i 4 2 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



that it might not succeed, yet on the other hand it is equally 

 true that it might ; and in the third place, we have for many 

 generations enthroned classics in all our schools without ac- 

 quiring as a nation what we most need. Is this a good reason 

 why we should be forbidden to touch the sacred structure, 

 forbidden to try the effect of adding a new method to the old ? 

 Certainly the signatories, able men all of them, would never 

 have put their names to such a slipshod travesty of reasoning 

 if they had known what the document contained. 



That the scientific method is no longer confined in applica- 

 tion to natural science, and that all good work in all studies 

 is based upon this method, I should heartily agree ; but why 

 is it called the scientific method ? It is so called because it 

 originated in the study of natural science ; because it is the 

 backbone, the very life, of natural science ; because natural 

 science cannot be profitably studied but by its means ; and 

 because it is in connection with natural science, its source and 

 its home, that the method is most easily, most naturally, 

 and most appropriately taught. The signatories of the mani- 

 festo are not only able men, but also honest men, and they 

 would 'never knowingly make themselves parties to a dis- 

 ingenuous attempt to filch from natural science the credit of 

 originating the scientific method, and to transfer the credit to 

 the classics. They cannot, therefore, have read the manifesto 

 they signed. 



What we want, the signatories of the manifesto are made 

 by it to say, is scientific method in all branches of an education 

 which will develop human faculty and the power of thinking 

 clearly to the highest possible degree ; and again I am happy 

 to express my concurrence. They " believe that in this educa- 

 tion the study of Greece and Rome must always have a large 

 part." Why ? Because it will develop human faculty and 

 the power of thinking clearly to the highest possible degree ? 

 Oh dear no ! " Because our whole civilisation is rooted in the 

 history of these peoples, and without knowledge of them cannot 

 be properly understood." In order to develop the power of 

 thinking to the highest possible degree we are enjoined to do 

 that which it is not pretended will conduce to this result in any 

 degree. What it will do is not to develop the power of thinking, 

 but to enable us to understand our civilisation, which may be 

 a very desirable thing, but is not the same thing, nor is it among 



