KiDD. — What is Science? lix 



■well for us to begin with enquiring what are those departments of knowledge 

 to which the appellation Science has been assigned by authoritative usage. 

 Custom, as Horace tells us, is that to the arbitrament of which belong the law 

 and rule of expression j but it is generally found that determinations of 

 custom are based on some substratum of reason. 



The Latin word scientia meant simply knowledge; and in the ancient 

 classics we do not find the special and modified application which the word 

 Science has now acquired. The word art was used by the Latins to denote, 

 not only what we so designate, but also what we term science.* Mathematics, 

 for example, was called an art j and the sciences in general and scientific arts 

 were termed the liherdl arts ; i.e., arts and sciences befitting a free man or a 

 gentleman. Thus, in a familiarly quoted passage, a Latin poet (Ovid) 

 expresses himself to this efiect : 



A faithful learning of the nobler arts 



Gives mildness to tlie character and conduct, 



Nor suffers man to be a savage still. 



Of this old meaning of the word Art traces remain in our English literature. 



Pope appears to use the term as equivalent to the acquired signification of the 



word Science, when he says (Essay on Criticism) : 



** One science only will one genius fit, 

 So vast is art, so narrow human wit." 



The transition from the ancient signification of the word scientia may be 

 observed in the works of Francis Bacon. He made partitions of the sciences, 

 as he expressed it (" partitiones scientiarum") ; but what he classifies and 

 subdivides is the sum-total of human learning, history and poetry being 

 included. Bacon died in the year 1624. In Locke's "Essay concerning 

 Human Understanding," which was published in 1690, in the last chapter of 

 that great work, there is a classification of the sciences. They are there 

 distinguished into three departments j the first of which is Natural Philosophy, 

 or the science of existent things and their relations. " The end of this," 

 observes the author, " is bare speculative truth ; and whatsoever can afford 

 the mind of man any such, falls under this branch, whether it be God Himself, 

 angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections, as number and figure, etc." 

 The second department of science, in Locke's classification, he names Practical j 

 of which the most considerable branch is stated to be Ethics. To the 

 remaining department he assigns the several names Semeiotic, or the Doctrine 

 of Signs, or Logic. It may be remarked that the classification to which 

 Locke's analysis thus conducts him, is virtually the same as the ancient Greek 

 division of philosophy into Physical (or Natural), Ethical, and Logical. 



The next most notable authority, in the order of time, is the French 

 Encyclopedie, published in the middle of the last century. D'Alembert, the 



* '* Ars enim earum rerum est, quae sciuntur," — Cic. de Or. II. vii. 10. 



