8 Presidential Address 



Still more fundamental and deep-rooted 

 than any of these sectional debates, 

 however, a -critical examination of scien- 

 tific foundations generally is going on; 

 and a kind of philosophic scepticism is in 

 the ascendant, resulting in a mistrust of 

 purely intellectual processes and in a 

 recognition of the limited scope of science. 



For science is undoubtedly an affair of 

 the intellect, it examines everything in the 

 cold light of reason; and that is its 

 strength. It is a commonplace to say that 

 science must have no likes or dislikes, 

 must aim only at truth; or as Bertrand 

 Russell well puts it, 



The kernel of the scientific outlook is the 

 refusal to regard our own desires, tastes, and 

 interests as affording a key to the understanding 

 of the world. 



This exclusive single-eyed attitude of 

 science is its strength; but, if pressed 

 beyond the positive region of usefulness 

 into a field of dogmatic negation and 

 philosophising, it becomes also its weak- 

 ness. For the nature of man is a large 



