2

Logic
IV. 2
, we quite commonly find the term "normative science" restricted to Logic and Ethics, and Schlaiermacher himself states their purposes in a way that seems to give room for no third. The one, he says, relates to making thought conform to being, the other to making being conform to thought. There seems to be much justice in this restriction. For that which renders Logic and Ethics peculiary normative is that nothing can be either logically true or morally good without a purpose to be so. For a propostion, and especially the conclusion of an argument, which is only accidentally true is not logical. On the other hand, a thing is beautiful or ugly quite irrespective of any purpose to be so. It would seem, therefore, that esthetics is no more essentially normative than any nomological science. The science of optics, for example, might be regarded as the study of the conditions to be observed in making use of light. Under such a conception,