580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



f er the part of unconcerned spectators, which you now disdain, to pub- 

 licly confess their belief or unbelief. What impels you to this, as I 

 must call it, remarkable proceeding ? The phenomena in question 

 so you answer have been observed by scientific men of acknowledged 

 eminence, whose credibility can not be questioned ; these men have 

 pronounced them real, therefore their reality is not to be doubted. 

 Your acceptance is, in a word, based upon authority. Before I come 

 to the point, permit me two general questions, which I must indeed 

 answer myself, but which I still hope to answer in a way to which 

 you can make no material objection. The first t question is, What are 

 the characterizing marks of a scientific authority ? The second, What 

 are the limits of the influence upon our own knowledge which we may 

 grant to authority ? 



What are the characterizing marks of a scientific authority f You, 

 of course, immediately admit that scientific authority is not a proper- 

 ty which could be set down in the description of a person. You also 

 agree with me that a person, who passes for authority in some partic- 

 ular science, can not transfer this quality at his pleasure to other prov- 

 inces. The apocalyptic studies of Isaac Newton were not saved from 

 quick forgetfulness by the authority of the discoverer of gravitation, 

 and the high esteem which Ernst von Baer enjoys as a naturalist 

 scarcely serves as" a bill of protection for his Homeric investigations. 

 It is quite true that scientific employment in itself, regardless of the 

 object with which it is concerned, begets that purely theoretical inter- 

 est in the truth which makes absolute truthfulness of statement in sci- 

 entific questions a conscientious duty. I should believe, indeed, that 

 only scientific occupation can produce absolute trustworthiness in theo- 

 retical questions, because it alone makes a correct estimate of such 

 questions possible. That in this regard the authorities whom you name 

 have, as well on account of their high scientific position as on account 

 of their universally acknowledged personal character, a credibility above 

 every doubt, is a matter of course. But the highest degree of credi- 

 bility is not sufficient to make any man a scientific authority ; there 

 is requisite to this a special professional and in most cases indeed a 

 technical training, which must have approved itself by superior accom- 

 plishments in the province concerned. He who has not acquired this 

 professional and technical culture by long years of severe labor is nei- 

 ther capable of achieving anything himself nor of judging the works 

 of others. 



You will probably reply to me here that the authorities to whom 

 you appeal are distinguished naturalists, and it is with natural phe- 

 nomena that the present case bas to do. Unhappily, however, I must 

 gainsay you in this ; I can not admit that we here have to do with 

 natural phenomena, to whose critical examination naturalists as such, 

 whatever department of natural science they may have been engaged 

 in, are in any way competent. I go still further, indeed, and maintain 



