Novum organon renovatum: Being the second part of the philosophy of the inductive sciencesWhewell, William
Philosophy
Novum organon renovatum: Being the second part of the philosophy of the inductive sciences
Whewell, William
Science -- Philosophy
8. I shall therefore not place, in our Classification of the
Sciences, the Arts, as has generally been done; nor shall I notice
the applications of sciences to art, as forming any separate portion
of each science. The sciences, considered as bodies of general
speculative {135} truths, are what we are here concerned with; and
applications of such truths, whether useful or useless, are
important to us only as illustrations and examples. Whatever place
in human knowledge the Practical Arts may hold, they are not
Sciences. And it is only by this rigorous separation of the
Practical from the Theoretical, that we can arrive at any solid
conclusions respecting the nature of Truth, and the mode of arriving
at it, such as it is our object to attain.
{{136}}
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES.
1. THE Classification of Sciences has its chief use in pointing out
to us the extent of our powers of arriving at truth, and the
analogies which may obtain between those certain and lucid portions
of knowledge with which we are here concerned, and those other
portions, of a very different interest and evidence, which we here
purposely abstain to touch upon. The classification of human
knowledge will, therefore, have a more peculiar importance when we
can include in it the moral, political, and metaphysical, as well as
the physical portions of our knowledge. But such a survey does not
belong to our present undertaking: and a general view of the
connexion and order of the branches of sciences which our review has
hitherto included, will even now possess some interest; and may
serve hereafter as an introduction to a more complete scheme of the
general body of human knowledge.
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