XXXVI PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
terms for purposes of classification of the rather heterogeneous mass 
to which they are applied. The word “scientist” is a coinage of the 
newspaper reporter, and, as ordinarily used, is very comprehensive. 
Webster defines a scientist as being “one learned in science, a 
savant ’’—that is, a wise man—and the word is often used in this 
sense. But the suggestion which the word conveys to my mind is 
rather that of one whom the public suppose to be a wise man, 
whether he is so or not, of one who claims to be scientific. I shall, 
therefore, use the term “scientist” in the broadest sense, as including 
scientific men, whether they claim to be such or not, and those who 
claim to be scientific men whether they are so or not. 
By a scientific man I mean a man who uses scientific method 
in the work to which he specially devotes himself; who possesses 
scientific knowledge,—not in all departments, but in certain 
special fields. By scientific knowledge we mean knowledge which 
is definite and which can be accurately expressed. It is true 
that this can rarely be done completely, so that each proposition 
shall precisely indicate its own conditions, but this is the ideal at 
which we aim. There is no man now living who can properly be 
termed a complete savant, or scientist, in Webster’s sense of the 
word. There are a few men who are not only thoroughly scientific 
in their own special departments, but are also men possessed of 
much knowledge upon other subjects and who habitually think 
scientifically upon most matters to which they give consideration ; 
but these men are the first to admit the incompleteness and super- 
ficiality of the knowledge of many subjects which they possess, and 
to embrace the opportunity which such a society as this affords of 
meeting with students of other branches, and of making that 
specially advantageous exchange in which each gives and receives, 
yet retains all that he had at first. 
Almost all men suppose that they think scientifically upon all 
subjects; but, as a matter of fact, the number of persons who are so 
free from personal equation due to heredity, to early associations, to 
emotions of various kinds, or to temporary disorder of the digestive 
or nervous machinery that their mental vision is at all times achro- 
matic and not astigmatic, is very small indeed. 
Every educated, healthy man possesses some scientific knowledge, 
and it is not possible to fix any single test or characteristic which 
will distinguish the scientific from the unscientific man. There are 
scientific tailors, bankers, and politicians, as well as physicists, 
