Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/30

20 were first formed, and when this method was fixed, the question comes to be, How does this application of them answer when man forms the object of research? For it is at least possible that, in his case, the usual mode of scientific procedure may misgive.

It is unfair to condemn anything unheard. It is idle and unreasonable to charge any science with futility without at least endeavouring to substantiate the charge, and to point out the causes of its failure. Let us, then, run a parallel between the procedure of science as applied to nature, and the procedure of science as applied to man, and see whether, in the latter case, science does not occupy a position of such a nature, that if she maintains it, all the true phenomena for which she is looking necessarily become invisible; and if she deserts it, she forgoes her own existence. For, be it observed, that the "science of the human mind" claims to be a science only in so far as it can follow the analogy of the natural sciences, and, consequently, if its inability to do this to any real purpose be proved, it must relinquish all pretensions to the name.

In the first place, then, what is the proper business and procedure of the natural sciences? This may be stated almost in one word. It is to mark, register, and classify the changes which take place among the objects constituting the material universe. These objects change, and they do nothing more.

In the second place, what is the proper business and procedure of science in its application to man?