PRESIDENT NEWCOMB. 3 



they proceed. The great progress which the last three centuries 

 have witnessed has been wholly in the field of phenomena, and it 

 is to this field, and to the results of scientific' investigation in it, to 

 which I ask your attention this evening. But, it is to be expected 

 that, in this brief characterization of our field of thought, I have 

 failed to convey to your minds any clear conception of its bounda- 

 ries. The progress here alluded to has been rendered possible 

 only by entirely rejecting the mode of thinking about nature which 

 was prevalent in former ages, and into which the untrained mind 

 is almost sure to fall at the present day. The distinction will be 

 evident to one mind at a glance, while another may be unable to 

 comprehend it after all the explanations which it is possible to 

 give. As my whole discourse will be misleading unless all my 

 hearers have a clear conception of it, I shall endeavor to present 

 you with the materials of such a conception, rather in the form of 

 concrete illustrations in familiar language, than in that of abstract 

 general definitions. 



As one mode of expression, we might say that modern science 

 introduces into the higher modes of thought about nature that 

 same kind of practical good sense which characterizes the success- 

 ful man of business. Scientific investigation is, in a certain sense, 

 purely practical in both its methods and its aims. There is a 

 mental operation, with which all are well acquainted, under the 

 familiar term "theorizing;" to this operation all scientific investi- 

 gation is so much opposed that the mere theorizer and essayist 

 can never make any real advance in the knowledge of nature. To 

 speak with a little more precision, we may say, that as science 

 only deals with phenomenon and the laws which connect them, so 

 all the terms which it uses have exact literal meanings, and refer 

 only to things which admit of being perceived by the senses, or, 

 at least, of being conceived as thus perceptible. This purely lit- 

 eral meaning of all scientific language is in strong contrast to the 

 metaphorical and poetical forms of expression into which we are 

 apt to fall in discourse upon abstract subjects generally, where 

 our ideas cannot be at once referred to sensuous impressions. 



We might also say, that no question is a scientific one which 

 does not in some way admit of being tested by experience. The 

 single object of scientific research is to predict the course of 

 nature, or the results of those artificial combinations of causes 

 which we call experiments ; and no question is a scientific one 



