THE RESULTS OF ABSTRACTION IN SCIENCE. 831 



cisms of the utterances of scientific men from a religious standpoint. 

 The fundamental difference between the scientific and religious con- 

 ception of nature consists almost wholly in the manner of regarding 

 abstract terms. Causes efficient and final mind, life, and the whole 

 category of vast abstract entities, are to the religionist the most real 

 of all existences ; to the scientist they are merely generalized expres- 

 sions, binding together a large class of phenomena. 



The term science does not, like the name of a religious sect, denote 

 the belief in a set dogmatic formula, nor the acceptance of a certain 

 class of ideas. There is no orthodoxy nor heterodoxy in science. On 

 the contrary, the term science connotes the knowledge of the occur- 

 rence of certain phenomena in a certain definite order ; and the term 

 scientist denotes one who is versed in these facts, and who, from his 

 knowledge of the past, is capable of making more or less probable 

 guesses (hypotheses) as to the occurrence of these phenomena in the 

 future, or in unexplored portions of the past. The attribution of more 

 than this to the term science is not warranted. To say that true sci- 

 ence teaches one thing and false science another is wrong. Science 

 teaches nothing ; it is itself knowledge rendered more exact. Vague- 

 ness of language and a looseness in the use of words lie at the root of 

 many a difficulty. When we think of the numerous disputes that 

 grow out of the misuse of words even on simple topics, and the diffi- 

 culty there is in confining one's self to their pure signification, we can 

 not wonder at this. It is a common defect in early education that 

 pupils are not taught to attach sensible experiences to the words they 

 repeat. Words are used with but an indefinite apprehension of the 

 objects they are symbols of, and indistinct conception of the thought 

 of others engenders indistinct thought in ourselves. It by no means 

 suffices to establish the etymological meaning of words, for they are 

 not, for the most part, scientifically constructed terms with precise sig- 

 nifications, but are the result of the constant adaptation of old words 

 to new uses, and are consequently often much distorted from their 

 original meaning. Plato affords us an excellent model of the way to 

 get at the meaning of terms. Take any of the Socratic dialogues and 

 notice the trenchant manner in which the husks are severed from the 

 true meaning of the words, and we see just what we must do with 

 scientific terms if we would preserve their clearness. Should the logi- 

 cal teaching of our schools and colleges enforce this dialectical method 

 as applied to scientific abstractions, we should see fewer attacks upon 

 scientific men by those who utterly misapprehend their position. 



It must be ever borne in mind that the scientist, as a scientist, has 

 nothing to do with the metaphysical or theological implications of 

 the words he uses. He employs them, as we have endeavored to point 

 out, simply and purely to designate the occurrence of phenomena in 

 a certain order which, could we sufficiently magnify our powers of ob- 

 servation, would be presented to our sensation in unequivocal terms. 



