EDITOR'S TABLE. 



843 



love to indulge the most wayward and 

 fantastic beliefs. In these we see the 

 enemies of science, unwilling learners in 

 Nature's school, rebellious spirits wlio 

 fain would fashion the universe to their 

 own liking. The first condition, there- 

 fore, of scientific thinking is to recog- 

 nize and to bow to Nature as the su- 

 preme teacher, and to feel that she has 

 an inexhaustible fund of wisdom to 

 impart, lie who thinks scientifically 

 recognizes no authority save that of 

 demonstration. lie gladly avails him- 

 self of the help of superior minds, but 

 he does not swear by their words ; for, 

 great as they may be, and as he may 

 acknowledge them to be, he can not 

 regard them as infallible. Partisanship 

 in science is almost a contradiction in 

 terms. The expression " schools of 

 thought" even is one to be accepted 

 with caution ; seeing that no one should 

 wittingly attach himself to any school 

 save the great school that Nature keeps 

 ever open to all. Too much emphasis, 

 indeed, can hardly be laid upon this view 

 of the matter. The pursuit of truth 

 partakes of the character of a religion; 

 and the mind that is imbued with the 

 religion of science never for a moment 

 places any human authority, however 

 great, in the place of the truth which, 

 by no violent figure of speech, he may 

 be said to adore. Truth has its minis- 

 ters, but it has no priests, no class of 

 men v/hose mere office summons to rev- 

 erence. We ask respecting the minis- 

 ters of truth simply how much of its 

 illumination they have received, how 

 much they are able to impart ; and we 

 honor them in proportion to the clear- 

 ness and strength of their thought and 

 the fruitfuLness of their labors. 



The more we dwell upon and de- 

 velop the thought of Nature as the 

 teacher, the more we see that the whole 

 of scientific thinking depends upon loy- 

 alty to this one source of light. Every 

 unscientific attitude of mind or move- 

 ment of thought we ever heard of has 

 had, for its main characteristic, an ig- 



noring of Nature and a follov.'ing after 

 idols whose power was supposed to be 

 superior to Nature. In all ages men 

 have more or less resented the blessed 

 bonds that have made them captive to 

 earth and to its laws. Because their 

 thought could traverse the heavens, 

 and because their imagination could 

 conjoin the most opposite elements 

 and conditions, they have sighed after 

 equal liberty for their active powers, 

 and have run eagerly after whatever 

 promised to emancipate them from the 

 ordinary conditions of life. Hence the 

 fanaticisms that have possessed and 

 oppressed mankind ; hence most of the 

 delusions to which they have fallen 

 subject; hence the scorn that, under 

 certain systems of thought, has been, 

 and is stid, cast upon this present life,; 

 hence the prevailing indifference to, 

 and depreciation of, what claims no 

 higher sanction than natural or human 

 law. 



In the study of Nature there is on© 

 caution to be observed, and that is that 

 absolute truth is not to be expected. 

 Nature is willing to teach us, but she 

 treats us like the children we are, using 

 the symbols best suited to the range of 

 our comprehension, but not laying bare 

 her ultimate secrets. A large part of 

 the scientific temper consists in recog- 

 nizing this. He who imagines that, 

 because he has made a generalization 

 under which a certain group of facts 

 can be advantageously presented and 

 explained, he has struck the rock-bed 

 of eternal truth, is a scholar rather pert 

 than solid, and Nature will probably re- 

 buke him some day. Newton knew 

 well that in his great generalization h© 

 had merely succeeded in measuring a 

 force the real nature of which it was 

 wholly beyond him to explain ; and 

 the greatest scientific intellects of th© 

 present day are precisely those that 

 most fully acknowledge, because they 

 most deeply feel, the merely provisional 

 character of the most important scien- 

 tific hypotheses. 



