Yet the true situation is not characterized by such an antithesis. If we say that all knowledge is ultimately practical, we are speaking from an epistemological point of view, inasmuch as we take it then as a reconstruction of the world through the purposive activity of the over-individual subject. On the other hand it is an empirical point of view from which ultimately all knowledge, that of the physician and engineer and lawyer, as well as that of the astronomer, appears theoretical. But this antithesis can, therefore, not decide the further empirical question, whether or not in the midst of theoretical knowledge two kinds of sciences may be discriminated, of which the one refers to empirical practical purposes and the other not. Such an inquiry would have nothing to do with the epistemological problem of pragmatism; it would be strictly non-philosophical, just as the separation of chemistry into organic and inorganic chemistry. This empirical question is indeed to be answered in the affirmative. If we ask what causes bring about a certain effect, for the sake of a practical purpose of ours,--for instance, the curing a patient of disease,--no one can state facts which are not in principle to be included in the complete system of physical causes and effects and thus in the system of physical sciences. And yet it may well be that the physical sciences, as such, have not the slightest reason to mention the effect of that special drug on that special pathological alteration of the tissues of the organism. The descriptions and explanations of science are not a mere heaping up of material, but a steady selection in the interest of the special aim of the science. No physical science describes every special pebble on the beach; no historical science deals with the chance happenings in the daily life of any member of the crowd. And we already well know the point of view from which the selection is to be performed. We want to know in the physical and psychical sciences whatever is involved in the object of our experience, and in the historical and normative sciences whatever is involved in the demands which reach our will. But whether we have to do with the objects or with the demands, in both cases we have systems before us which are determined only by the objects or demands themselves, without any relation to our individual will and our own practical activity. Theoretically, of course, our will, our activity, our organism, our personality is included in the complete system; and if we knew absolutely everything of the empirical effects of the object or of the consequences of these demands, we should find among them their relation to our individual interests; but that relation would be but one chance case among innumerable others, and the sciences would not have the slightest interest in giving any attention to that particular case. Thus if our knowledge of chemical substances were complete, we should