IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 21 



confusion; let us call things by their right names. Let mental, 

 nervous and all sorts of more or less imaginary ailments be 

 treated as the symptoms indicate; let effect be linked to appro- 

 priate cause as elsewhere in physiological research, and scien- 

 tific methods may, at length, discover all attainable truth; but, 

 let no man, forgetful of every principle of scientific procedure, 

 and oblivious to its very first requirements, heaping up rub- 

 bish from the deservedly forgotten idealistic philosophj^ of the 

 middle ages, go forth in the name of science to proclaim that 

 there is no pain; that there is no disease; that there is no 

 bodily ill; that "all, all is mind! " Science knows him not! 



That such delusions find lodging among most excellent 

 people, in no wise affects the case. The remedy lies, I shall 

 still maintain, in the inculcation of real science which insists 

 on the ascertainment of truth, and especially in the application 

 of the method of science which trusts the evidence of the 

 senses acting in their normal province and in a natural way. 

 But is it not astonishing that almost every ancient delusion 

 that aims nowadays to lift its head among enlightened men 

 assumes to speak in the name of science, thus unwittingly pay- 

 ing tribute to the reputation which the scientific movement has 

 made for itself in the world? Thus we have "occult science," 

 strange contradiction of terms! and "esoteric science" and 

 "mystic science " and "monistic sciense," "spiritualistic 

 science," " theosophic science, " and I know not what. Surely 

 science has difficulties and perplexities of its own to deal with, 

 sutticient that it may be allowed to protest against the imposi- 

 tion of such a burden of unheard-of accumulated rubbish. I 

 repeat; the only remedy for false science is true science; the 

 only knowledge that will save people from the constant recur- 

 rence of dominant superstition is found in that form of human 

 knowledge and activity which this academy is set to foster. 

 Literature will not do it; art will not do it; even raligion, 

 divine though her mission be, will not do it; has not done it. 

 Her gospel seems to assume the spread of another gospel, that 

 of common sense, and the gospel of common sense is modern 

 science. If our people could once get into the way of looking 

 at things as they really are, and judging the natural world on 

 the principles of simple, clear-eyed, common sense, wisdom 

 would at last be justified of her children. 



But there is still another phase of the situation which I 

 think ought to be mentioned here to-night. There is to-day, at 



