isciplines
that we never think of classing among the philosophical sciences are
not wholly cut off from a connection with philosophy. When we are
occupied, not with adding to the stock of knowledge embraced within the
sphere of any special science, but with an examination of the methods
of the science, with, so to speak, a criticism of the foundations upon
which the science rests, our work is generally recognized as
philosophical. It strikes no one as odd in our day that there should
be established a "Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods," but we should think it strange if some one announced the
intention to publish a "Journal of Philosophy and Comparative Anatomy."
It is not without its significance that, when Mach, who had been
professor of physics at Prague, was called (in 1895) to the University
of Vienna to lecture on the history and theory of the inductive
sciences, he was made, not professor of physics, but professor of
philosophy.

The case, then, stands thus: a certain group of disciplines is regarded
as falling peculiarly within the province of the professor of
philosophy, and the sciences which constitute it are frequently called
the philosophical sciences; moreover, it is regarded as quite proper
that the teacher of philosophy should concern himself with the problems
of religion, and should pry into the methods and fundamental
assumptions of special sciences in all of which it is impossible that
he should be an adept. The question naturally arises: Why has his task
come to be circumscribed as it is? Why should he teach just these
things and no others?

To this question certain persons are at once ready to give an answer.
There was a time, they argue, when it seemed possible for one man to
embrace the whole field of human knowledge. But human knowledge grew;
the special sciences were born; each concerned itself with a definite
class of facts and developed its own methods. It became possible and
necessary for a man to be, not a scientist at large, but a chemist, a
physicist, a biologist, an economist. But in certain portions of the
great field men have met with peculiar difficulties; here it cannot be
said that we have sciences, but rather that we have attempts at
science. The philosopher is the man to whom is committed what is left
when we have taken away what has been definitely established or is
undergoing investigation according to approved scientific methods. He
is Lord of