62 SCIENCE AND THE PRESS 



I pass now to another aspect of the subject ; I will leave 

 the material side. That science so largely affects bodily com- 

 fort and material prosperity is to many people one of its 

 greatest dangers. I would ask you to consider the effect of 

 science on modes of thought ; I do not mean on opinion but 

 on the method of forming opinion. I should tire you if I tried 

 to extol science at any length in this respect, for the subject is 

 so well worn. But everyone admits, I think, that science has 

 brought instruments of precision into the domain of thought 

 which can be used more easily and more safely than any other. 

 Science is really an animated logic in which the mind receives 

 its first training among real things real palpable things not 

 mere words or abstractions. Now, many years ago you may 

 remember that Matthew Arnold in pronouncing sentence on 

 various European nations condemned the English as being 

 fundamentally deficient in lucidity. Many people thought he 

 justified the charge in making it, for they did not know what 

 he meant and that, in its turn, justified him. I think it is 

 not difficult to understand what he meant, and I, for one, 

 accept the judgement as just and discerning. On the morrow 

 of a General Election, I do not think it necessary to labour 

 this point. How then are we to cultivate lucidity ? Doubtless 

 there are many ways of doing it, but if it involves an improve- 

 ment in our methods of getting to the bottom of things, of 

 collecting and weighing evidence, of organizing our facts, and 

 of generalizing them to a clear conclusion, I cannot see a more 

 hopeful expedient than to bring to bear the methods that have 

 been so wonderfully successful in the realms of science. I am 

 not going to talk politics, as you can well understand, but I ask 

 you to consider the Fiscal question from this point of view. 

 Just think of the method taken by the country to decide this 

 question ; think of the kind of appeal to the intelligence that 

 has been made ; think of the competence of the average elector 

 to weigh up the pros and cons of a question of such complexity. 



