Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 179

Chap.

§ 49.

Ill]

§ 49.

By two

TWO KINDS OF

SCIENCE

155

Two Kinds of Science

kinds of science

we do not mean

that two radicosmos can be simultaneously entertained side by side, with equal right. Truth is one, and so far as you understand it to be the object reflected in our human consciousness, science also can only be one. Thus if you understand science to be the systematized result of your perception, observation and thought, the difcally different representations of the

ference in the result of your investigation of degree but cannot be radical.

may

be a matter

If the result of

A

is

con-

trary to the result of B, one or both have strayed from the path of science, but in

no case can the two

results,

simultaneously

But our speaking of two kinds of science does not mean this. What we mean is, that both parts of humanit}^ that which has been wrought upon by palingenesis and that which lacks it, feel the impulse to investigate the object, and, by doing this in a scientific way, to obtain a scientific systemization of that which exists. The effort and activity of both bear the same character; they are both impelled by the same purpose both devote their strength to the same kind of labor and this kind of labor is in each case called the prosecution of science. But however much they may be doing the same thing formally, their activand with equal

right, be true.

;

;

run in opposite directions, because they have different and because of the difference in their nature they apply themselves differently to this work, and view things in a different way. Because they themselves are difities

starting-points

;

erently constituted, they see a corresponding difference in the constitution of all things. They are not at work, therefore,

on different parts of the same house, but each builds a house of his own. Not as if an existing plan, convention or deliberation here assigned the rule. This happens as little in one circle as in the other. Generation upon generation in all ages, in different lands, and among all classes of people, is at work on this house of science, without concert and without an architectural plan, and it is a mysterious power by which, from all this sporadic labor, a whole is per-

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