CHAPTER III

THE SCOPE AND METHOD OF SCIENCE

1. By naturalism is meant the philosophical generalization of science- the application of the theories of science Naturalism and to the problems of philosophy. Both philosNatural Science ophy and science have, as we have seen, a permanent and institutional character. Each has its own traditions, its own classic authorities, and its own devotees. But naturalism proposes to make the institution of science serve also as the institution of philosophy. This attempted unification of knowledge is perennial. Each epoch of European thought has had its characteristic variety of naturalism; in which its favorite scientific theories have been used to satisfy its peculiar philosophical needs. Thus the atomic theory of the ancients, the mechanical theory of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the 'energetics' of more recent times, have each in turn been presented in the form of a Weltanschauung or general view of life.

The scientist proper, the man of special research, becomes a naturalistic philosopher only when he acts in a new capacity. As scientist, in the strict sense, he is non-committal with reference to philosophical problems. He adopts and employs a technique which is authorized by the consensus of experts within his own field. His problems are the unsolved problems of his forerunners and fellowworkers; his method, a variation or refinement of methods which have already proved fruitful. He is not troubled by the supposed paradoxes of space and time, or by such problems as the nature of causality, the unity of the world, and the meaning of truth. He moves, in short, within intellectual limits which he does not question, and

of which he may be even unconscious. But a scientist is also a man, and hence may readily become a philosopher as well. In hours of unprofessional meditation, his mind may turn to those more ultimate problems which are perpetually pressing for solution. And he may then assert that the solution of these problems lies in the application of the discoveries of science. Such an assertion he cannot prove in his laboratory; he can justify it only after the manner of the philosopher. The principal source of naturalism lies in this disposition of scientists, not infrequently men of weight, to assume the rôle of philosophers, and to carry with them into the forum of philosophy the traditions and hypotheses with which they are already familiar.

There is a less evident, though scarcely less important, source of naturalism in the popularization of science. When science is diffused, and transmuted into the form of common sense, it is almost invariably merged with philosophy. As a rule it is not substituted for theories emanating from philosophical sources, but is held along with them. Common sense has no nice regard for the spheres of the several branches of knowledge, and no repugnance whatsoever to contradictions. The mechanical and the spiritual theories of man, or the hypothesis of cosmic evolution and of divine creation, are accepted in the same sense and accorded equal weight; the one being learned from popular science, and the other from the pulpit. There is, furthermore, as we shall presently see, a peculiar readiness on the part of the vulgar mind to fall in with the naturalistic view of things, and to regard it as prior to all other views. For the naturalistic view is, in a certain respect, the same as the 'practical' view, and has a source in organic habit independently of the diffusion of science.

§ 2. Since naturalism is but science in the rôle of The Prestige philosophy, it has during the last century shared the unusual prestige which science has acquired. Science has come to stir the imagination of

of Science

men to a degree that is unparalleled. This is due, in part, to the fact that every member of a civilized community uses the results of science, and credits science with them. Science is credited, and justly credited, with the enormous increase of convenience, comfort, and efficiency, which human life has in the last century enjoyed. Transportation, manufacturing, hygiene, every activity employing physical means, has been revolutionized. And this fact is brought home to every man in his daily occupations. The telephone with which he orders his supplies, the trolley-car or automobile which he takes to his place of business, the elevator with which he rises swiftly to the top of a towering structure of steel - these, and a hundred like items, testify perpetually to the glory of science.

Even more impressive to the popular mind than the applications of science, are its discoveries and inventions -its perpetual novelties. Here is an enterprise whose steady advance can be measured. Knowledge is added to knowledge; and every increment opens new prospects of increase. The miracles of yesterday are the commonplaces of today. Science thus commands attention; it stirs the blood; it even makes news!

But there is a deeper reason for the appeal of science to the popular mind. The recent advancement of science has fulfilled the Baconian prophecy, of power through knowledge. Nature has lost its terrors. It has submitted to the yoke of human interests, and been transformed from wilderness into civilization. The brilliancy of scientific achievement has given man a sense of proprietorship in this world; it has transformed the motive of life from bare preservation to conquest. And so frequently has science overcome the accepted limitations of practical achievement, and disclosed possibilities previously unsuspected, that man now greets the future with a new and unbounded hopefulness. Indeed this faith in the power of life to establish and magnify itself through the progressive mastery of its environment, is the most significant religious

idea of modern times. And through its relation to this idea science has been justly exalted.

There is a further explanation of the prestige of science, and of naturalism as well, in the distinction and popularity of scientific writers. The philosophical utterances of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Du Bois-Reymond, Lord Kelvin, Ostwald, Haeckel, Arrhenius and others, have obtained a publicity only very rarely enjoyed by the recognized leaders of philosophy proper. The same difference obtains between the lesser scientists and the lesser philosophers. And this is not due to the accident of individual genius, style, or manner. For the popular mind, scientific ideas have an immediate intelligibility and a prima facie probability, which philosophical ideas have not. If we can explain this fact we shall have advanced far in the direction of a clearer understanding of what science is.

The Agreement

Sense

§ 3. There is a distinction made by logicians between the denotation and the connotation of terms. A term is said to 'denote' certain concrete individuals, and between Science to 'connote' certain properties. Thus the and Common term 'planet' denotes Neptune, Jupiter, etc., and connotes the property or relation of 'satellite to the sun.' The instances of a term constitute its denotation; the meaning or definition of a term, its connotation. Now it is a significant fact that the denotation of scientific terms is peculiarly clear or unambiguous to common sense. The instances of science are readily identified; one knows what the scientist is talking about. We can follow his eye to the natural locality which he is observing, or take into our hands the natural body with which he is experimenting. When the philosopher, on the other hand, discourses on the true, the beautiful, and the good, we do not know where to turn. If his face were to assume a rapt expression, and we were sentimentally or mystically inclined, we should feel moved or exalted. For we take such things in good part when seers and poets utter them. Or were his eye to twinkle, we should laugh with him

and feel relieved. But ordinarily the philosopher looks as secular and literal as any scientist; and in proportion to the hardness of our hearts, we are contemptuous or embarrassed. The scientist alone seems to suit the word to the mood of serious discourse. There is evidently a tacit understanding between him and common sense which, in the case of the philosopher, is wholly lacking. Science speaks in the native tongue of common sense; philosophy in unfamiliar accents that shock and mystify.

The explanation of this lies in the fact that science and common sense agree in unconsciously accepting a classification or map of experience which it is the business of philosophy consciously to criticise. This map or classification is sometimes referred to as 'the natural world-order.' In this order, a thing is a body, and the world is the spacial field and temporal sequence of bodily events. The instance, case, example, which a word denotes, is always some individual body or group of bodies-occurring somewhere, at some time, and capable of being identified beyond doubt by gesture or manipulation. To think in these terms is the habit of common sense, and the method of science.

The strength of this habit is illustrated by the efforts of the mind to deal with things the corporeal character of which is expressly denied. An almost irresistible propensity inclines the imagination to regard God, spirit though he be, as having a place in the heavens, whither at death the soul may resort. The soul itself, by definition the antithesis of body, is nevertheless commonly imagined as a diaphanous or subtle body-within-a-body, moving with the mortal body before death, and independently of it after death. Similarly, the attempt at clear demonstration almost invariably impels one to the use of spacial diagrams. And the spacial figure is so interwoven in ordinary speech as to be well-nigh ineradicable. A great difference is a 'wide' difference, the better is the 'superior' or 'higher,' the reliable is the 'solid,' and the distinct the 'tangible.' This habit of thought and speech is not accidental on