THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 3 



classed as one, under the head of the Philosopher's Stone, 

 and then Astrology and Magic might come in to make up 

 the mystic number Seven. 



The expression " Follies of Science " does not seem a 

 very appropriate one. Real science has no follies. Neither 

 can these vain attempts be called scientific follies because 

 their very essence is that they are unscientific. Each one 

 is really a veritable " Will-o' -the- Wisp " for unscientific 

 thinkers, and there are many more of them than those that 

 we have here named. But the expression has been adopted 

 in literature and it is just as well to accept it. Those on 

 the list that we have given are the ones that have become 

 famous in history and they still engage the attention of a 

 certain class of minds. It is only a few months since a 

 man who claims to be a professional architect and techni- 

 cal writer put forth an alleged method of "squaring the 

 circle," which he claims to be " exact " ; and the results of 

 an attempt to make liquid air a pathway to perpetual 

 motion are still in evidence, as a minus quantity, in the 

 pockets of many who believed that all things are pos- 

 sible to modern science. And indeed it is this false idea 

 of the possibility of the impossible that leads astray the 

 followers of these false lights. Inventive science has 

 accomplished so much many of her achievements being 

 so astounding that they would certainly have seemed 

 miracles to the most intelligent men of a few generations 

 ago that the ordinary mind cannot see the difference be- 

 tween unknown possibilities and those things which well- 

 established science pronounces to be impossible, because 

 they contradict fundamental laws which are thoroughly 

 established and well understood. 



Thus any one who would claim that he could make a 



