h
is no better than a labeled vacuum.

Moreover, we cannot refuse to consider the question of God's relation
to the world. This seems to lead back to the broader question: How are
we to conceive of any mind as related to the world? What is the
relation between mind and matter? If any subject of inquiry may
properly be called metaphysical, surely this may be.

We see, then, that there is little wonder that the thoughtful
consideration of the facts and doctrines of religion has taken its
place among the philosophical sciences. Aesthetics has been called
applied psychology; and I think it is scarcely too much to say that we
are here concerned with applied metaphysics, with the attempt to obtain
a clear understanding of the significance of the facts of religion in
the light of those ultimate analyses which reveal to us the real nature
of the world of matter and of minds.

CHAPTER XXI

PHILOSOPHY AND THE OTHER SCIENCES

78. THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND NON-PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.--We have seen in
the preceding chapters that certain of the sciences can scarcely be
cultivated successfully in complete separation from philosophy. It has
also been indicated in various places that the relation of other
sciences to philosophy is not so close.

Thus, the sciences of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry may be
successfully prosecuted by a man who has reflected little upon the
nature of numbers and who has never asked himself seriously what he
means by space. The assumptions which he is justified in making, and
the kind of operations which he has the right to perform, do not seem,
as a rule, to be in doubt.

So it is also in the sciences of chemistry and physics. There is
nothing to prevent the chemist or the physicist from being a
philosopher, but he is not compelled to be one. He may push forward
the investigations proper to his profession regardless of the type of
philosophy which it pleases him to adopt. Whether he be a realist or
an idealist, a dualist or a monist, he should, as chemist or physicist,
treat the same sort of facts in the same sort of a way. His path
appears to be laid out for him, and he can do work the value of which
is undisputed by traveling quietly along it, and without stopping to
consider consciously what kind of a path it is. There are many who
work in this way, and they succeed in making important contributions to
human knowledge.

Such sciences as these I call the non-philosophical scienc