264 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gatt^r'B S^Wje. 



SCIENCE AND THE SCIENTIFIC 

 MIND. 



THE address delivered by Prof. 

 Michael Foster, as president 

 this year of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, 

 was not as long or elaborate as such 

 addresses are wont to be, but it 

 contained many thoughts of great 

 value. After sketching the vast ad- 

 vances in scientific knowledge made 

 within the present century, he ob- 

 served, with great truth, that " the 

 very story of the past which tells of 

 the triumphs of science puts away 

 all thoughts of vainglory." Why? 

 In the first place, because no one 

 can study the history of science 

 without being made to feel how 

 very near, in many cases, the men 

 of the past came to anticipating 

 some of the most famous discov- 

 eries and generalizations of later 

 years. Translate the language of 

 an earlier age into modern terms, 

 and you often find that you have ex- 

 pressed the most advanced scientific 

 doctrine of to-day. In the second 

 place, if we find a certain lack of 

 definiteness and truth to fact in the 

 ideas of the past, how can we be 

 at all sure how our ideas will look 

 when confronted with the fuller 

 knowledge which doubtless our suc- 

 cessors will possess ? Lastly, " there 

 is written clearly on each page of 

 the history of science the lesson that 

 no scientific truth is born anew, 

 coming by itself and of itself. Each 

 new truth is always the offspring of 

 something which has gone before, 

 becoming in turn the parent of 

 something coming after." How- 

 ever great the work of a man of 

 science may be, " it is not wholly 

 his own; it is in part the outcome 

 of the work of men who have gone 

 before." In this resi^ect Professor 



Foster sees a striking difference be- 

 tween the man of science and the 

 poet. We always know whence the 

 former came, but the latter is al- 

 most as devoid of visible ancestry 

 as Melchizedek. When the man of 

 science dies the results which he 

 achieved remain, and his work is 

 taken up where he left it off ; where- 

 as the poet, strictly speaking, has no 

 continuators. The Homerida) do 

 not represent Homer, nor do Dry- 

 den and Congreve take the place of 

 Shakespeare. 



The story of natural knowledge 

 or science, we are reminded, is a 

 story of continued progress. " There 

 is in it not so much as a hint of 

 falling back — not even of standing 

 still." The enemies of science 

 sometimes seek to turn against it 

 the fact that each age revises the 

 conclusions of the preceding one. 

 They ask. What dependence can be 

 placed upon opinions or theories 

 that are thus subject to change? 

 The answer is that the science of 

 each age is the nearest approxima- 

 tion which that age can make to the 

 truth, and upon some points repre- 

 sents the truth with a great ap- 

 proach to finality of interpretation. 

 The law of gravitation, for example, 

 as formulated by Newton, lies at 

 the foundation of the physics of to- 

 day. The circulation of the blood 

 was discovered once for all by Har- 

 vey. The true theory of the solar 

 system was given once for all by 

 Kepler, It is the gloiy of science 

 that whatever of imperfection may 

 lurk in a scientific theory is sure 

 to be brought to light and cor- 

 rected by subsequent observation 

 and analysis. 



The learned professor dwelt 

 briefly but forcibly upon the quali- 

 ties of the scientific mind. In the 



