Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/567

551 "Science, therefore, may be properly defined as logically arranged and systematized knowledge, or more fully, that kind of knowledge which consists of facts carefully ascertained, accurately verified, and logically put together into a system" (p. 7). From this definition the conclusion is drawn that it is illogical to limit science to any particular class of facts, to the exclusion of other classes which conform to the definition. Science is then distinguished from art by the old dictum—"A science teaches us to know, "an art to do"; from literature, which is the ornament of science and the means of its communication; and from philosophy, which is the "Science of the sciences," that which unifies the sciences into one system. Science is not divorced from faith, since "gravitation, motion, force, atom, ether, and the like are the veritable products of faith, and in no sense matters of absolute knowledge" (p. 12). Completeness or freedom from error is not essential to science, for science is progressive. But this does not destroy its value, for by progressing it is constantly enlarging the nucleus of certainty contained in previous scientific progress.

This conception of science is the traditional one developed in works on Formal Logic, and shares in the inadequacies of such a conception. While the worker in science may undoubtedly conform to the conditions noted by Professor Hoffman, he does more. His conception is wider and more fundamental than that here outlined. He may exhibit the results of his work as a system of verifiable facts logically arranged and classified, but such an exhibition can hardly be regarded as his purpose. It serves rather simply as a logical or rhetorical device for a clear presentation of his discoveries. His purpose is other than rhetorical, it is to ascertain the fundamental structure of the elements with which he deals, and the invariable ways in which these elements act and interplay. It is by no means clear that this purpose will be secured simply by logically arranging and classifying verifiable facts into a system, unless we give to the terms 'logically' and 'system' a far wider meaning than is given to them in works on formal logic. The traditional doctrine of 'division' presents verifiable facts logically arranged and classified into a system, but it does not present a science, because it does not present a fundamental structure of elements and the invariable modes of their action and interplay. Nor does Professor Hoffman's chapter on "The Scientific Method" remedy the defects in his conception of science, even if it does insist on the inductive methods as essential to the discovery of causal connections. For the chapter presents these methods simply as among the traditional standards of perfection by which any hypothesis is to be estimated, but does not make clear the essential character of a scientific hypothesis; namely, that it is the assumption of elementary structures and activities which are exemplified in very complex processes, and in the light of which these processes may consequently be simplified and explained. In short, the fundamental inadequacy of the conception of science here outlined seems to lie in the apparent identification of the machinery used in the