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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1270 



entrance and adoption of new and strange 

 conceptions or lines of conduct. The new, 

 whether new in idea or merely new in em- 

 phasis, must fight and must find itself and 

 prove itself in this initial struggle, before it 

 can prevail. This struggle for existence 

 among social ideas is the scientific experi- 

 mental laboratory for society, and the whole 

 social experimental method is dependent upon 

 the natural human conservatism which causes 

 and makes intense this struggle through which 

 social ideas must pass to be accepted. 



But I wish to emphasize this evening another 

 aspect of the matter, the value of having new 

 conceptions to test, and the importance of an 

 attitude of impersonal search for the truth, 

 rather than a struggle for personal advantage. 

 " Te shall know the truth and the truth shall 

 make you free," free from subservience to un- 

 warranted custom and, especially, free from 

 self-seeking. Is not the scientific spirit epit- 

 omized in each of these two injunctions, which 

 are but different statements of the same ideal 

 — " Prove all things and hold fast that which 

 is good," " Know the truth and the truth shall 

 make you free"? The ideal, the habit, of 

 impersonal search for the truth is one of two 

 essential foundations of worthy society. The 

 other fundamental social ideal is more ex- 

 plicitly stated by the great Jewish teacher — 

 "As ye would that men should do to you, do 

 ye even so to them." Given the natural 

 quality of conservatism in man, then the es- 

 sentials to sound society are untrammelled 

 thinking and unselfish action. 



Now both of these, untrammelled thinking 

 and unselfish action, are part and parcel of 

 the scientific spirit. In thought, truth for the 

 joy of the knowing; in action, loyalty to truth 

 so far as discerned. Are not these the core 

 of the true spirit of science? 



Most social customs have had a long de- 

 velopment. ISTearly every one has had an 

 embryological and larval and adolescent his- 

 tory and it is of keen interest to trace any 

 such custom back through its successive 

 periods to the germ from which it started. 

 During the period of development and growth 



the custom is built into society and becomes 

 almost a part of its organization. Changing 

 it is like changing a physiological habit, re- 

 moving it involves a surgical operation. It 

 is not difficult to understand that such customs 

 have the strongest hold upon society and upon 

 most individual men. 



Yet it is surprisingly easy, if one cultivates 

 the habit, to adopt a detached attitude and to 

 view these customs as scientific phenomena 

 to be observed and appraised without prej- 

 udice. It is still more surprising to see how 

 miany of our important social customs, when 

 so viewed, are without scientific warrant, are 

 indeed socially absurd. Let us instance a few 

 such mistaken social customs in illustration. 



One of the most absurd of social economic 

 conventions is the adoption of a single metal 

 as a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE, though this con- 

 stantly fluctuates in value like any other 

 product. An essential feature in a good me- 

 diiun of exchange is, of course, stability in 

 value, so that debts will be paid in dollars of 

 the same worth as the dollars or other con- 

 sideration received when the debt was con- 

 tracted.- Society has made no attempt to 

 secure such an unfluctuating medium, but has 

 merely chosen the most precious metal which is 

 found in sufficient abundance. Irving Fisher 

 is now proposing that the government charge 

 a varying seigniorage for the coinage of 

 gold, less when gold is dear, more when it 

 is cheap, and thus keep the gold dollar of 

 constant value. This seems to be along the 

 right line, for the usability of gold as a me- 

 dium of exchange depends upon both its in- 

 trinsic value and its monetization, the latter 

 giving it the necessary fluidity and so aSecting 

 its value apart from normal supply and de- 

 mand. Fisher proposes to establish the amount 

 of seignorage by comparing the value of gold 

 from time to time with the then value of a 

 composite group of natural products — grains, 

 coal, metals, etc. There are but two sources 

 of wealth, natural resources on the one hand, 

 and human labor on the other. The medium 

 of exchange should be of constant value with 



- Investments as well as debts should, of course, 

 be here included. 



