278 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Jan. 



MODERN SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION : ITS 

 METHODS AND TENDENCIES.* 



Gentlemen of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science : Every day of our lives we hear that 

 this is an age of progress ; and that it is so we find evidence at every 

 turn. The rapidity with which effects follow causes in human events, 

 the celerity with which the plan is carried into execution, gives to 

 a year in the experience of one of the present generation the practical 

 value of a lifetime in ages past. Much labour has been expended on 

 the exposition of the causes of the mental activity of the present 

 ao-e, and of the grand achievements which have attended it ; and 

 yet, the key to the whole enigma is to be found in the universal 

 adoption of the comparatively new system of inductive reasoning. 

 It would be foreign to my purpose to attempt to illustrate or defend 

 this proposition, and I must therefore trust to its acceptance 

 without argument, while we pass to consider that branch of the 

 subject which more immediately demands our attention. 



Although the progress of the age to which I have referred has 

 been a matter of wonder and delight to all students of humanity 

 and civilization, many of our best men have been somewhat 

 alarmed and dizzied by it; and while accepting the achievements 

 of modern industry and thought as full of present good and future 

 promise, they are not a little concerned lest our railroad speed of 

 progress should lead to its legitimate consequences, a final crash — 

 not of things material, but of those of infinitely more value — of 

 opinions and of faith. As often as it is boasted that this is pre- 

 eminently an age of progress, that boast is met by the inevitable 

 " but " (which qualifies our praise of all things earthly) "it is 

 equally an age of scepticism." For the truth of this assertion the 

 proof is nearly as palpable as of the other ; and in view of the 

 ruthlessness with which the man of the present removes ancient 

 landmarks and profanes shrines hallowed by the faith of centuries, 

 it is not surprising that many of the good and wise among us 

 should deplore a liberty of thought leading, in their view, inevi- 

 tably to license ; and mourn over this wide-spread scepticism as an 



* An address delivered before the American Association, at Burlington, 

 August, 1865, by Prof. J. S. dewberry, President of the Association ; 

 from a copy communicated by the Author. 



