To say that science can not have objective value since it teaches us only relations, this is to reason backward, since, precisely, it is relations alone which can be regarded as objective.
External objects, for instance, for which the word object was invented, are really objects and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.
Therefore, when we ask what is the objective value of science, that does not mean: Does science teach us the true nature of things? but it means: Does it teach us the true relations of things?
To the first question, no one would hesitate to reply, no; but I think we may go farther; not only science can not teach us the nature of things; but nothing is capable of teaching it to us, and if any god knew it, he could not find words to express it. Not only can we not divine the response, but if it were given to us we could understand nothing of it; I ask myself even whether we really understand the question.
When, therefore, a scientific theory pretends to teach us what heat is, or what is electricity, or life, it is condemned beforehand; all it can give us is only a crude image. It is, therefore, provisional and crumbling.
The first question being out of reason, the second remains. Can science teach us the true relations of things? What it joins together should that be put asunder, what it puts asunder should that be joined together?
To understand the meaning of this new question, it is needful to refer to what was said above on the conditions of objectivity. Have these relations an objective value? That means: Are these relations the same for all? Will they still be the same for those who shall come after us?
It is clear that they are not the same for the scientist and the ignorant person. But that is unimportant, because if the ignorant person does not see them all at once, the scientist may succeed in making him see them by a series of experiments and reasonings. The thing essential is that there are points on which all those acquainted with the experiments made can reach accord.
The question is to know whether this accord will be durable and whether it will persist for our successors. It may be asked whether the unions that the science of to-day makes will be confirmed by the science of to-morrow. To affirm that it will be so we can not invoke any a priori reason; but this is a question of fact, and science has already lived long enough for us to be able to find out by asking its history whether the edifices it builds stand the test of time, or whether they are only ephemeral constructions.
Now what do we see? At the first blush, it seems to us that the theories last only a day and that ruins upon ruins accumulate. To-day the theories are born, to-morrow they are the fashion, the day after to-morrow they are classic, the fourth day they are superannuated, and the fifth they are forgotten. But if we look more closely, we see that what thus succumb are the theories properly so called, those which pretend to teach us what things are. But there is in them something which usually survives. If one of them taught us a true relation, this relation is definitively acquired, and it will be found again under a new disguise in the other theories which will successively come to reign in place of the old.