world never opposed stress to stress and
made no havoc with one another, nature might be called an unconscious
artist. In fact, just where such a formative impulse finds support from
the environment, a consciousness supervenes. If that consciousness is
adequate enough to be prophetic, an art arises. Thus the emergence of
arts out of instincts is the token and exact measure of nature's success
and of mortal happiness.

*** End of Volume Four ***

REASON IN SCIENCE

Volume Five of "The Life of Reason"

GEORGE SANTAYANA

he gar noy enhergeia zohe

This Dover edition, first published in 1982, is an unabridged
republication of volume five of _The Life of Reason; or The Phases of
Human Progress_, originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y.,
in 1905.

CONTENTS

REASON IN SCIENCE

CHAPTER I

TYPES AND AIMS OF SCIENCE

Science still young.--Its miscarriage in Greece.--Its timid reappearance
in modern times.--Distinction between science and myth.--Platonic status
of hypothesis.--Meaning of verification.--Possible validity of
myths.--Any dreamed-of thing might be experienced.--But science follows
the movement of its subject-matter.--Moral value of science.--Its
continuity with common knowledge.--Its intellectual essence.--Unity of
science.--In existence, judged by reflection, there is a margin of
waste.--Sciences converge from different points of origin.--Two chief
kinds of science, physics and dialectic.--Their mutual
implication.--Their cooeperation.--No science _a priori_.--Role of
criticism. Pages 3-38

CHAPTER II

HISTORY

History an artificial memory.--Second sight requires control.--Nature
the theme common to various memories.--Growth of legend.--No history
without documents.--The aim is truth.--Indirect methods of attaining
it.--Historical research a part of physics.--Verification here
indirect.--Futile ideal to survey all facts.--Historical theory.--It is
arbitrary.--A moral critique of the past is possible.--How it might be
just.--Transition to historical romance.--Possibility of genuine
epics.--Literal truth abandoned.--History exists to be transcended.--Its
great role. Pages 39-68

CHAPTER III

MECHANISM

Recurrent forms in nature.--Their discovery makes the flux
calculable.--Looser principles tried first.--Mechanism for the most part
hidden.--Yet presumably pervasive.--Inadequacy of consciousness.--Its
articulation inferior to that of its objects.--Scien