THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



BY FRANCIS ELLIJJGWOOD ABBOT, PH. D. 



Is there any such thing as ignorance ? 



Is there any such thing as knowledge ? 



Is there any real difference between the two ? 



Is there any possibility of learning that is, of passing 

 gradually from ignorance to knowledge ? 



Surely these are strange questions to put, especially to an 

 intelligent audience; but they go deep and mean a great 

 deal. Perhaps it is not so easy to answer them as it appears 

 to be, or at least to give adequate, conclusive, and satisfac- 

 tory reasons for the answers. In order to bring out the 

 significance of the questions, allow me to take a concrete 

 instance. 



Several years ago a negro preacher of Eichmond, Rev. 

 Mr. Jasper, created amusement throughout the country by 

 stoutly maintaining that " the sun do move " that the sun 

 revolves around the earth, not the earth around the sun. 

 What created the amusement was Mr. Jasper's unconscious 

 and courageous ignorance. Everybody laughed to see a 

 public man defend astronomical notions of his own which 

 every school-boy knew to be untrue, and laughed all the 

 harder the more vigorously he defended them, for knowl- 

 edge, unlike religion, has never yet persecuted any one ; it 

 subjects ignorance to no worse persecution than the ordeal 

 of laughter. 



Now, Mr. Jasper was a preacher, not a philosopher. If 

 he had been a modern idealist or individualist we can easily 

 imagine him turning upon his hilarious opponents and ad- 

 dressing to them arguments to which merriment would be 

 no reply. 



" You call me ignorant," he might have said, " but you do 

 not know yourselves what ignorance is. Each of you fan- 

 cies himself to be the standard of knowledge, and dubs 

 me ignorant simply because I differ from himself. Now, 

 knowledge is nothing in the world but thought, and your 

 knowledge is nothing but your individual thought. There 

 is nothing whatever above individual thought ; there is no 



