REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1917. 21 



ceed, as it has sought to proceed hitherto, in a spirit of sympathy 

 and equity based on merit towards all domains of knowledge, 

 with a full appreciation of the necessary limitations of any single 

 organization and with a respectful but untrammeled regard for the 

 views, the sentiments, and the suffrages of our contemporaries. 



If words and phrases drawn out of the past may obscure 



thought and supplant reason in the domains of the less highly 



developed sciences, like the humanities, for ex- 



^^^"^J: '^P^^ ample, they are bv no means free from difficulties 



of Mind. I 7 J ^ . . 



when used as media for the communication of 

 ideas in the domains of the more highly developed sciences. The 

 differences between the ambiguities and the obscurities of the 

 two domains are mainly in degree rather than in kind. It is a 

 truism, of course, that in general it is much easier to discover 

 eiTors and to improve uncertain verbal expression in the definite 

 than in the indefinite sciences. Erroneous statements and 

 interpretations of fact may be often corrected by the facts them- 

 selves or b}' means of a knowledge of their relations to underlying 

 principles. Precision and correctness of language are also 

 greatly increased in any department of learning when it becomes 

 susceptible to the economy of thought and of expression charac- 

 teristic of the mathematico-physical sciences. The perfection 

 of these latter is, indeed, so great that novices working in them 

 are often carried safely over hazardous ground to sound conclu- 

 sions without adequate apprehension of the principles involved 

 and with only erroneous verbal terms at command to designate 

 the facts and the phenomena considered. 



Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the terminology of 

 what commonly passes for science as well as the terminology used 

 frequentlj'^ even by eminent men of science is sadly in need of 

 reformation in the interests of clear thinking and hence of une- 

 quivocal popular and technical exposition. To realize the vague- 

 ness and the inappropriateness in much of the current use of this 

 terminology one needs only to examine the voluminous literature 

 available in almost any subject called scientific. It is so much 

 easier to appear to write well, or even brilliantly, than it is to 

 tliink clearly, that facile expression is often mistaken for sound 

 thought. Thus, to illustrate, while in physics the terms force, 

 power, and energy have acquired technical meanings entirely 



