APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



JULY, 1899. 



SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE 



BIBLE. 



Br THE EBV. DAVID SPRAGUE, B. D. 



" ^ I DRAINED and organized common sense " is Professor Huxley's 

 -L definition of science. There is probably no better. 



The popular mind persists in thinking that there is a wide dif- 

 ference between science and knowledge in general. Yes, there is 

 a wide difference, but it is just the difference that there is between 

 a trained and organized body of men for the accomplishing of some 

 great work, and a crowd of men unorganized and undisciplined. 

 What unscientific knowledge has accomplished may be roughly seen 

 in the condition of savage races to-day; while the changes wrought 

 by knowledge trained and organized, in enlarging the sum of knowl- 

 edge, in extending men's power of perception, and in increasing the 

 facilities not merely for living, but for living well, are changes in 

 comparison with which all others recorded in history are trifling. 



It will be profitable for us, in order to get a clearer idea of sci- 

 entific method, to trace as briefly as possible the history of science 

 and the development of the scientific idea. 



The very beginning of science is beyond our ken. "We can form 

 no idea of just what stage in the intellectual development of the 

 race witnessed the rise of training and order in men's knowledge. 

 Long before the dawn of history there must have been some degree 

 of orderliness in men's knowledge some grouping of facts, and rea- 

 soning from one thing to another. Rude classification would be 

 made, e. g., among animals, as some were found to be good for 

 food and others not; so among herbs, as to size, form, color, use 

 for food and medicine, poisonous qualities, etc. ; so among woods, as 



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