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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A third note of the scientific mind is 

 practicality of view. The highest rever- 

 ence for truth is not inconsistent with a 

 desire to put truth to practical uses. 

 Nature is the supreme teacher, and yet, 

 from a certain point of view, Nature may 

 he said to exist for us, not we for Nature. 

 We Liy hold of her phenomena with a 

 masterful grasp, and read laws into 

 them, reserving to ourselves the right 

 to read ever wider and higher laws as 

 our knowledge w-idens. And when 

 our minds are in free and unrestrained 

 movement, and are heing built up in 

 symmetry and strength by what they 

 absorb in the study of external things, 

 we feel that the highest work of which 

 we can form any conception is be- 

 ing accomplished. There are scientific 

 workers whose whole ambition seems 

 to be to form a kind of hortus siccus of 

 observations and opinions, and whose 

 own minds are but little transformed 

 by the knowledge that passes through 

 them. These lack the true scientific 

 spirit, tliough their work may at times 

 have its uses. They lack the joy of 

 growth, and never realize the sense, at 

 once of liberty and power, which those 

 possess who look upon nature, not as a 

 mere curiosity-shop or museum, but as 

 a vast domain providing all that is ne- 

 cessary for the exercise, aliment, and 

 discipline of the human mind. 



The truly scientific spirit, we may 

 lastly say, is essentially inductive. It 

 feels its way into truth by slow degrees. 

 If facts are at all accessible, it does not 

 care to depend on hypotheses ; and it is 

 always ready to accept the yoke of 

 facts — never tries to put a yoke on 

 facts. In this respect it differs greatly 

 from the disposition shown by many 

 radical thinkers of to-day, who, having 

 thrown overboard their former theo- 

 logical opinions, are none the less gov- 

 erned in their daily thinkings by old 

 theological methods. Such confidence 

 have these persons in their argumen- 

 tative that they never seem to care 

 to freshen their thought with new 



knowledge. Such and such are the 

 cardinal principles in which they be- 

 lieve, and from these they are pre- 

 pared to draw an ever -lengthening 

 chain of conclusions, all, as they hold, 

 of absolute certainty because the start- 

 ing-point was, in their opinion, indu- 

 bitably true. No man, however, who 

 has a glimmering of the scientific spirit 

 cares to follow this kind of dead-reck- 

 oning. " He to whom the Eternal Word 

 has spoken," says a famous medissval 

 sage, " is set free from many opinions." 

 So he, we may say, to whom Nature 

 has spoken in intimate tones, "who 

 knows what it is to have studied Nature 

 patiently and faithfully, is freed from 

 all bondage to mere opinions by his 

 supreme attachment to truth. Ilis great 

 interest lies in knowing what is, not 

 what, according to somebody's way of 

 looking at things, ought to be. 



We may know the man, therefore, 

 whose habits of thought are scientific 

 by his abiding faith in the teachings of 

 Nature ; by his unshaken conviction that 

 the uniformities we see in the occur- 

 rence of phenomena are but hints of 

 the universal constancy of natural law ; 

 by his interest in all that can be brought 

 under law, and lack of interest in all 

 alleged lawless and abnormal manifesta- 

 tions ; by his recognition of the inac- 

 cessibility of absolute truth, and his 

 willingness to make the best of pro- 

 visional tlieories and symbols; by his 

 freedom from pedantry and dilettante- 

 ism; by his reverence for human na- 

 ture ; by his constant desire for the veri- 

 fication of opinions, and his consequent 

 freedom from all infatuation, whether 

 for the theories of others or for his 

 own. lie is a man whose moderation 

 is known to all men, whose patience 

 seems to have been learned from Na- 

 ture herself, whose thought moves from 

 year to year in larger circles, and whose 

 character bears witness to the liberal 

 and elevated character of his daily oc- 

 cupations. Do all men of science, all 

 professors of philosophy, conform fully 



