(a) Science is perfected common sense (Huxley). The definition accords with the view of Spencer that science and ordinary knowledge are allied in nature, and that the one is but a perfected and extended form of the other. What is there in the common interests of these two men, or in the period in which they lived, to account for such a definition?
(b) Reduced to its lowest terms, science is the observation of phenomena and the colligation of the results of observation into groups (Hill).
(c) When may any subject be said to enter the scientific stage? I suppose when the facts of it begin to resolve themselves into groups; when phenomena are no longer isolated experiences, but appear in connection and order; when, after certain antecedents, certain consequents are uniformly seen to follow; when facts enough have been collected to furnish a basis for conjectural explanation, and when conjectures have so far ceased to be utterly vague, that it is possible in some degree to foresee the future by the help of them (Froude).
(d) Mechanics is the science of motion; and its problem is to describe the motions that occur in nature completely and in the simplest way (Kirchhoff). Can this definition of mechanics be generalised, so that it applies to science at large?
T. H. Huxley, Science Primers: Introductory, 1880, 18 f.; H. Spencer, The Genesis of Science, in Essays, ii., 1891, 8; A. Hill, Introduction to Science, 1900, 3; J. A. Froude, The Science of History, in Short Studies on Great Subjects, First Series, i., 1901, 13 f.; G. R. Kirchhoff, Vorlesungen über mathematische Physik: Mechanik, 1883, 1.
(2) Helmholtz tells us that whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediately practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain; and Clifford asserts that the most useful parts of science have been investigated for the sake of truth, and not for their usefulness. Yet Pearson holds that one of the claims of science to our support is the increased comfort that it adds to practical life. How do you reconcile these statements?
H. von Helmholtz, On the Relation of Natural Science to General Science, in Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, i., 1904, 25; W. K. Clifford, On Some of the Conditions of Mental Development, in Lectures and Essays, i., 1879, 104; K. Pearson, The Grammar of Science, ch. i., 1900, 29 f., 37.
(3) Discuss the following definitions of psychology:
(a) The science which describes and explains the phenomena of consciousness, as such (Ladd).