Science

Science, in its widest significance, is the correlation of all knowledge. To know a truth in its relation to other truths is to know it scientifically. For example, the recognition that the alternation of day and night depends upon the apparent daily motion of the sun is a distinct scientific achievement, being one of those elementary scientific truths which have been the possession of thinking minds from time immemorial. By generalisation from everyday experiences like that just mentioned, and from the historic or traditional experiences of the race, man has been led to the belief that natural events follow each other in an orderly and connected way. To investigate this orderly connection is the aim of all science; and in pursu- ing this aim the human mind consciously or unconsciously takes for granted the Law of Continuity, which postulates that in their development and interactions the phenomena of nature follow an intelligible plan which never has failed and which never can fail. In assuming intelligibility in nature science rests of necessity upon the fundamental laws of thought. To express it otherwise, the end of science is the rational interpretation of the facts of existence as disclosed to us by our faculties and senses.

In all scientific inquiry the first step is to scrutinise the evidence of the senses, whose indications are always imperfect and often misleading. History shows again and again that the supposed scientific beliefs of one age are at variance with the scientific facts of a later age. In every such case it will be found that the earlier and false science has laid too great stress on the apparent, and has from insufficient knowledge failed in apprehending the real. In the history of Astronomy, the most self-contained and in itself the most developed of the physical sciences, we find many familiar illustrations of this. None is more striking perhaps than the recognition of the earth's diurnal rotation as the reality which produces the appearance of the daily motion of sun, moon, and stars. At first a heresy, then a rational hypothesis commanding assent from all thinking minds, the earth's axial rotation is now a demonstrable fact.

Experiment is the great method of scientific inquiry. In it we arbitrarily interfere with the circumstances of a phenomenon, or produce an entirely new phenomenon by an appropriate combination of causes. Contrasted with Experiment is Observation, in which we simply watch and record the events as they occur in nature. But even in Astronomy, emphatically an observational science, experiment plays an important part. The dynamical knowledge which Newton developed into the cosmic law of gravitation was founded on experiment; and every time the astronomer points his telescope to a celestial object he experiments by arbitrarily interfering with the course of the rays of light. Meteorology again, which twenty years ago could hardly be called a science, has made great strides in these days by appealing to laboratory experiments for the elucidation of its phenomena. Likewise in Biology very little true scientific progress was made until experiment was appealed to. Till then Botany and Zoology were simply lists of plants and animals, classified according to characteristics or according to distribution on the earth's surface. The gardener and breeder led the way in a form of experimenting which Darwin made scientific; while such branches of the subject as Embryology and Bacteriology are as truly experimental as Chemistry itself. In studying the laws alike of inorganic and of organic nature the experimenter must be careful not to destroy the phenomenon that is to be studied. This consideration makes the biological problem particularly difficult of attack.

In the psychical group of sciences the method of experimenting still awaits development. The complexity of the problems presented, and the manner in which they affect the welfare and happiness of humanity, render social and political experimenting excessively hazardous and of doubtful morality. History, however, affords many instructive examples of attempted reforms which were largely tentative. From these and from the general study of customs and rites as they have been in the past and are now, the economist, the ethnologist, the moralist, or the theologian can accumulate his own materials for the upbuilding of his appropriate science. Such sciences are of necessity essentially observational.

It is obvious from what has gone before that sciences may be grouped, or science partitioned, on a broad and intelligible principle. There are the Physical Sciences, which have to do with inorganic nature—that is, with the laws and properties of Matter, Energy, and Ether. Then there are the Biological Sciences, which consider the laws of Life. And finally, there are the Psychical Sciences, which deal with the phenomena of Mind. The influence of Life upon the Matter and Energy of the Universe, profound though it is, in no way renders nugatory the great principles that hold in inorganic nature. These principles are the Conservation of Matter and the Conservation of Energy, Ether being the medium through which and by which Energy is transmitted and transformed. The great principle of biology, which enters along with these physical principles as a factor in organic nature, is the law of Biogenesis, or Life from Life. In the higher mental sphere of activities these three great principles still hold, however much mind may interfere in what would otherwise have been the natural progress of events in the lower spheres of activity. So far no broad psychic principle comparable to the physical and biological principles has been discovered, or even imagined to be discoverable. It must ever be remembered, however, that this broad gradation in the sciences is itself a psychic phenomenon.

Numerous attempts have been made to give a detailed classification of the sciences, so as to bring out the natural relation of the one to the other. Such classifications may have a historic interest, inasmuch as they must have been largely conditioned by the extent of knowledge or degree of ignorance of the classifier. They may also have a philosophic value as affording a glimpse into the nature of the human mind. But it is extremely doubtful if they have in any appreciable way assisted in the progress of science itself. One of the most celebrated is the classification due to Comte, who first explicitly drew the distinction between Abstract and Concrete sciences, or what might better be termed Fundamental and Derivative sciences (see POSITIVISM). The distinction is most simply expressed by saying that a derivative science requires for its elucidation no peculiar principle or law of nature, but involves only those principles which are already discussed under the fundamental sciences. The truth is that a derivative science is a special or limited branch of science in general, separated out for purposes more or less concrete or practical; and it is impossible logically to mark off such special sciences as a group from other branches of science, which, though no more abstract and no less special, are still treated as included in the fundamental sciences. The mistake which Comte himself made in classifying Astronomy in his group of abstract sciences along with Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology is an illustration in point. Comte's scheme has been severely criticised by Herbert Spencer, who suggests a threefold grouping into Abstract, Abstract-Concrete, and Concrete Sciences. The second group is essentially what we have called above Physical Science, including Physics and Chemistry as ordinarily understood. Mr Spencer considers it as dealing with the laws of 'Force' in the abstract, or as exhibited by matter. Biology appears for the first time in the third or Concrete group as exhibiting certain 'laws of redistribution of matter and motion actually going on.' But surely there is a fundamental science of Biology dealing with the laws of vital 'Force,' and having to Botany and Zoology the same kind of relation which Physics and Chemistry have to Astronomy and Geology. The whole fallacy of the position lies in making 'Force,' even with its vague Spencerian sense, one of the central props of the argument. Force is apparent, not real, unless we take it in the sense of Energy; but this will not apply to Mr Spencer's classification. From the present outlook of science the existences of the universe are five—namely, Ether, Matter, Energy, Life, and Mind. The first three are inseparable agents in the simplest phenomenon that occurs in nature. They may ultimately be reduced to two or conceivably to one.

See Comte, Philosophy of the Sciences, trans. by Lewes (1853; new ed. 1878); Herbert Spencer, Classification of the Sciences (1864; new ed. 1880), and his First Principles (new ed. 1884); Jevons, Principles of Science (1874); Clifford, Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885); Louis Agassiz, Essay on Classification (1859); C. W. Shields, The Order of the Sciences (New York, 1884); J. S. Mill, Logic; Mrs Somerville, Connection of the Physical Sciences (ed. by Buckley, 1877); Whewell, History of Inductive Science (1837; new ed. 1877), and History of Scientific Ideas (1858-60); Huxley, small volume introductory to the Science Primers (1880), and his Science and Culture (1881); also the articles in this work under the following headings, and books there cited:

Science and Art. See KENSINGTON.