298 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



disregard of what is seen by the artist. The artistry of the 

 microscopic organism or of the spiral nebula is not unper- 

 ceived by the man of science, but he is interested also in other 

 aspects of these natural objects. Not being an artist, the 

 scientist does not perhaps fully recognize all the form and 

 color that is evident to the artistic eye. But neither does 

 the artist recognize all the special details which are appreci- 

 able to the scientist. 



SCIENCE AND FAIR JUDGMENT 



A further aspect of science, having spiritual value, is the 

 ideal of fair-mindedness inherent in the scientific method of 

 reasoning. If the essential element of scientific thinking is 

 reasoning in a way to reduce the personal equation to a min- 

 imum, science may perform an important service by helping 

 us to impersonal judgments in other lines. The scientific 

 attitude of mind aids in dispassionate consideration of 

 subject-matter that is frequently dominated by prejudice. 



The concept of evolution, both organic and inorganic, 

 may be cited in illustration. If this be presented as an inter- 

 pretation of the facts of nature, to be accepted or rejected 

 on the same basis as one would the earth's sphericity or the 

 Copernican theory of the solar system, it is easy to show that 

 the cases are parallel, when viewed impersonally and as 

 scientific problems. Once involved in the subject, one 

 passes insensibly to the problems of society, which are at 

 bottom evolutionary problems. Poverty and crime, eu- 

 genics and euthenics, the organization of the state, and the 

 rights of the individual are debatable in no such simple 

 terms as comparative anatomy and embryology, palaeon- 

 tology or ecology; and because of this they are subjects for 

 prejudiced controversy rather than open-minded discus- 

 sion. Let us take the case of poverty as an example. One 

 possessed of the scientific temperament cannot possibly 

 regard this as a question to be decided wholly in terms of 



