Page:The Function of Reason.pdf/56

 is that science is the mere description of things observed, As such it assumes nothing, neither an objective world, nor causation, nor induction. A simple formula which describes the universals common to many occurrences is scientifically preferable to the complexity of many descriptions of many occurrences. Thus the quest of science is simplicity of description. The conclusion is that science, thus defined, needs no metaphysics. We can then revert to the naive doctrine of the University of Cambridge, and divide knowledge into natural science and moral science, each irrelevant to the other.

This doctrine is beautifully.clear; and in the sense in which the doctrine is clear, natural science can be of no importance. We can only urge the importance of science by destroying the clarity of the doctrine.

Mere observations are particular occurrences. Thus if science be concerned with mere observations, it is an epitome of certain occurrences in the lives of certain men of science. A treatise on a scientific subject is merely an alternative way of editing a “Scientific Who’s Who” with most of the proper names left out. For science is only concerned with particular observations made by particular men. Thus the world is in possession of four kinds of biographies, the old-fashioned “Life and Letters” in two volumes, the new-fashioned biography of the Lytton Strachey school, the Who’s Who type, and the variant on the Who’s Who type which is termed a treatise on some particular branch of science. Unless we are interested in the particular observers the