line is not a special science in the same sense in which geometry
and physics are special sciences.

Nevertheless, the special sciences stand, as we have already seen in
the case of several of them, very near to his own. If he broadens his
view, and deliberately determines to take a survey of the field of
human knowledge as illuminated by the analyses that he has made, he
becomes something more than a _metaphysician_; he becomes a
_philosopher_.

This does not in the least mean that he becomes a storehouse of
miscellaneous information, and an authority on all the sciences.
Sometimes the philosophers have attempted to describe the world of
matter and of mind as though they possessed some mysterious power of
knowing things that absolved them from the duty of traveling the weary
road of observation and experiment that has ended in the sciences as we
have them. When they have done this, they have mistaken the
significance of their calling. A philosopher has no more right than
another man to create information out of nothing.

But it is possible, even for one who is not acquainted with the whole
body of facts presented in a science, to take careful note of the
assumptions upon which that science rests, to analyze the concepts of
which it makes use, to mark the methods which it employs, and to gain a
fair idea of its scope and of its relation to other sciences. Such a
reflection upon our scientific knowledge is philosophical reflection,
and it may result in a classification of the sciences, and in a general
view of human knowledge as a whole. Such a view may be illuminating in
the extreme; it can only be harmful when its significance is
misunderstood.

But, it may be argued, why may not the man of science do all this for
himself? Why should he leave it to the philosopher, who is presumably
less intimately acquainted with the sciences than he is?

To this I answer: The work should, of course, be done by the man who
will do it best. All our subdivision of labor should be dictated by
convenience. But I add, that experience has shown that the workers in
the special sciences have not as a rule been very successful when they
have tried to philosophize.

Science is an imperious mistress; she demands one's utmost efforts; and
when a man turns to philosophical reflection merely "by the way," and
in the scraps of time at his disposal after the day's work is done, his
philosophical work is apt to be rather superficial. M