CHAPTER XV 



THE INCULCATION OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD BY EXAMPLE 



Gilbert's first presidential address 



Gilbert's election in 1884 as president of the Society of American Naturalists — the first 

 scientific society to discover that he was made of presidential timber — placed upon him the duty 

 of preparing an address that should be acceptable to scientists of both the indoor and the 

 outdoor kind. It may be inferred that in casting about for a subject to his mind, he recalled 

 a passage he had written during the year of his presidency in a review of Geikie's " Geological 

 sketches at home and abroad," which runs as follows: Two of the sketches were selected for 

 particular mention ; one — 



describes a journey to central France, undertaken for the purpose of studying the extinct volcanoes of that 

 region as an aid to the imagination in restoring the condition of Scotland during the Carboniferous period; 

 and another describes a journey to Norway with the parallel purpose of rendering vivid the mental restoration 

 of Scotland in Glacial times. These two are perhaps the most instructive of the collection, for besides making 

 definite additions to the geological history of Scotland, they present admirable illustrations of one of the most 

 valuable methods of scientific investigation. The principles which distinguish modern scientific research are 

 not easily communicated by precept, and it is by no means certain that they have yet been correctly formulated. 

 However it may be in the future it is certain that in the past they have been imparted, and for the present 

 they must be imparted, from master to pupil chiefly by example; and whoever in publishing the result of a 

 scientific inquiry sets forth at the same time the process by which it was attained contributes doubly to the 

 cause of science. 1 



The principle stated in the last sentence was exemplified in his presidential address. 



The meeting of the naturalists was held in Boston in December, 1885, and there Gilbert 

 came for the first time into acquaintance with a good number of biologists. He not only de- 

 lighted them by his fine presence, but his presidential address on " The inculcation of scientific 

 method by example" was at once recognized as so masterful a production that he was forthwith 

 reelected as president of the society for a second year. The address 2 has ever since held a high 

 place among American scientific essays and still merits attentive study by every geologist who 

 has not read it ; indeed it deserves rereading by any geologist whose first encounter with it was 

 a score of years or more ago, provided that he aspires to a conscious inspection of his own mental 

 processes as a means of improving them. As one measures himself up against the method 

 here set forth, he may make a helpful estimate of his scientific method, and learn how far he 

 has advanced toward the high standards of impartial objective research that Gilbert announced. 

 An attentive reading of the essay will encourage the more careful formulation of half-conceived 

 thoughts; it will focus attention on one's half -recognized deficiencies and promote their cor- 

 rection; it will inspire the thoughtful student of natural science to self-examination and thorough- 

 ness in every stage of his investigations; best of all, it will awaken the generous and loyal 

 elements of his nature and set them to guard against egotism and selfishness. Although the 

 problem that Gilbert selected as an example with which to illustrate the method of science was 

 that phase of the Quaternary geology of Utah which is concerned with the disappearance of 

 Lake Bonneville, the facts and the inferences of the case were so successfully subordinated to 

 the logic of their treatment as to appeal strongly to all members of the audience, whether they 

 were geologists or not. 



The address was opened by a consideration of certain familiar principles, the common 

 property of scientific men, along with the essential nature of scientific research and the process 

 by which science advances. Attention was then directed to the importance and the difficulty 

 of scientific observation, which "endeavors to discriminate the phenomena observed from the 

 observer's inferences regarding them," and which as it advances "seeks new facts that will 



■ Nature, xxvii, 1885, 261. 



> Amer. Journ. Sci., xixi, 1886, 28t-299. 



145 



