20 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 340. 



the logic of a thought that conserves its 

 universe even in the varied studies and 

 conclusions of the many sciences, is des- 

 tined to end in the unification of the sci- 

 ences. To say the yqyj least it is the nat- 

 ural fate of the special science to develop 

 into methods of each other. 



Unification of the sciences, however, 

 implying as it does the decline of special- 

 ism and so also the decline of objectivism, 

 brings with it the translation of science 

 into life, in short the application of science, 

 of which, in addition to what was said be- 

 fore, I would now speak again, but briefly 

 and concisely, for the positivism of science 

 is still to be considered. 



The decline of specialism, which we have 

 found to be natural to specialism, by mak- 

 ing the dividing partitions unreal is bound 

 in the first place to free the sciences from 

 that bondage of technique, just as, for ex- 

 ample, the decline of religious — or irrelig- 

 ious? — sectarianism, a form of specialism 

 certainly, is bound to free religion from the 

 bondage of ritual. Secondly, it must make 

 the distinction between self and not-self, 

 subject and object, man and nature, only 

 a formal one, formal in the way in which 

 the special sciences themselves are distin- 

 guished, since the unity of the objective 

 world is one and the same with the self or 

 subject. This we but just now saw, when 

 we were able to define science as not mere 

 knowledge of an outer world, but self- con- 

 sciousness, realistic self-consciousness, to 

 understand which only reflect further upon 

 the art and literature so natural to an age 

 of science. Art and literature are self- 

 consciousness. But, thirdly, whether be- 

 cause of the freedom from technique or be- 

 cause the scientist does come to discover 

 his own image in the clearing and quieting 

 waters of science, the decline of special- 

 ism, again like the decline of sectarianism, 

 brings what some are pleased to style 

 the liberation of the human spirit, a libera- 



tion that means freedom in, not freedom 

 from, the natural world, and what a psychol- 

 ogist would call the development of knowl- 

 edge into will, in short the application of 

 science. Of course applied science must be 

 not special, but general, because life is gen- 

 eral ; not ritualistic, but spiritual, because 

 life is not ritualistic, making no fast dis- 

 tinctions between part and part or part and 

 whole ; and practically or even intuitively 

 wise or skilled, as well as confidently voli- 

 tional, not technically learned and esthe- 

 tically satisfied, because life is not learned, 

 but wise. Yes, the natural decline of 

 specialism means the unification which is 

 also the application of science, and, to bring 

 the matter home, any scientific association, 

 through which the sciences find each other 

 out is really dangerous to the cause of pure, 

 of objective and special science, since it can 

 onl}^ forerun the movement of science into 

 life. 



But now as to positivism, at once the third 

 conditionaud third danger of science. It can 

 hardly be necessary to show that this is in- 

 volved alike in objectivism and in specialism. 

 Positivism confines knowledge to actual ex- 

 perience and to only a tentative confidence 

 in actual experience. Scientific knowledge 

 is positivistic, because it is obscured or 

 refracted by the aloofness of the scientific 

 point of view. Science is aloof from life 

 and — in its specialism — also from itself. 

 Then, when men who would be scientists 

 withdraw, as we say, from affairs, it is as if 

 they had put on distorting and discoloring 

 glasses, through which they would see the 

 world, the ' objective ' world. The space 

 and the time, for example, in which they 

 see things are widely different from the 

 space and time in which things are doing, 

 from the space and the time of will and 

 action. The difference is felt by us even 

 in ordinary life, but the extreme attitude of 

 science greatly exaggerates it. For science 

 space and time are quantitative, divisible, 



