Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/382

372 of the positive sciences knowledge ends; for the naïve supposition that an object can exist without a subject; for the marvelous delusion that observation and experiment are capable of revealing things new and old without the aid of mental synthesis or of psychological volition; for the charming inconsequence that we perceive phenomena and are therefore ignorant of reality. But equally, no basis can be found for the idea that philosophy has means of access to some special knowledge denied science; that one can afford to neglect science in favor of rational forms; that the conclusions of physics, chemistry and biology are subject to revision at a higher tribunal; or that the work of the sciences is a monstrous delusion. On the contrary, there is every reason for insisting that science and philosophy are interwined inextricably—much more inextricably now than they could have been in Newton's time. Both work upon the same closed universe. This is the important fact, even if science inquires, What is it? philosophy. What does it mean? Nay, both questions are unanswerable, and so the two disciplines alike end in approximation and hypothesis. As Eomanes has put it, "The 'Origin of Species' first clearly revealed to naturalists as a class that it was the duty of their science to take as its motto what is really the motto of natural science in general, 'Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,' not facts, then, or phenomena, but causes or principles are the ultimate objects of scientific quest." They are the objects of philosophical quest also, as Romanes shows elsewhere. In a word, to become conscious of its own fundamental principles, science must transform itself into a kind of philosophy, while to become acquainted with its own illustrative material, philosophy must transform itself into a kind of science. This way lie harmony and progress. We expect the twentieth century to furnish forth the imperative eirenicon. It can not come too soon.