64 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF "WASHINGTON. 



work gathering the materials for the philosophy of science. Theii 

 method is to collect facts and to discover their relations, and they 

 accept no conclusions that are not reached by this method. All 

 other conclusions they hold as undetermined or indeterminate. 



And now must be given a definition of science. Science is tue 

 discernment, discrimiiiaiion, and classificatioti of facts, and the dis- 

 covery of their relations of sequence. This is a simple statement, 

 but for its full comprehension a little illustration may be necessary. 



A savage hears the voice of his fellow-man, he hears the voice of 

 the beast, and of the bird; he also hears the noise of the thunder, 

 and he supposes that the noise is a voice. In these cases he discerns 

 noises, but he does not discriminate one noise from the other, and 

 supposes them all to be voices, and that the noise of the thunder is 

 the voice of the Thunder Bird. To understand facts we must not 

 only discern, but discriminate. 



The next step in the progress of science is classification. Having 

 discerned and discriminated facts, they must be classified — all those 

 of like nature thrown together. All noises made by living beings 

 for conveying intelligence may be grouped into one class and called 

 voices ; all noises made by explosions grouped in another class ; and 

 so, as we go on discerning, discriminating, and classifying, we col- 

 lect the materials of philosophy. 



But this is not all of philosophy. Facts have genetic relations. 

 If one thing is done something else will follow, and the highest 

 function of scientific philosophy is to discover the order of succes- 

 sion of phenomena — how phenomena follow phenomena in endless 

 procession, how every fact has had its antecedent fact, and every fact 

 must have its consequent fact. This part of science is called evolu- 

 tion, and by this expression scientific men mean to be understood 

 that phenomena go on in endless consequences, and that every act 

 has been preceded by some other act, and that every act will be 

 followed by some other act ; that the causes of all of the phenomena 

 of the universe that we wish to explain in a system of philosophy 

 run back into the infinite past ; that the consequences of all of the 



