IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 19 



In the inductive sciences that deal with facts of most 

 obvious bearings we are magnifjing the importance of isolated 

 details and largely ignoring the idea of relationship. As long 

 as people fail to understand that nothing is superior to law, so 

 long may we expect the search for perpetual motion, the elixir 

 of life and the fabled pot of gold. Metaphysicians tell us that 

 the idea of cause is intuitive, yet vast numbers of people act as 

 though cause and effect had no relations whatever in some 

 realms of human expeiience. The extraordinary success 

 attained by many investigators and inventors has produced 

 a widespread notion that these successful ones are creators 

 rather than discoverers, and that their genius (so- called) tran- 

 scends common laws. The spirit of speculation so rife in soci- 

 ety at present seems to subsist largely on the idea that the 

 common laws of experience are often inoperative. Can we 

 wonder at the enormous sales of patent nostrums as long as 

 there is a widespread opinion that medical science has no 

 rational basis? Can we wonder at the successful impo.-iticns 

 of faith-healers and medicine- men when each holder of a phy- 

 sician's diploma is considered a law unto himself, entitled to 

 experiment at his own sv.'eet will on suffering humanitj ? Is it 

 strange that people fail to be guided by reason when the mate- 

 rials of experience are like so much wind-blown chaff? Says 

 the worldly-wise man of to-day: "My son, be a freak, an hon- 

 est freak if convenient, but by all means be a freak, for in 

 freak-ism is success." 



I therefore make no apology for presuming to make a plea 

 for scientific thought. We may indeed be proud of our achieve- 

 ments in science. In this, the laiter part of the nineteenth 

 century, the age of Edison, Pasteur and a host of other inves- 

 tigators, we need make no defense of the position science occu- 

 pies in human thought and action. The air ship, the electric 

 engine, the dynamite gun, are but faint indications of what is 

 yet to be accomplished. The triumphs of surgical skill are just 

 begun. We see the forces of nature arrayed against each other 

 to give a purer atmosphere, a richer soil, a freer life to mankind. 

 Material considerations outweigh all others in the arena of 

 public opinion. Some say the world has gone mad with science. 

 Scientific studies have crowded themselves into the public 

 schools, colleges and universities in spite of the opposition of 

 the classics. The children lisp in scientific phrases, and the 

 old men sigh lor the good old times when ignorance was bliss. 



