Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/569

 and assiduity of which you are capable, the particular branch of knowledge which natural inclination and aptitude, strengthened and methodized by academic discipline, may urge you to follow, and which the circumstances of your future life may render practicable, I should fail in my duty were I to abstain from inviting your special attention to the claims of one department of thought. It may not be the fashion now-a-days to profess a high regard for speculative philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics may have deservedly become a by-word and a reproach, and Michelet may have rightly defined it as the art of bewildering one's self methodically. I am not concerned with defending the speculations which under the name of metaphysics, or ontology, or theology, have engrossed the minds of men since the dawn of reflection. But I am deeply interested in getting you to understand and appreciate the spirit of enquiry, of which metaphysical speculations, however erroneous they may be, are the outward expressions. The ever-increasing volume and the ever-multiplying ramifications of knowledge render specialization a more and more pressing necessity for each succeeding generation. To few men is it permitted to gain a minute acquaintance with more than one science. And what is true of the man of science is true also of the college student. The tendency of modern academic regulations is to confine the student to a comparatively small number of subjects. But this specialization, necessary though it be, has its disadvantages both in respect to the training of the faculties and in its bearing on that adequate knowledge of the universe which is the aim of the highest scientific thought. Each science professes to give the last word that can for the time being be said, not on the universe as a whole, but on that particular part of it with which it is concerned. Chemistry gives us the final conclusions of the chemist with regard to the phenomena and laws of chemical combination. Biology systematizes the latest conclusions with respect to the phenomena and laws of life. Psychology confines itself to the domain of consciousness. Each science presents, therefore, only a partial view of nature; and this fact should never be lost sight of. For partial or one-sided views become harmful when, for-getting their real character, we treat them as complete and all-sided. Now, this is precisely what the specialist is in danger of doing. The more the mind is engrossed with a particular branch of knowledge, the greater is the tendency to treat all other branches as of less importance and, therefore, as less deserving of study. This scientific bias, if unchecked, may lead to the other sciences being ignored altogether, the favourite