TJie Popular Science MontJily. 307 



gation, until science is now regarded as not applying to 

 this or that class of objects, but to the whole of Nature — 

 as being, in fact, a method of the mind, a quality or char- 

 acter of knowledge upon all subjects of which we can think 

 or know. 



What some call the progress of science, and others call 

 its encroachments, is undoubtedly the great fact of modern 

 thought, and it implies a more critical method of inquiry 

 applied to subjects not before dealt with in so strict a 

 manner. The effect has been, that many subjects once 

 widely separated from the recognized sciences have been 

 brought nearer to them, and have passed more or less com- 

 pletely under the influence of the scientific method of in- 

 vestigation. Whatever subjects involve accessible and ob- 

 servable phenomena, one causing another, or in any way 

 related to another, belong properly to science for investiga- 

 tion. Intellect, feeling, human action, language, education, 

 history, morals, religion, law, commerce, and all social re- 

 lations and activities, answer to this condition; each has 

 its basis of fact, which is the legitimate subject-matter of 

 scientific inquiry. Those, therefore, who consider that ob- 

 servatory watching, laboratory work, or the dredging of the 

 sea for specimens to be classified, is all there is to science, 

 make a serious mistake. Science truly means continuous 

 intelligent observation of the characters of men as well as 

 of the characters of insects. It means the analysis of mind 

 as well as that of chemical substances. It means the 

 scrutiny of evidence in regard to political theories as in- 

 exorable as that applied to theories of comets. It means 

 the tracing of cause and effect in the sequences of human 

 conduct as well as in the sequences of atmospheric change. 

 It means strict inductive inquiry as to how society has 

 come to be what it is, as well as how the rocky systems 

 have come to be what they are. In short, science is not 

 the mystery of a class, but the common interest of rational 



