TWENTIETH CENTURY SCIENCE PROBLEMS. 237 



THE SCIENCE PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH 



CENTURY. 



By Professor A. E. DOLBEAR, 



TUFTS COLLEGE. 



; ET us define science as knowledge of the relations of phenomena, 

 -*-^ and define phenomena as any or all changes that take place, 

 which may be known to mankind. Let us also assume uniformity of 

 action, that is that under assigned conditions the same phenomenon 

 will be reproduced, what is called and what is meant by the term law. 



We have several bodies of correlated relations which constitute 

 such sciences as astronomy, chemistry, biology and so on. The phe- 

 nomena exhibited by large bodies at great distances apart we call 

 astronomy. Such as are exhibited by minute bodies near together we 

 call chemistry, and the phenomena among living as distinguished from 

 what we call dead things, we call biology. Among these and other 

 similar sciences, where we have noted the uniformities in the phe- 

 nomena and find ourselves able to predict occurrences, we say we have 

 definite knowledge, and especially so when the bodies that exhibit the 

 changes are of such magnitude that we may control them. This is 

 what is meant by experimentation. Until phenomena are studied in 

 their relations to other known and established relations they can not 

 be said to be a corporate part of science. There are many isolated 

 facts not yet in established relations, awaiting their proper setting. 

 Facts are always scientific data, they are not science itself. That a 

 body left unsupported will fall to the ground has been known for 

 thousands of years, also that the moon revolves about the earth. The 

 correlation that shows that both belong to the same class and are due 

 to the same agency, gravitation, is science. The man who proved the 

 relation was a scientific man, was doing scientific work. In like man- 

 ner everybody has known in all times, of mankind and animals on the 

 earth. The correlations that show their relationship is science, and 

 the one who showed it was a scientific man. The two examples are to 

 show that scientific work consists in establishing the relations among: 

 phenomena. This is what marks the profound difference between the 

 work of the nineteenth century and all the preceding ones — the estab- 

 lishment of the relations among phenomena. 



Prior to the nineteenth century there was a vicious assumption 

 underlying nearly all effort in the domain of knowledge, that was, that 

 there were no necessary relations among the different classes of phe- 



