December 14, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



577 



largest number of publications to the hu- 

 manities took the trouble also to count up 

 the totals of the numbers of pages of all 

 the works issued by the institution up to 

 that time. His count gave: for the hu- 

 manities, 10,813 pages; for all other 

 branches of knowledge, 21,700 pages. 



In connection with these statistical data, 

 it is appropriate to add the corresponding 

 figures for the publications of the institu- 

 tion brought down to date, namely, Oc- 

 tober, 1917. In deriving these there are 

 included under the humanities works in 

 archaeology, folk-lore, international law, 

 history, literature, and philology. Of a 

 total of 88 volumes, 58 octavos contain 

 19,921 pages and 30 quartos contain 10,718 

 pages, the total number of pages being 

 30,639; but four of the volumes are still 

 in press and their pagination is not in- 

 cluded. 



Since the total number of pages of 

 printed matter issued by the institution up 

 to date is 98,565, it appears that the shares, 

 if such a term may be used, allotted to 

 the humanities and to all other fields of 

 learning combined are in round numbers 

 one third and two thirds respectively. 

 Whether this is one of fairness and fitness 

 will doubtless remain for a long time a dis- 

 puted question, since it seems to be one to 

 which the dictum of Marcus Aurelius ap- 

 plies with peculiar emphasis. In the mean- 

 time, while waiting for a diminution in 

 the diversity of opinion which calls that 

 dictum to mind, it appears to be the duty 

 of the institution to proceed, as it has 

 sought to proceed hitherto, in a spirit of 

 sympathy and equity based on merit to- 

 wards all domains of knowledge, with a 

 full appreciation of the necessary limita- 

 tions of any single organization and with 

 a respectful but imtrammeled regard for 

 the views, the sentiments, and the suffrages 

 of our contemporaries. 



jVberrant types of mind 

 If words and phrases drawn out of the 

 past may obscure thought and supplant 

 reason in the domains of the less highly 

 developed sciences, like the humanities, for 

 example, they are by no means free from 

 difficulties when used as media for the com- 

 munication of ideas in the domains of the 

 more highly developed sciences. The dif- 

 ferences between the ambiguities and the 

 obscurities of the two domains are maiuly 

 in degree rather than in kind. It is a 

 truism, of course, that in general it is much 

 easier to discover errors and to improve 

 uncertain verbal expression in the definite 

 than in the indefinite sciences. Erroneous 

 statements and interpretations of fact may 

 be often corrected by the facts themselves 

 or by means of a knowledge of their rela- 

 tions to underlying principles. Precision 

 and correctness of language are also 

 greatly increased in any department of 

 learning when it becomes susceptible to 

 the economy of thought and of expression 

 characteristic of the mathematico-physical 

 sciences. The perfection of these latter is, 

 indeed, so great that novices working in 

 them are often carried safely over hazar- 

 dous ground to sound conclusions without 

 adequate apprehension of the principles in- 

 volved and with only erroneous verbal 

 terms at command to designate the facts 

 and the phenomena considered. 



Nevertheless, it must be admitted that 

 the terminologj' of what cormnonly passes 

 for science as well as the terminology used 

 frequently even by eminent men of science 

 is sadly in need of reformation in the in- 

 terests of clear thinking and hence of un- 

 equivocal popular and technical exposi- 

 tion. To realize the vagueness and the in- 

 appropriateness in much of the current 

 use of this terminologj' one needs only to 

 examine the voluminous literature avail- 

 able in almost any subject called scientific. 



