1 He scientist on the tarm. 323 



AN UNSCIENTIFIC PRACTICE. 



The major premises or the general principles of the mathe- 

 matical and physical sciences, when established inductively by 

 a genius in science, can thereafter be applied with great cer- 

 tainty by other minds to appropriate particulars in the field of 

 arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics and chemistry. No 

 higher vision of truth results, but there is much satisfaction 

 in the rediscovery of old truth and in the finding of new appli- 

 cations. In the mathematical sciences, textbooks from one to 

 twenty centuries old are nearly as serviceable as when written. 

 The form of the content only has changed. In physics and 

 chemistry men of genius are still at work elevating some of the 

 general principles. 



The biological sciences, fortunately, can never come to rest. 

 The life of plants and animals is a variable. The inherited race 

 habits of species may persist for centuries with little change, 

 but the conscious powers of the individual are constantly seek- 

 ing new adjustments to their environment and thus modifying 

 the race habits or instincts, otherwise evolution is an idle 

 dream. 



The biological sciences are young, and even the fixed tend- 

 encies of plants and animals cannot be formulated with cer- 

 tainty. Therefore the biologist must reason inductively to gen- 

 eral principles that are mounting higher and higher, and thus 

 having wider and wider application. Few textbooks on plants 

 and animals are worth much when ten years old. 



No biologist who keeps up with his sciences can grow old 

 and static. The springs of life must keep ever fresh in his soul. 

 The same cannot be said of the effects of the deductive sciences. 



The tendency to follow set forms without change is illus- 

 trated by some tables prepared by the chemist for the infor- 

 mation of farmers, usually unskilled in interpreting the tech- 

 nical formulae of that science. It will be noted in the above 

 table on soils that all the solutes, of both direct and indirect 

 value to green plants in the preparation of their foods, are 

 mineral salts except three or four. 



As plants have developed the instinct to get their food ele- 

 ments from such compounds, these salts are the soil fertilizers, 

 and all tables giving these fertilizers should give them in the 

 form of salts and not as oxids, the usual practice, or the amount 

 of the food elements present may be given in grams and per- 



