6 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



factory legislation, or for the private schoolmaster to see 

 clearly in questions of state-aided education. None the 

 less we should probably all agree that the tribal conscience 

 ought for the sake of social welfare to be stronger than 

 private interest, and that the ideal citizen, if he existed, 

 would form a judgment free from personal bias. 



^ 2. — Science and Citizenship 



How is such a judgment — so necessary in our time 

 with its hot conflict of individual opinions and its in- 

 creased responsibility for the individual citizen — how is 

 such a judgment to be formed ? In the first place it is 

 obvious that it can only be based on a clear knowledge of 

 facts, an appreciation of their sequence and relative 

 significance. The facts once classified, once understood, 

 the judgment based upon them ought to be independent 

 of the individual mind which examines them. Is there 

 any other sphere, outside that of ideal citizenship, in which 

 there is habitual use of this method of classifying facts and 

 forming judgments upon them ? For if there be, it cannot 

 fail to be suggestive as to methods of eliminating indi- 

 vidual bias ; it ought to be one of the best training 

 grounds for citizenship. The classification of facts and 

 the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of 

 this classification — ^judgments independent 'of the idio- 

 syncrasies of the individual mind — essentially sum up the 

 aim and method of modern science. The scientific man 

 has above all things to strive at self- elimination in his 

 judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for 

 each individual mind as for his own. TJie classification of 

 facts, the recognition, of their sequence and relative significance 

 is the function of science, and the habit of forming a judg- 

 ment upon these facts unbiassed by personal feeling is 

 characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame 

 of mind. The scientific method of examining facts is not 

 peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of 

 workers ; it is applicable to social as well as to physical 

 problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against 



