The Scientific Method. 75 



question whether such truth exists ; it is not an open question 

 whether such truth is known and can be taught ; every uni- 

 versity in the civilized world is demonstration that it exists, 

 is known, can be taught. Strange indeed it is, strange be- 

 yond belief, that the existence of the knowledge of Nature 

 should be denied in the name of "philosophy, falsely so 

 called." The time is fast approaching when all such phi- 

 losophy will melt away like mist before the sun. The next 

 age will be the age of the scientific method, and not much 

 longer will the philosophy of the scientific method tarry 

 beneath the horizon ; for nothing save the scientific method, 

 the work of no individual man, but the grand self-affirma- 

 tion of the living and organic reason of the universal hu- 

 man race, can declare authoritatively what is that truth in 

 Nature which is the solid ground of all true ethics nd 

 religion ; for nothing else can ever emancipate man from 

 the delusive idealisms, individualisms, agnosticisms, posi- 

 tivisms, and mysticisms which now tyrannize over his half- 

 taught mind. It will take more than idealistic sophistry to 

 put down the scientific method, or the philosophy which it 

 is destined to create. This is not the place or time to tell 

 my dream of what its teachings will be, nor is it needed that 

 I should do so; enough to know that they will be more 

 beautiful than any or all of our dreams, and bring out of 

 the universal soul of man the sublimest thoughts about God 

 and Nature, about man the individual and man the society, 

 about freedom, courage, and hope, and duty, and about 

 destiny, which can spring out of the concentrated wisdom 

 of the'universal reason of the race. And best of all is it to 

 know that the sublimest thoughts of man, wrought out by 

 his sublimest instrument, the scientific method, fall infinitely 

 short of the truth as it is in Nature. 



