Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 181

Chap. Ill]

§ 49.

TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE

157

This would have revealed itself clearly and at once, at least if from the beginning the development of each group had proceeded entirely within well-defined bounBut this was not the case, neither could it be. First, daries. because there is a very broad realm of investigation in which the difference between the two groups exerts no influence. in Christian lands,

For in the present disjDensation palingenesis works no change nor in the plastic conception of visible things.

in the senses,

The

entire

domain

more primary observation, which and numbers, is common

of the

limits itself to weights, measures to both.

The

entire empiric investigation of the things that

are perceptible to our senses (simple or reinforced) has noth-

ing to do with the radical difference which separates the two groups. By this we do not mean, that the natural sciences as

such and in their entirety, fall outside of this difference, but only that in these sciences the difference which separates the two groups exerts no influence on the beginnings of the investigation. Whether a thing weighs two milligrams or three, can be absolutely ascertained by every one that can weigh. be mistakenly supposed that the natural sciences are and lowest part of their investigation, the entirely unjust conclusion may be reached, that If it

entirely exhausted in this first

these sciences, as such, fall outside of the difference.

But inwould be equally unfair, for the sake of accentuating the difference, to deny the absolute character of perception by the senses. Any one who in the realm of visible things has observed and formulated something with accurate as this would be,

it

entire accuracy, whatever

it

groups.

To

be, has

rendered service to both

the validity of these formulas, which makes

them binding upon all and for all time, the natural sciences owe their reputation of certainty, and, since we are deeply interested practically in the dominion over matter, also their

.honor and overestimation.

For the more accurate statefail to remark that, however these formulas and the dominion over nature which they

ment rich

of our idea

we cannot

place at our disposal

may

be in their practical results, they

stand, nevertheless, entirely at the foot of the ladder of scientific investigation,

and are so

little scientific in their

char-

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