science, not in the spirit of detraction, but
for the sake of a more sound belief concerning reality. The philosopher
falls into error no less radical than that of the dogmatic scientist,
when he charges the scientist with untruth, and attaches to his concepts
the predicate of unreality. The fact that the concepts of science are
selected, and only inadequately true of reality, should not be taken to
mean that they are sportive or arbitrary. They are not "devices" or
abbreviations, in any sense that does not attach to such symbolism as
all thought involves. Nor are they merely "hypothetical," though like
all thought they are subject to correction.[142:7] The scientist does
not merely assert that the equation for energy is true if nature's
capacity for work be measurable, but _that such is actually the case_.
The statistician does not arrive at results contingent upon the
supposition that men are numerable, but declares his sums and averages
to be categorically true. Similarly scientific laws are true; only, to
be sure, so far as they go, but with no condition save the condition
that attaches to all knowledge, viz., that it shall not need correction.
The philosophy of science, therefore, is not the adversary of science,
but supervenes upon science in the interests of the ideal of final
truth. No philosophy of science is sound which does not primarily seek
by an analysis of scientific concepts to understand science on its own
grounds. Philosophy may understand science better than science
understands itself, but only by holding fast to the conviction of its
truth, and including it within whatever account of reality it may be
able to formulate.

[Sidenote: Relative Practical Value of Science and Philosophy.]

Sect. 54. Though philosophy be the most ancient and most exalted of
human disciplines, it is not infrequently charged with being the most
unprofitable. Science has amassed a fortune of information, which has
facilitated life and advanced civilization. Is not philosophy, on the
other hand, all programme and idle questioning? In the first place, no
questioning is idle that is logically possible. It is true that
philosophy shows her skill rather in the asking than in the answering of
questions. But the formal pertinence of a question is of the greatest
significance. No valid though unanswered question can have a purely
negative value, and especially as respects the consistency or
completeness of truth. But, in the second