Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/471

Rh the crescent moon after new moon is of ritual significance to the Jews, the ecclesiastical commencement of their months depending upon it. Their great philosopher, Maimonides, who wrote in the twelfth century, informs us of the process whereby they for a long time noted the moments wherein the lunula became visible; hence they deduced a formula by the aid of which the time of the visibility of the crescent may be calculated. This is induction pure and simple; but not till long afterward was the soil fitted to receive such seed, or the significance of this process recognized.

For only a little over a hundred years have we been following the right path. We have enlarged the capacities of our organs to an extraordinary degree; we have learned to warn our senses of the veils with which preconceived philosophical ideas were wont to blindfold them; we prize the good-fortune which places in our hands any important clew to the working of Nature; disdainful skepticism, of which Alexander von Humboldt says that, in individual instances, it is almost more harmful than unquestioning credulousness, is like the latter disappearing from among us. But we must guard against the error of supposing that herein is our entire salvation. "The educated man is more than a virtuoso, than a specialist; his power does not lie in the exercise of one faculty alone. . . . The man who harmoniously combines within himself the largest number of diverse faculties is a leader of men, though he be surpassed by others in the development of individual faculties. Here we have the fruits of true humanism, of true culture, which is ever aiming at the establishing of an inward equilibrium in the individual as in the state." These words of a renowned poet of the present age foreshadow the counsel I would offer to you for your guidance through life. While, on the one hand, the principle of the division of labor, without which human progress is inconceivable, restricts the functions of the individual within a comparatively narrow province: on the other hand, he only can wisely elect to labor in such a province, and can work the field profitably, who does not lack comprehensiveness. There is no science which has not its æsthetic side, as there is no study of form which may not be advanced by having a basis in fact. Philologists and historians of late have been desirous of having their studies classed among inductive sciences; the investigator of Nature feels more and more every day that he has, perhaps, too long neglected the deductive method. And philosophy itself, the science of sciences, can it subsist without a fundamental knowledge of the grounds of all the sciences? Without philosophy any high degree of intellectual development, in any direction whatever, is inconceivable. Even they who turn away with contempt from Philosophy are, in spite of themselves, compelled to have recourse to her. She alone brings clearness in thoughts upon the nature of one's chosen pursuit—thoughts from which there is no escape for whoever thinks!