§ 4: On Science

Science is a creation and possession of the human mind; proceeding from an innate activity toward love of learning, it examines and investigates all objects that come to the senses and desires to know and attribute to them their qualities. The multitude and variety of acquired knowledge compels him to distinguish them into similar and dissimilar kinds and to bring them into order, so that through the intuitive mind he readily grasps the idea of the whole and makes his knowledge complete. The division of these into classes and kinds is the discovery of truth, whose exercise is the goal of science and the accurate and orderly knowledge of beings as they are. Science therefore rises to the knowable, and this is either universal or particular; hence science too can be either universal or particular, because man through the intuitive mind cannot classify the particular among many objects.

Science, as proceeding from the sensory powers of the soul, has always been divided into two classes: the theoretical and the practical; and the theoretical has each time raised him to his proper station, while the practical has gone beyond and exceeded it; because practical knowledge, when not combined with spiritual, that is moral, knowledge, militates against the spirit of the soul’s powers. Knowledge of the soul’s powers has brought about its needs and impelled it toward the extremity of destruction.

Through pure science man is elevated to an incomprehensible height; the human spirit is exalted and becomes luminous. In science appears the understanding and genius of man, which under various forms under the forms of Quickness of mind, Acuity of mind, and Profundity of mind appearing in different circumstances and needs reveal the mathematicians, the artists, the orators, the philosophers, and in a word the great men; this discovers the axioms and theorems of technical sciences; through them the historian narrates truth not merely dryly but seeking the most interesting means finds the way so that he interweaves his judgments in a pleasant narrative and prophesies or pronounces aphoristically about the distant future; what happens to the historian happens to every science. Through science man and the divine gifts of the spirit develop the arts and sciences, he goes forth from the circumscribed circle of the earthly sphere, rises above the heavens and enters the infinite, so that he surveys it and submits it to his calculations. In science his creative spirit takes on flesh and bone and becomes embodied appearing under the form of various magnificent and masterful creations; his wondrous skill under the guidance of science performs marvels through which he attracts admiration and provokes wonder. Through science the human spirit becomes a shining light guiding the seafaring man in his voyages toward the discovery of the earth, toward the finding of salvation, and toward the discovery of truth; through science he weighs the mighty giants of Heaven, discovers the distances and pronounces on their density and solidity, investigates what is under and beneath the earth, discovers the mysterious powers of nature and exploits them for his own benefit. Through science he found the laws of the conservation of the universe and lifted the veil of mystery revealing the hidden truth.

What comparison and contrast can exist between the works of animals and the scientific marvels, the miracles of human science? How deceived is the wretched man through superficial research; What is common between the instinctive and always the same artifices of animals and the scientific achievements of man? How does man wander and lead astray and become blind and not distinguish the difference separating man from animals? How have learned men so strayed from true science as to identify man with the animal? How have they seen the similarity toward the body but not perceived the difference of the spirit? What is common between man and ape? If the reason of the similarity of bodies draws them near, the reason of the dissimilarity of the spirit separates them so much that the boundary of comparison completely vanishes; should not divine Providence have fashioned another type wholly unlike the animal kingdom for the form of man, so that he might breathe into him his divine breath and man become an image of God? No. Because the height of the nobility of the divine breath is such that it was able to reveal a superior being even under a less perfect form.