But if history is the foundation of the natural sciences, it follows from this that those sciences are always based upon a philosophy. This is indubitable, for the naturalist, however much he be a naturalist, is above all things a man, and a man without a philosophy (or what comes to the same thing, without a religion) has not yet been found. This does not mean that the natural sciences are philosophy. Their special task is classification, and here they are just as independent and autonomous as philosophy is incompetent. But philosophy is competent in philosophy, and so we see that those naturalists who possess philosophic culture avoid the prejudices, errors, and absurdities that spring from bad philosophies, and to which other naturalists are prone. For instance, if the chemist Professor Ostwald had possessed a better philosophy, he would not have abandoned his good chemistry for that doubtful mixture of things--his _Philosophy of Nature._ And had Ernest Haeckel made an elementary study of philosophy, he would never have given up his researches upon micro-organisms, in order to solve the riddles of the universe and to falsify the natural sciences. Let us limit ourselves to these instances, for our life of to-day supplies innumerable examples of philosophizing men of science, who are as pernicious to science as they are to philosophy and to culture. The antithesis between science and philosophy, of which so many speak, is a dream. The antithesis is between philosophy and philosophy, between true philosophy and that which is very imperfect and yet very arrogant, and manifestly active in the brains of many scientists, though it has nothing to do with the discoveries made in laboratories and observatories. [Sidenote: _Action of the natural sciences upon philosophy, and errors in conceiving such relation._] The action of philosophy upon the natural sciences is not constitutive of them, but preparatory. The action of the natural sciences upon philosophy is not even preparatory, but merely incidental and subsidiary, having for its end simplicity of exposition and of memorizing, just as in history. A very common error, derived from a too hasty analysis of the forms of spiritual life, is that of looking upon the empirical and natural sciences as a _preparation_ for philosophy. But in the achievement of the natural sciences, philosophy has been cold-shouldered, and to recover it we must seek pure intuition, which is the necessary and only precedent of logical thought. Still worse is it, when the natural sciences are considered, not only as preparation, but just as a first sketch, or a chiselling of the marble block, from which philosophy will carve the statue. For this view denies without being aware of it, either the autonomy of the natural sciences, or that of philosophy, according as either the philosophic method or the naturalistic method is held to be the method of truth.