EXPERIMENTAL GENERAL SCIENCE 



CHAPTER I 

 THE RELATIONSHIPS OF GENERAL SCIENCE 



1. Scope. When one begins a new study he is at once inter- 

 ested in discovering what ground it is proposed to cover, and 

 what methods are to be used in covering it. At the outset, 

 then, it may be said that General Science, as interpreted in this 

 book, is concerned with the general principles underlying all 

 manifestations of natural phenomena, together with a study 

 of the methods which man has devised for taking advantage of 

 these phenomena, and turning them to his own account. So far 

 as we know, none of the lower animals feel an interest in the 

 laws of nature. Man alone is disposed to seek the causes of 

 things and to add to his store of knowledge for the sheer love 

 of learning. 



2. Scientific Methods. The word Science, itself, comes 

 from the Latin, scientia, meaning to know. It is, in fact, exact 

 knowledge as opposed to speculative, second-hand, and hear- 

 say information which may, or may not, be true. The body 

 of scientific knowledge which we now possess has been estab- 

 lished on a firm basis of fact by multitudes of carefully per- 

 formed and scrupulously exact experiments. Many of these 

 have been performed time and again by different observers 

 in order to set at rest any reasonable doubt, or to approach 

 more nearly to the truth. It is, of course, quite possible to 

 gain a considerable amount of scientific knowledge through the 

 reading of books, but such methods only give us information 



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