Science

Scholasticism, based on Revelation and Aristotle, assumed that it was dealing with reality, that the world in essence was what it seemed to be. Modern science, on the other hand, soon learnt that many of the superficial appearances of things—colour, taste or sound—are to it but the effect on the senses of matter in motion. Thus men came to regard matter and motion as real, and only later understood that they too were but useful concepts of the mind—that science itself was dealing with appearance and not necessarily with reality.

The Methods and Meaning of Science.

The philosophy of the new experimental methods was first studied by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Warned by the failure of the scholastic methods to give a true knowledge of nature, Bacon laid exclusive stress on the value of experiment. As a corrective applied to the me diaeval philosophy Bacon's work was of the greatest value in the history of thought, and, from this point of view, it is perhaps but a small drawback that scientific discovery is seldom or never made by the pure Baconian method. The multitude of phenomena are too great for any subject which aims at explanation and not only at description to be attacked with success without the aid of hypothesis framed by the use of the scientific imagination.

Facts are collected to prove or disprove the consequences deduced from the hypothesis, and thus the number of facts to be examined becomes manageable. If agreement is found, the hypothesis is, so far, confirmed, and gains in authority with every fresh con cordance discovered. If the deductions from the hypothesis do not agree with the accepted interpretation of facts, the hypothesis may need modification, it may have to be abandoned altogether, or the want of concordance may point to some error or incon sistency in the fundamental concepts on which the hypothesis is based—the whole framework of that branch of science may need revision.

Even while Bacon was philosophizing, the true method was being practised by Galileo, who, with a combination of observa tion, hypothesis, mathematical deduction and confirmatory experi ment, founded the science of dynamics. When Kepler had col lected astronomical phenomena under a few general laws and Newton had given a mathematical theory which co-ordinated them all, the first great scientific synthesis was accomplished, the first separate pieces of the puzzle put together into a limited but consistent pattern.

The Classification of the Sciences.

In early times, when the knowledge of nature was small, little attempt was made to divide science into parts, and men of science did not specialize. Aristotle was a master of all science known in his day, and wrote treatises alike on physics and on animals. But as it became impossible for any one man to grasp all scientific subjects, lines of division were drawn for convenience of study and of teaching. Besides the broad distinction into physical and biological science, minute sub divisions arose,and, at a certain stage of development, much atten tion was given to methods of classification, and much emphasis laid on the results, which were thought to have a significance beyond that of the mere convenience of mankind.

But we have reached the stage when the different streams of knowledge, followed by the different sciences, are coalescing, and the artificial barriers raised by calling those sciences by different names are breaking down. Geology uses the methods and data of physics, chemistry and biology; no one can say whether the science of radioactivity is to be classed as chemistry or physics, or whether sociology is properly grouped with biology or economics. Indeed, it is often just where this coalescence of two subjects occurs, when some connecting channel between them is opened suddenly, that the most striking advances in knowledge take place. The accumulated experience of one department of science, and the special methods which have been developed to deal with its prob lems, become suddenly available in the domain of another, and many questions insoluble before may find answers in the new light cast upon them. Such considerations show us that science is in truth one, though we may agree to look on it now from one side and now from another as we approach it from the standpoint of physics, physiology or psychology.

The Philosophical Basis of Science.

Having traced the development of the most important of the fundamental concep tions of science, let us now examine the meaning of the knowledge thus acquired, and its relation to other branches of learning.