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HIE AMEBIC AX NATURALIST [Vol. XLVII 



posed grounds for vitalism falling under E, to discover 

 whether they do make distinctions between the sciences 

 of the living and the non-living that are essentially di- 

 verse from the internal differentiations of inorganic 

 science. 



The answer to this question will depend to a certain 

 extent at least upon one's views as to the nature and 

 method of progress in science; the way scientific gener- 

 alizations ("laws") are reached. The questions of vital- 

 ism come back so directly to this that the best method of 

 exposition will be to take up the nature and method of 

 science explicitly. 



18. Formulation of the Work of Science.— To under- 

 stand the nature of science it is necessary to look at it in 

 process of formation : to consider the condition of affairs 

 before a given part of science is formulated, and to ob- 

 serve how the formulation occurs. To look upon science 

 as something done and fixed, in order to grasp its char- 

 acter, is most misleading. Yet it is not uncommon. Berg- 

 son says, for example, that wo necessarily treat the liv- 

 ing like the inert, "carrying over into this new field the 

 same habits that have succeeded so well in the old ; and it 

 is right to do so." 9 But if we look on science as forming 

 habits (rather than as exclusively a thing with habits 

 formed), there will appear no reason why it should not 

 have the same direct and original relation to the living as 

 to the non-living, forming its habits on the former as well 

 as on the latter. 



19. Viewing the matter in this way, we may say that 

 science is a name for humanity's process of making a 

 survey of the universe, with an attempt to formulate the 

 results of this survey. So far as it deals with occur- 

 rences, we may say that it is an attempt to determine the 

 conditions under which things happen. So far as it for- 

 mulates its results, it gives "a series of propositions as- 

 serting what under given conditions our experience 



•"Creative Evolution," p. 195. 



