952 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 755 



deeply fascinated by their work, or that the 

 public stand in awe of it? 



Yet in the midst of all this, our glory, 

 we must not fail to pause now and then to 

 recall that story of that greatest of astron- 

 omers, Laplace. "When he had reduced the 

 cosmos to a set of differential equations, by 

 which he claimed that he could foretell the 

 configuration of the universe at any time 

 if he had given the configuration at some 

 other time, he presented his work to Na- 

 poleon. After listening to an exposition 

 by Laplace of the meaning of the work. 

 Napoleon remarked: "But I see no place 

 for God in your system." To which La- 

 place replied: "Sire, I have no need of 

 such an hypothesis." 



Suppose some modern Napoleon should, 

 after examining the present formulations 

 of scientific creed, remark: "But I see no 

 place for human souls in this system"; 

 what could science answer? Much it has 

 surely done for the human body ; what has 

 it done— what is it doing for the human 

 soul? 



A careful investigation of this question 

 seems to show that the distinctive services 

 of science to the human soul may be re- 

 sumed in two statements, namely: (1) In 

 developing science through the study of 

 nature, the human mind has been trained 

 in clear thinking— it has learned how to 

 solve problems in such a way as to gain 

 for itself the keen vision of a prophet. 

 (2) The clear-sighted experimental study 

 and the partial solution of the problems of 

 nature have continually stored the mind 

 with images which are definite because 

 drawn from concrete experience, and which 

 may thus serve as the basis for clearer 

 abstract thought. 



The first of these statements will prob- 

 ably be accepted at once. We all recognize 

 that the power to foresee what will happen 

 imder given conditions is one of the chief 

 benefits derived from scientific thinking; 



and, therefore, we find no difficulty in 

 appreciating the value of a training in 

 this method of thought. The second state- 

 ment may not be accepted so readily. Yet 

 it must be clear that such basal concepts 

 as angle, area, number and triangle were 

 derived from experience with and the 

 solving of the problems of nature. The 

 idea means more than this, however. The 

 concrete pictures furnished by the solution 

 of scientific problems are essential to clear 

 thinking in other fields than those of sci- 

 ence. It has often been said that if no 

 regularity or order were manifested in 

 nature, no thinking at all would be possible. 

 The clear picture of a sequence and order 

 in nature, yet independent of man's will, 

 is of inestimable moral value. So many of 

 us think that we may steal or lie and yet 

 somehow evade the results. Natural sci- 

 ence gives a very definite picture of the 

 impossibility of this. The concrete picture 

 of the sun-centered planetary system has 

 been indispensable in the development of 

 the idea of a God-centered religion. Was 

 not Drummond 's book called ' ' Natural Law 

 in the Spiritual World ' ' ? Are not most of 

 the similes and metaphors of literature to- 

 day drawn from the clear images furnished 

 by science ? 



If the two statements jiist given set forth 

 the two great contributions of science to 

 the civilized mind of to-day, we are justi- 

 fied in setting them up as expressing the 

 purposes to be attained in the individual 

 by science teaching in the schools. We may 

 thus define the purposes of science teaching 

 to be the following: (1) To train the indi- 

 vidual into habits of solving problems sci- 

 entifically, thereby fostering the prophetic 

 spirit in him. (2) To store his mind with 

 clear pictures of organization, which pic- 

 tures may be used as the basis of abstract 

 thought. 



Having adopted these two purposes as 

 the ideal toward which we are to strive in 



