364 THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
and might have been construed to include much that is now brought 
under the head of mental’ and moral science. It meant all science 
that is not supernatural, that is, all knowledge that is not obtained by 
revelation from the Deity or by occult dealings with the devil and 
his agents. It is used in this sense in the charter incorporating the 
Royal Society granted about the beginning of Charles II.’s reign. 
The reason of the change in the meaning of the term is to be found 
in the fact that since that date the progress of physical science has 
been much greater than that of mental or moral science. In the 
same way and for the same reason the generic term, science, has 
come to be commonly used in the specific sense of physical science. 
There is a latent popular disbelief in the existence of any science 
except physical science. 
There is no race of mankind since history began that is not, and 
has not been, in possession of some of the facts on which the various 
physical sciences are based. But progress in physical science depends 
not so much on capacity for collecting facts as on ability to discover 
the laws of facts, and this ability has never been manifested to any 
considerable extent except during the last three centuries and a half, 
and then only in the limited part of the earth’s surface occupied by 
the civilized European nations. The ancient Greeks, indeed, whose 
vigour of intellect led them to attempt every department of inquiry, 
paid great attention to the physical sciences, but their progress was 
not at all commensurate with the amount of effort they put forth. 
We have accounts which show that they laid siege to the secrets of 
nature for about 800 years, or from the time of Thales, about 600 
years before, to that of Ptolemy, the astronomer, about 200 years 
after Christ ; but during all this time they did not succeed in estab- 
lishing one important physical law. It is true that some Greek 
astronomers broached the idea that the earth is round, and the sun 
the centre of the system of worlds to which the earth belongs ; but 
not only were these views not established, the contrary notions pre- 
vailed. The Ptolemaic system, which obtained universal acceptance 
until the 16th century, made the sun revolve around the earth. 
Archimedes, indeed, discovered the laws of the equilibrium of fluids, 
but he did not succeed in so establishing them as to make them a 
part of the common mental property of mankind. 
The failure of the Hellenic intellect in this department appears to 
have been due to the adoption of a wrong method. In modern times 
