PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM.

TH

HE sciences are parts of a great whole, the members of a magnificent system; each of them has manifold relations to every other. But the great whole, the magnificent system, to which they belong is itself an object of knowledge. Unless the intellectual universe bc no real universe, but essentially a chaos, science must be general as well as special; or, in other words, there must be a science of the sciences-a science which determines the principles and conditions, the limits and relations, of the sciences. This science is philosophy; and the present paper is meant to be a plea for philosophy as the legitimate but often disavowed and insulted queen of the sciences. "Time was," says Kant, "when metaphysics was the queen of all the sciences. But now it is the fashion to heap contempt and scorn upon her, and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba." The sciences, however, cannot do without a queen. There may be a republic of letters, but the sciences cannot constitute a republic; they must be so connected as to form a unity; and the science which refers them to unity and shows that knowledge as a whole is a cosmos is the supreme science, the queen of the sciences. The want of practical recognition of this truth is the main cause of the intellectual anarchy of our times.

Philosophy, as scientia scientiarum, may have more functions than one, but it has at least one: it has to show how science is related to science, where one science is in contact with another, in what way each fits into each, so that all may compose the symmetrical and glorious edifice of human knowledge, which has been built up by the labors of all past generations, and which all

future generations must contribute to perfect and adorn. With whatever province of science a thoughtful man occupies himself, he soon becomes aware that it has intimate and manifold connections with other provinces, and if he try to trace these connections out he will ere-long perceive that the sciences are not isolated things, but so bound together as to constitute a unity which is a reflection of the unity of nature. and of the unity of that Supreme Reason which pervades all nature and originates all intelligence. Philosophy aims to raise the mind gradually and legitimately to a point from which this unity may be visible, while the distinctions of the special sciences are not only not effaced, but lie clearly and truthfully before it. If I seek to vindicate and magnify this aim it is not because I suppose its reasonableness is likely to be directly and explicitly denied, but because its importance can scarcely in the present day be too often or strongly insisted on. There is many a truth which is not contested, which receives a ready acquiescence of a sort, and yet which is very far from being apprehended or generally acted on, because the evidence for it is not so definitely and adequately before the mind as to counteract influences which tend to obscure it and make it practically neglected; and that aspiration after insight into the system of science as a whole should not be lost in the study of details is pre-eminently such a truth.

Now, the first consideration which here suggests itself is that philosophy, viewed as scientia scientiarum, is simply science which has attained to a knowledge of the unity, self-consistency, and harmony of the teachings of the separate sciences. Philosophy seeks to do for the sciences just what each science does for the doctrines it comprehends. In this latter case separate truths are brought into unity, and in the former separate sciences. The one unity constitutes a science, the other a science of the sciences, and shows that absolutely there is but one science, although it has various departments, whereby the incommensurableness of nature is brought down to our capacities. The second and higher unity, is as natural, as legitimate, as important as the first and lower unities. It would little avail, indeed, that these existed-that there was unity enough in things to permit of the formation of special sciences-if there

were no still more comprehensive unity, if the point of view of each science was in itself final, if each science was utterly isolated from all others. If such were the case there would be in science something essentially disappointing to the human mind, for it would be of its very nature calculated not to satisfy but to thwart that love of unity which is the source and life of all scientific research. If such were the case truth would not form a fair and harmonious body, but it would resemble the mangled and scattered limbs of Osiris, while the human mind in its pursuit would be engaged in a task more mournful than that of Isis, because hopeless. It is not so, however, but

"The One through all in cycles goes,

And all to One returning flows."

Science is not sectioned into entirely unconnected sciences. In all the sciences there is a certain common nature, and among them there are many ties of affinity and points of contact. There are precedence and subordination, order and harmony, among them; so that, many and diverse as they are, they form a whole, a system in which each of them has its appropriate place, and, so far from being sacrificed to any other, has a new dignity imparted to it by being referred to the final unity of reason, the common centre of knowledge.

Secondly, philosophy, as a comprehensive survey of the sciences and a deeply grounded knowledge of their principal relations to one another, is a condition indispensable to a correct conception of the special province of any science. The boundaries of most sciences are very ill-traced, their definitions most irreconcilable. The first question which the student of any science naturally asks, What is it? What is it about? is one to which he can often get no satisfactory answer-one on which he finds that all the doctors disagree. Take logic. One logician will tell you its proper object is thought as thought; another, that it is the forms as contradistinguished from the contents or matter of thought; another, that it is only the necessary as distinct from the contingent forms of thought; another, that it is only a kind of thought, mediate or discursive thought; another that it is only a kind of mediate or discursive thought -inference; and still another, that it is not thought as thought,

nor any elements or kinds of thought, but qualities of thought -truth and error so far as involved in the application of thought. And, it must be remarked, this opposition is in no way one between old and new views, between transcended and effete conceptions and those which actually prevail, but one which exists between the most deliberately formed convictions of the most eminent modern logicians. Certainly it is a somewhat perplexing puzzle to lie at the very entrance of a science. The ingenuous youth who makes his first acquaintance with logic by getting this nut thrust into his mouth is not likely, if his teeth be sharp enough to crack it, to find any subsequent problem too hard for him. It is not much otherwise with psychology, with rhetoric, with ethics, with politics, with political economy. And as to metaphysics, it fares far worse: the discordance and embroilment there baffle description, for, as Professor Ferrier so happily said, "All the captains are sailing on different tacks, under different orders, and under different winds; and each is railing at the others because they will not keep the same course with himself. One man is playing at chess, his adversary is playing against him at billiards; and whenever a victory is achieved or a defeat sustained, it is always such a victory as a billiard-player might be supposed to gain over a chess-player, or such a defeat as a billiard-player might be supposed to sustain at the hands of a chess-player.'

Now, how is such a state of things to be remedied? How are we to decide between the disputants? How make a choice for ourselves between conflicting definitions? It is obvious neither tradition nor authority can here help us, for not only are they in themselves discordant and undecided, but they have no right to overrule reason, which ought to submit to evidence alone, which is unworthy of itself when it listens to any other voice than that of truth. Nor will it suffice to found our definitions on the etymology and inherent significance of names. That may wholly mislead. Words often come to signify what is altogether different from their intrinsic meaning, sometimes what is the reverse of it. A manufacture, for instance, is not what is made by the hand, but what is made by machinery with little or no aid from the hand. Words may be stretched or contracted, where needful, to conform to realities, but realities are

not to be twisted in any way to conform to words; and it is not with words but realities that science has to deal. It may be said, a science cannot be defined until after the study of its appropriate facts, and when the study is sufficiently advanced the definition comes of itself. And this is so far true. Although first in the order of exposition, the definition of a science is late in the order of discovery and presupposes a certain acquaintance with an appropriate order of facts, expressing, as it does, some essential characteristic which they all possess. But the question is, the difficulty is, to determine what is the appropriate order of facts, why the one chosen and not another, why an order of a given extent instead of one larger or smaller. All the views of logic, for instance, to which I have referred assign to it a natural order of facts, a sphere of real knowledge worth acquiring, a sphere with distinct enough boundaries; and yet the natural orders are not coincident, the boundaries are altogether different, some going all round those of others, and others intersecting one another in the most perplexing ways. Now, in this case, it is obvious there is but one mode of deciding who is right and who is wrong, who has selected the proper group of facts and who groups larger or smaller, who has traced the boundaries of his science well and who ill. It is by examining whose views give to their science a place that fits in rightly into the scheme of science. The question is one of adjustment. The logician simply as logician cannot define logic, for that is an affair of the settlement of boundaries between the sort of knowledge he cultivates and contiguous divisions of knowledge, such as metaphysics, psychology, and rhetoric; one, accordingly which can only be decided by a higher and more general sort of considerations than belongs to any special science-by considerations as to the relations of the sciences. And this holds universally. It is as impossible to fix the position of a science without reference to neighboring sciences, and even to the general system of the sciences, as to fix the position of a nation. without reference to surrounding nations, and even to the general geography of the earth. In this respect a general scheme of science is exactly like a general map or like a terrestrial globe; and like such map or globe it supplies a want which can no otherwise be provided for. An atlas with a separate