(continued)

But is that science? That would seem to be an issue of some fundamental importance.

For starters, it's worth noting that some of the most prominent philosophers of modernity (here designating largely the post-medieval era) were not primarily concerned with the vexing nature of material substance, a condition revealed by the inheritance of the very word itself. While mechanics has always been an important area of study, one that would go on to produce all the accoutrements of the scientific experimental apparatus, it was yet one aspect among many of what was once called natural philosophy, and it was far from the most important one. 

It has likely long been apparent to those of a more rarified sensitivity and an inquiring disposition that if the results of any systematic inquiry are to have anything intelligible to say at all, they will directly and inescapably bear in no small measure on questions of human value, morality and ethics, and that considerations exclusive of these matters are to a certain degree vacuous and devoid of relative significance.