November 11, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



453 



sorcerers, while many thousands more paid 

 in devastating pestilences the penalty which 

 Nature inevitably exacts for crimes against 

 her. In one sense it may be said that the 

 human race gets the diseases it deserves; but 

 the sins are those of ignorance and neglect of 

 physical laws rather than against spiritual 

 ordinances. Plague is not now explained by 

 supposed iniquities of the Jews or conjunc- 

 tions of particular planets, but by the pre- 

 sence of an organism conveyed by fleas from 

 rats; malaria and yellow fever are conquered 

 by destroying the breeding places of mosqui- 

 toes; typhus fever by getting rid of lice; 

 typhoid by cleanliness; tuberculosis by im- 

 proved housing; and most like diseases by 

 following the teachings of science concerning 

 them. Though the mind does undoubtedly 

 influence the resistance of the body to inva- 

 sion by microbes, it can not create the speci- 

 fic organism of any disease, and the responsi- 

 bility of showing how to keep such germs 

 under control, and prevent, therefore, the 

 poverty and distress due to them, is a scien- 

 tific rather than a spiritual duty. 



The methods of science are pursued when- 

 ever observations are made critically, recorded 

 faithfully, and tested rigidly, vsdth the ob- 

 ject of using conclusions based upon them as 

 stepping-stones to further progress. They de- 

 mand an impartial attitude towards evidence 

 and fearless judgment upon it. These are 

 the principles by which the foundations of 

 science have been laid, and a noble structure 

 of natural knowledge erected upon them. A 

 scientific inquiry is understood to be one un- 

 dertaken solely with the view of arriving at 

 the truth, and this disinterested motive will 

 always command public confidence. It is 

 poles apart from the spirit in which social 

 and political subjects are discussed: it is the 

 rock against which waves of emotion and 

 storms of rhetoric lash themselves in vain. 

 If political science were guided by the same 

 methods it would present an open mind to 

 all sides of a question, weighing objections 

 to proposals as justly as reasons in support 

 of them, whereas usually it sees only the 

 views of a particular class or party, and can 



not be trusted, therefore, to strike a judicial 

 balance. The methods of science should be 

 the methods applied to social problems if 

 sound principles of progress are to be deter- 

 mined. Wlien they are so used a statesman 

 will be judged, as a scientific man is judged, 

 by correct observation, just inference, and 

 verified prediction ; in their absence politics 

 will remain stranded on the shifting sands 

 of barter, concession, and expediency. 



Democracy may be politically an irrational 

 force, but that is all the more reason why 

 those who direct it should have full knowl- 

 edge of the possibilities offered by science 

 for construction as well as for destruction. 

 In a chemical research an experiment is not 

 the haphazard mixture of substances made in 

 the hope that something good will come from 

 it, but the deliberate test of consequences 

 which ought to follow if certain ideas are 

 true. So with all scientific experiment: 

 reason is the source of action, and principles 

 are tested by results. Social problems are 

 perhaps more complicated than those of the 

 laboratory, yet the only way to discover solu- 

 tions of them is to apply scientific standards 

 to the methods used and results obtained. 

 Laws of Nature are merely expressions of 

 our knowledge at a particular epoch, and they 

 are more precise than those of political eco- 

 nomy because they are investigated purely 

 from the point of view of progress. If the 

 general laws which constitute the science of 

 sociology are to be discovered and accepted, 

 their study must be as impartial as that of 

 any other science. " The discovery of exact 

 laws," said W. K. Clifford, " has only one 

 purpose — the guidance of conduct by means 

 of them. The laws of political economy are 

 as rigid as those of gravitation; wealth dis- 

 tributes itself as surely as water finds its 

 level. But the use we have to make of the 

 laws of gravitation is not to sit down and 

 cry ' Kismet ' to the flowing stream, but to 

 construct irrigation works." 



Organized Labor has on more than one 

 occasion pronounced a benison upon scien- 

 tific research, and urged that full facilities 

 should be afforded to those who undertake it. 



