88

1908 Nov 19
Logic
I.i. 7

that when they hear overhear mathematicians, or physicists, or chemists,
or physiologists, or comparative anatomists, or astronomers,
or geologists, or the like speak of a 'science', what will be meant in
every nine cases out of ten will be the collective activity,-the 'business',
-that is being carried on in social groups each consisting of men
who possess special facilities, external and internal, for the solution
of problems of a certain kind, and are devoting their whole person total energies to
furthering such discovering those solutions. So much, I say,
the best-instructed of the public do understand; but not even
they nor all scientific mean of great eminence, either, seem to be
aware that no man is fit has any special facility for solving
any hitherto unsolved problem he chooses of however narrow a class that is marked
out by any rational characters. He only finds himself in con-