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Logic II 49

of systematized and established knowledge, which is
nothing but the exudation of living science; -- as if plants
were to be classified according to the characters of their
gums. Many Some of the classifications do even worse
that than, by taking science in the sense attached by
the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, to the word
ἐπιστήμη. A person can take no right view of the
relation of ancient to modern science unless he clearly
apprehends the difference between what the Greeks meant
by ἐπιστήμη and what we mean by knowledge. The best
translation of ἐπιστήμη is "comprehension". It is the ability
to define a thing in such a manner that all its properties
shall be corollaries from its definition. Now it may be that
we shall ultimately be able to do that, say for light or
electricity. But the Greeks On the other hand, it is also may
possible that that should equally turn out that it forever remains as impossible as it certainly
is to define number in such a way that Fermat's and Wilson's