Science 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



600 



forts may be perceptible on the fully grown 

 tree. Let us send our boys and girls out 

 into the world, knowing something of the 

 world, of its wonders and of themselves, as 

 well as of the proprieties of life, or of the 

 dead languages and modern tongues. I 

 think Carlyle well expresses himself regard- 

 ing the want of such information when he 

 says : " For many years it has been one of 

 my constant regrets that no schoolmaster 

 of mine had a knowledge of natural history 

 so far, at least, as to have taught me the 

 grasses that grow by the wayside, and the 

 little winged or wingless neighbors that are 

 continually meeting me with a salutation 

 that I cannot answer as things are. Why," 

 he continues, " did not somebody teach me 

 the constellations, and make me at home in 

 the starry heavens which are always over- 

 head, and which I don't half know to this 

 day ? " ANDREW WILSON Science-Culture 

 for the Masses, p. 30. (A., 1888.) 



2968. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 



Each Needs Help from the Other. If we 

 consider and compare the most important 

 advances which the human mind has made 

 in the knowledge of truth, we shall soon 

 see that it is always owing to philosophical 

 mental operations that these advances have 

 been made, and that the experience of the 

 senses which certainly and necessarily pre- 

 cedes these operations, and the knowledge 

 of details gained thereby, only furnish the 

 basis for those general laws. Experience 

 and philosophy, therefore, by no means 

 stand in such exclusive opposition to each 

 other as most men have hitherto supposed; 

 they rather necessarily supplement each 

 other. The philosopher who is wanting in 

 the firm foundation of sensuous experience, 

 of empirical knowledge, is very apt to ar- 

 rive at false conclusions in his general 

 speculations, which even a moderately in- 

 formed naturalist can refute at once. On 

 the other hand, the purely empiric natural- 

 ists, who do not trouble themselves about 

 the philosophical comprehension of their 

 sensuous experiences and who do not strive 

 after general knowledge, can promote sci- 

 ence only in a very slight degree, and the 

 chief value of their hard-won knowledge of 

 details lies in the general results which 

 more comprehensive minds will one day de- 

 rive from them. HAECKEL History of Crea- 

 tion, vol. i, ch. 4, p. 81. (K. P. & Co., 

 1899.) 



2969. SCIENCE AND THE SCHOOL- 

 MEN The Abdication of Galileo. The early 

 part of the seventeenth century, when Des- 

 cartes reached manhood, is one of the great 

 epochs of the intellectual life of mankind. 

 At that time, physical science suddenly 

 strode into the arena of public and familiar 

 thought, and openly challenged, not only 

 philosophy and the church, but that com- 

 mon ignorance which passes by the name of 

 common sense. The assertion of the motion 

 of the earth was a defiance to all three, and 



physical science threw down her glove by 

 the hand of Galileo. It is not pleasant to 

 think of the immediate result of the com- 

 bat; to see the champion of science, old, 

 worn, and on his knees before the Cardinal 

 Inquisitor, signing his name to what he 

 knew to be a lie. . . . But two hundred 

 years have passed, and however feeble or 

 faulty her soldiers, physical science sits 

 crowned and enthroned as one of the legiti- 

 mate rulers of the world of thought. Char- 

 ity children would be ashamed not to know 

 that the earth moves; while the schoolmen 

 are forgotten. HUXLEY Lay Sermons, serm. 

 14, p. 330. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



2970. SCIENCE, APPLIED Not a 



Special Branch, but Simply the Practical 

 Use of All. Pasteur, one of the most emi- 

 nent members of the Institute of France, in 

 accounting for the disastrous overthrow of 

 his country and the predominance of Ger- 

 many in the late war, expresses himself 

 thus : " Few persons comprehend the real 

 origin of the marvels of industry and the 

 wealth of nations. I need no further proof 

 of this than the employment more and more 

 frequent in official language, and in writing 

 of all sorts, of the erroneous expression ap- 

 plied science. The abandonment of scien- 

 tific careers by men capable of pursuing 

 them with distinction was recently deplored 

 in the presence of a minister of the greatest 

 talent. The statesman endeavored to show 

 that we ought not to be surprised at this re- 

 sult, because in our day the reign of theo- 

 retic science yielded place to that of applied 

 science. Nothing could be more erroneous 

 than this opinion, nothing, I venture to say, 

 more dangerous, even to practical life, than 

 the consequences which might flow from 

 these words. They have rested in my mind 

 as a proof of the imperious necessity of re- 

 form in our superior education. There ex- 

 ists no category of the sciences to which the 

 name of ' applied ' science could be rightly 

 given. We have science, and the applica- 

 tions of science, which are united together 

 as the tree and its fruit." [See PRACTISE.] 

 TYNDALL Lectures on Light, p. 223. (A., 

 1898.) 



2971. SCIENCE A REST FROM 

 STRIFE Man against Man. While on the 

 steppe tigers and crocodiles contend with 

 horses and cattle, so on the forest borders 

 and in the wilds of Guiana the hand of man 

 is ever raised against his fellow man. With 

 revolting eagerness some tribes drink the 

 flowing blood of their foes, whilst others, 

 seemingly unarmed, yet prepared for mur- 

 der, deal certain death with a poisoned 

 thumb-nail. The feebler tribes, when they 

 tread the sandy shores, carefully efface with 

 their hands the traces of t their trembling 

 steps. Thus does man, everywhere alike, on 

 the lowest scale of brutish debasement, and 

 in the false glitter of his higher culture, per- 

 petually create for himself a life of care. 

 And thus, too, the traveler, wandering over 



