, and that their sole work was to teach it to 

 others. As before hinted, this philosophy was axiomatic, and 

 closely connected with theology, by which forces and factors were 

 postulated but not comprehended. Logic and mathematics do not 

 detect errors in axioms and postulates when once admitted. Veri- 

 ties by common consent were adopted a priori, which verities, be- 

 longing to a low stage of culture, were universal errors, and there- 

 fore in accord with all existing reasoning. The teachers found it 

 convenient to reason from the species to the genus, and from the 

 particular to the general, by words instead of by ideas ; that is, by 

 verbal sophisms. Crude conceptions were employed to make 

 words, which the elasticity of languages permitted, grammatic form 

 and euphony being the only limits. This superannuated scholasti- 

 cism has been generally called ' metaphysical,' but is more properly 

 ' antiphysical.' Its combined stupidity and pretence have to some 

 minds inflicted a stigma upon the title ' philosophy ' which it arro- 

 gated. Modern re-action from the fetichistic worship of this mon- 

 strous phantasm may have been too violent. 



The terms ' science ' and ' knowledge ' are perhaps convertible in 

 usage, as in etymology, but neither of them is synonymic with 

 ' philosophy.' Professor Mach defines ' knowledge ' as ' an expres- 

 sion of organic nature ; ' biit that is not true, unless by knowledge 

 he means true wisdom. Knowledge is the ' mere material of which 

 wisdom builds.' Claude Bernard is partly right in stating that 

 philosophy makes a specialty of generalizations. That, however, is 

 measurably true also, as before stated, of each one of the sciences. 

 Without proper synthesis, they do not exist as sciences, but are 

 mere uncouth mosaics. Each special science must have a philo- 

 sophic side, and the co-ordination of all of those sides constitutes phi- 

 losophy in general. In this sense it is not merely the specialty of 

 generalizations, but the generalization of generalizations. Without 

 it the several sciences rest with no common bond, and do not form 

 a synthetic and organic whole. Their fundamental hypotheses are 

 hable to overthrow, because they are not criticised and revised by 

 logical co-ordination. The method of science is to test hypothesis 

 by experimentation and continued observation. From a sufficient 

 number of results a proposition or law is induced, the authority of 

 which increases with the number and weight of those results. It 



