•■• S A R Y 



Natural Science »>$ 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress 



October 1899 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



The Scientific Spirit. 



In his eloquent presidential address to the British Association at 

 Dover, Sir Michael Foster raised an interesting question when he 

 inquired into the characteristics of the scientific spirit. It was after 

 reminding his audience of the great strides in natural knowledge since 

 1799, and of the resulting increase in man's mastery over nature, 

 that he roused expectation by pausing to inquire whether all this has 

 had any effect on the mind itself. The scientific spirit has been 

 developed, he allowed, but what is this scientific spirit ? 



Surely the learned Professor must have thought that his audience 

 could not stand much psychology, for his treatment of the interesting- 

 problem which he raised was easy-going. He pointed out that the 

 features of the fruitful scientific mind were in the main three — truth- 

 fulness, alertness, and courage. To the objection that these qualities 

 are not the peculiar attributes of the man of science, but may be 

 recognised as belonging to almost every one who has commanded or 

 deserved success, whatever may have been his walk in life, he 

 answered that this, was exactly what he wished to insist — that the 

 men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers, being 

 ordinary men with characters common, even commonplace. Science, 

 as Huxley said, is organised common-sense, and men of science are 

 common men, drilled in the ways of common-sense. 



This may be true enough — and it speaks volumes for the candour 

 and tolerance of the British Association that such plain-speaking was 

 even applauded — but it was none the less an evasion of an interesting- 

 problem. What we wished was an analysis of the intellectual quali- 

 ties of the scientific mood. It may have been useful to point out 

 that science is not something per se, apart from other intellectual 

 products, and that the scientific mood is germinal, at least, in most 

 healthy people, but it would have been interesting if Sir Michael 

 Foster — as one of the most scientific men in Britain — had told us 

 what differentiates the mood expressed in, for instance, his " Text-Book 



16 NAT. SC. VOL. XV. NO. 92. 237 



