I
The division of the sciences reflects the diversity of human
interests; it represents the economical adaptation of organized
thought to the conditions of reality; and it likewise recognizes the
intrinsically and objectively distinct realms and aspects, in which
and under which phenomena occur. It is obvious that the sciences
were shaped by human needs; that physics and chemistry and geology
and biology and psychology do not constitute independent departments
of nature's régime, but only so many aspects of complex natural
activities; that a cross-section of the composite happenings of a
cosmic moment would reveal an endlessly heterogeneous concomitance of
diverse forms of energy acting upon diverse types of material; that,
as we confine our attention somewhat arbitrarily to one or another
component of the aggregate, we become physicists, or chemists, or
geologists, or biologists, or psychologists; that, indeed, Nature is
all things to all men. There is, furthermore, a community of spirit
between the several sciences, as there is a logical unity of method
and purpose within the realm of each. However ignorant they may be
of one another's facts, the chemist and the psychologist readily
appreciate one another's purposes, and find a bond of sympathy in the
pursuit of a commonly inspired though differently applied method.
The search for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law
and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts
constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the
ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a
deeper insight into their significance,--these are ideals for the
advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution,
but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a
highly developed stage of accurate thought. A clear-cut conception of
the purposes and methods of scientific investigation and of the scope
of the several sciences is a dearly bought product of generations of
well-directed, as also of misdirected, effort. The path of progress
leading to this achievement has been tortuous and indirect; there
has been much expenditure of energy that resulted merely in marking
time, in going through the movements of locomotion but with no
advance, in following a false trail, or, through a loss of the sense
of direction, in coming back after a circuitous march to an earlier
starting-point. It is easy, when a certain height is reached, to
look down and back, and see how much more readily the ascent might
have been accomplished; but it is a very different matter to form a
successful plan for attaining the next higher commanding point. It is
inevitable that there shall be differences of opinion as to course
and manœuvre, and errors of judgment of commission and omission; but
such diversity is quite consistent with an underlying coöperation
and singleness of purpose. It is in the inspiration and in the
execution of that purpose that science becomes differentiated from
the unscientific and non-scientific.
Between the organized effort and well-recognized plan of action of
science and the chaotic movements of the untutored mind, there is a
marked contrast. The savage, like the child, constantly meets with
the unexpected; every experience lying outside his narrow beaten
track stirs him with a shock and often fills him with fear--the
handmaid of ignorance. He is apt to picture nature as a fearful
monster, and to people the world with tyrannical beings. Step by
step the region of the known expands, and suggests the nature of the
unknown; men expect, they foresee, they predict. The apparent chaos
of mutually inimical forces gives way to the profound harmony of
unifying law. And yet the unknown and the borderland that separates
it from the known are always near by, to tempt curiosity and the
spirit of adventure.
The problem here to be considered relates to the attitude which may
most properly and profitably be taken with regard to the outlying
phenomena of the mind. Are they outcasts, to be treated in a spirit
of charity and forbearance? Are they the true owners of the land,
driven off, like the Indian before the white man, by the relentless
march of civilization to a prescribed reservation? Are they the
unjustly deposed and rightful heirs, soon to be restored to their
kingdom by a fairer and more searching examination of their title? Or
are they, gypsy-like, of obscure origin, surviving in a civilization
which they are in but not of, attempting to eke out an uncertain
existence by peddling relics of antiquated lore to the curious and
the credulous?