Cultural Contacts of Science*

Abstract

IN the study of man and his activities, three types of cultural development may be recognized; and they are all measured by different standards. In the Fine Arts the imaginative qualities of the mind appeal primarily to the emotions through stimulation of the aesthetic judgment ; material culture is the province of mechanical arts ; and science—the domain of reason—is systematic and formulated knowledge in all fields of human understanding—natural, moral, social and political. Natural science, or natural philosophy, is only one division of science as thus defined. The history of civilization is a history of intellectual development in which science has been the chief factor in changing habits of thought from superficial observation and speculative and anthropomorphic theories of causation to clear concepts, rational conclusions and progressive principles in the advancement of man and society.