PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 51 



be given to it is founded only on an accurate analysis of the ideas 

 involved in it from daily use. No philosopher objects to the com- 

 mon meaning of the word, yet we frequently find men of eminence 

 in the intellectual world who will not tolerate the scientific man 

 in using the word in this way. In every explanation which he 

 can give to its use they detect ambiguity. They insist that in 

 any proper use of the term the idea of power must be connoted. 

 But what meaning is here attached to the word power, and how 

 shall we first reduce it to a sensible form, and then apply its mean- 

 ing to the operations of nature ? That this can be done, I by no 

 means deny. All I maintain is that if we shall do it, we must pass 

 without the domain of scientific statement. 



Perhaps the greatest advantage in the use of symbolic and other 

 mathematical language in scientific investigation is that it cannot pos- 

 sibly be made to connote anything except what the speaker means. 

 It adheres to the subject matter of discourse with a tenacity which 

 no criticism can overcome. In consequence, whenever a science 

 is reduced to a mathematical form its conclusions are no longer 

 the subject of philosophical attack. To secure the same desirable 

 quality in all other scientific language it is necessary to give it, so 

 far as possible, the same simplicity of signification which attaches 

 to mathematical symbols. This is not easy, because we are obliged 

 to use words of ordinary language, and it is impossible to divest 

 them of whatever they may connote to ordinary hearers. 



I have thus sought to make it clear that the language of science 

 corresponds to that of ordinary life, and especially of business life, 

 in confining its meaning to phenomena. An analogous statement 

 may be made of the method and objects of scientific investigation. 

 I think Professor Clifford was very happy in defining science as 

 organized common sense. The foundation of its widest general 

 creations is laid, not in any artificial theories, but in the natural 

 beliefs and tendencies of the human mind. Its position against 

 those who deny these generalizations is quite analogous to that taken 

 by the Scottish school of philosophy against the skepticism of 

 Hume. 



It may be asked, if the methods and language of science corres- 

 pond to those of practical life, — why is not the every day discipline 

 of that life as good as the discipline of science? The answer is, 

 that the power of transferring the modes of thought of common 

 life to subjects of a higher order of generality is a rare faculty 



