Till a subject has advanced as far as this, to speak of a science of it
is an abuse of language. It is not enough to say that there must be a
science of human things because there is a science of all other things.
This is like saying the planets must be inhabited because the only
planet of which we have any experience is inhabited. It may or may not
be true, but it is not a practical question; it does not affect the
practical treatment of the matter in hand.
Let us look at the history of Astronomy.
So long as sun, moon, and planets were supposed to be gods or angels; so
long as the sword of Orion was not a metaphor, but a fact; and the
groups of stars which inlaid the floor of heaven were the glittering
trophies of the loves and wars of the Pantheon,--so long there was no
science of Astronomy. There was fancy, imagination, poetry, perhaps
reverence, but no science. As soon, however, as it was observed that the
stars retained their relative places; that the times of their rising and
setting varied with the seasons; that sun, moon, and planets moved among
them in a plane, and the belt of the Zodiac was marked out and
divided,--then a new order of things began.
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