August 25, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



263 



writings of this character more numerously 

 and conspicuously displayed than works on sci- 

 entific subjects other than those of applied 

 science and school text-books. Judging from 

 the testimony of publishers and book-dealers, 

 the public is finding little in modern science 

 that satisfies the deepest needs of human life. 

 I want to insist that a radical change will 

 have to be wrought in the feeling of educated 

 people generally toward science, if civilization 

 is to rise much above its present level. 



But estimation of the worth of science can 

 be changed only as an incident to a profound 

 change of conception of and feeling for na- 

 ture. Let no one, especially no teacher of sci- 

 ence, fail to make the sharpest distinction be- 

 tween nature and science — between nature 

 itself and knowledge of nature! 



I just mentioned feeling for nature. Here, 

 I am persuaded, is the key to the situation. I 

 wonder to what extent you have noted that 

 the scientific authorities you read and meet 

 rarely love nature. If they do, they rarely 

 say so, or reveal their feeling in any way. In 

 fact, it would be surprising if you have not 

 been admonished by your leaders that feeling 

 must be frozen out of science. With many a 

 scientist the stigma that attaches to the 

 phrase " nature lovers," from having been ap- 

 plied to a group of slop-overs has been ex- 

 tended to everybody who manifests love for na- 

 ture in any way. 



We touch a subject here too vast to do much 

 with in a talk like this. I can only remark 

 that practical experience and the psychology 

 of feeling demonstrate the utter fallacy of the 

 theory that science must be emotionless. 

 Have you yourself or has anybody you ever 

 saw or heard of, done thoroughly well any task 

 into which the " whole heart," as we say, has 

 not entered ? But the " whole heart " is, as 

 modern psychology is making us understand, 

 the unerring folkway of saying that the feel- 

 ings, the affective side of our natures, though 

 not the intellect, must be ever present along 

 with intellect in all high and effective en- 

 deavor. And I urge you to mark well this 

 fact: The very men of science who depreciate 

 love of nature do not hesitate to extol love of 



truth. Truth, they say, not only may be, but 

 must be loved that its pursuit, even by science, 

 shall be assured. We hear men preach love of 

 truth and of emotionless science, almost in 

 the same breath! 



But what is truth? The query has beset all 

 the sages of all the ages. Curiously enough, 

 when you come to reflect, the sages who have 

 sweated blood over this question have not 

 been students of nature at all as modern sci- 

 ence understands the phrase. The sages have 

 looked at a few aspects of nature and have 

 speculated endlessly and earnestly about na- 

 ture; but they have not studied it. 



Let a humble naturalist try his hand at 

 defining truth. Truth (with as big a T as you 

 please) is all that has been learned plus all 

 that remains to be learned about nature. At 

 the particular institution of scientific research 

 which you visit to-day, the theory is held that 

 nature and truth, while not identical, yet have 

 so much in common — overlap each other in so 

 much of their range — that whatever place 

 feeling rightly has in the pursuit of the one, 

 it has in the pursuit of the other. And here 

 is the most vital spot of all: Men love truth 

 because truth is to their advantage. It is 

 beneficent — it makes goodness in their lives. 

 Exactly so with nature according to our 

 theory. Nature is beneficent. It is a maker of 

 goodness in human lives. Indeed, excepting 

 through nature, there is no goodness; and the 

 chief end of science is to show in detail and 

 literally how we live, move and have our being 

 in nature. Through the achievements of mod- 

 ern medicine and hygiene and agriculture and 

 industrial chemistry and mechanics, the most 

 enlightened persons seem to have become con- 

 vinced at last that nature is man's preserver 

 and sustainer. It remains now for them to 

 become convinced that nature is man's maker 

 as well as his sustainer. This task falls more 

 heavily on biology than on any other science. 



So I ask that while you look over the 

 "plant" of the Scripps Institution to-day and 

 while you work toward a decision on whether 

 or not you can accept the invitation we hope 

 to extend to you before long to spend a little 

 time at the institution next summer on some 



