Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/16

 to natural science, no special science ever is grounded upon the conciliation of presuppositions belonging to all the various sciences of Nature. Each science confines itself to a fragment of the evidence and weaves its theories in terms of notions suggested by that fragment. Such a procedure is necessary by reason of the limitations of human ability. But its dangers should always be kept in mind. For example, the increasing departmentalization of universities during the last hundred years, however necessary for administrative purposes, tends to trivialize the mentality of the teaching profession. The result of this effective survival of two ways of thought is a patchwork procedure.

Presuppositions from the two points of view are interwoven sporadically. Every special science has to assume results from other sciences, For example, biology presupposes physics. It will usually be the case