20 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, nor am I 

 related by blooi or marriage to any prophet or son of a prophet. 

 This age may be as badly in need of prophets as any oiher age, 

 but what it needs most of all is common sense methods of deal- 

 ing with the problems that confront it. It seems to me we may 

 profitably spend a little time in the consideration of some of the 

 bearings of scientific methods on current thought and action. 



What is the scientific spirit? Some would say it is the spirit 

 of the age. But it may well be doubted whether there is such 

 a thing as a spirit of tiie age. With people and their wants so 

 diverse, the general instability of chaaging institutions make a 

 universal animatiog spirit well nigh impossible. But the sci- 

 entific spirit is something definite and characteristic. We may 

 notice some of the things it is not. Ir, is not the mere seeking 

 for truth, for many who seek the trutti are content with half 

 truths. It is not enthusiasm , f cr the enthusiast too often stands 

 in his own light. It is not the mere collecting of data, for facts 

 and the records of facts in themselves are well nigh worthless. 

 The scitntific spiiit seeks to demon.^trate no proposition; it is 

 not partisan. In short, the man imbued with the scientific spirit 

 seeks the whole truth ia all its relations, and accepts its teach- 

 ings regardless of consequences. 



We need to £crutiniz3 very carefully a large amount of the 

 so-called science and scientific methods of to day. The word 

 scientist, has become a sort of abrakadabra, by means of which 

 men hope to conjure up the objects of their hopes and desires. 

 Science is too often interpreted as the triumph of shrewdness 

 over simplicity, tne hoodwinking of the ignorant and innocent by 

 the icgenious sharper, or the successful defeat of an opponent 

 through chicanery. So far is this carried sometimes that we are 

 read}'- to paraphrase that famous expression of Madame Roland 

 and exclaim, "O, science what crimes have been committed in 

 thy name." Any addition to our knowledge that does not affect 

 and improve all classes only lowers relatively the under strata 

 of society; any advance in science which does not adapt itself to 

 the masses only renders them more helpless in the hands of the 

 unprincipled but more intelligent. Science and scientific meth- 

 ods are not for the few, but for the many. We must not assume 

 that scientific methods have no place in common affairs. The 

 scientific spirit is net a new but an old factor in human pro- 

 gress. But we are too much inclined to relegate science and 

 scientific procedures to the specialist, the scientist, and as the 



