何为科学（三）

何为科学（三）

课程导读

通过前两课，我们了解到，作者先是列举了人们对科学的三种常见看法，然后又驳倒了这些看法；之后又搬出了字典的释义还有两位作家的观点，但始终没有出现他自己对于科学的定义。
本节课，我们将看到文章最核心的部分，也就是作者本人对科学的定义。

英文原文

WHAT IS SCIENCE

Science, then, has for its object the accumulation and systematization of knowledge, the discovery of truth.

The astronomer is trying to learn more and more about the celestial bodies, their motions, their composition, their changes.

Through his labors, carried on for many centuries, we have the science of astronomy.

The geologist has, on the other hand, confined his attention to the earth, and he is trying to learn as much as possible of its composition and structure, and of the processes that have been operating through untold ages to give us the earth as it now is.

He has given us the science of geology, which consists of a vast mass of knowledge carefully systematized and of innumerable deductions of interest and value.

If the time shall ever come when, through the labor of the geologist, all that can possibly be learned in regard to the structure and development of the earth shall have been learned, the occupation of the geologist would be gone.

But that time will never come.

And so I might go on pointing out the general character of the work done by different classes of scientific men, but this would be tedious.

We should only have brought home to us in each case the fact that, no matter what the science may be with which we are dealing, its disciples are simply trying to learn all they can in the field in which they are working.

As I began with a reference to astronomy, let me close with a reference to chemistry.

Astronomy has to deal with the largest bodies and the greatest distances of the universe; chemistry, on the other hand, has to deal with the smallest particles and the shortest distances of the universe.

Astronomy is the science of the infinitely great; chemistry is the science of the infinitely little. The chemist wants to know what things are made of and, in order to find this out, he has to push his work to the smallest particles of matter.

Then he comes face to face with facts that lead him to the belief that the smallest particles he can weigh by the aid of the most delicate balance, and the smallest particles he can see with the aid of the most powerful microscope, are immense as compared with those of which he has good reason to believe the various kinds of matter to be made up.

It is for this reason that I say that chemistry is the science of the infinitely little.

Thus I have tried to show what science is and what it is not.