228 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



It is sometimes insisted that scientific knowledge is only 

 second-hand knowledge, that conclusions, even more valid 

 may be reached by what is popularly known as the method 

 of intuition. The word intuition has a variety of meanings. 

 But in the case under consideration, it is applied to a faculty 

 for acquiring reliable information quickly and without due 

 process of reasoning, to a kind of royal road leading straight 

 to the solution of any problem. Where intuition is used to 

 designate knowledge which is axiomatic, the scientist can 

 have no objection either to the term or the fact. Thus, if 

 one says he knows intuitively that 1 = 1 or that 2 + 2 =4) 

 it would seem that such knowledge is very near to that which 

 defies further analysis and which must be taken intuitively 

 at its face value, because our minds are so constructed that 

 we cannot think otherwise. 



We shall not venture to discuss the concept of intuition 

 in its philosophical aspects. The kind of intuitions which are 

 obstacles to the advancement of science are those of every- 

 day life. When these are examined the following proposi- 

 tions are evident: Intuitions are effective only within the 

 field of complex phenomena; they are most emphasized by 

 persons not accustomed to careful analysis; they were 

 formerly applied to many phenomena since brought within 

 the grasp of science. All of which leads one to suspect that 

 the matter is reducible to this: What is simple we reason out; 

 what is complex and, therefore, not susceptible of exact 

 analysis, we settle by a mental process of the same order as 

 the hunch of the plain citizen. 



The truth of these propositions is well illustrated by the 

 history of knowledge concerning disease. A century ago, 

 even a generation ago, an appalling amount of medical 

 diagnosis rested upon an intuitive foundation. To-day, an 

 increasing amount of such diagnosis rests upon a scientific 

 knowledge of organisms and of specific substances within 

 the body. The history of science is filled with similar ex- 

 amples of the unknown, and supposedly unknowable, of 



