450 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1167 



an. extended system of smaller masses dis- 

 tributed throughout a large district, as 

 might produce the same effect at a given 

 station, the error would be of the same 

 nature as that which must result from 

 ignoring the effect at the gravity stations 

 of any local and very dense masses which 

 may be hidden beneath the surface. 



Does prejudice, either national or racial, 

 •ever influence the thinking of men of sci- 

 ence ? I ask you to look back over the his- 

 tory of the past two and a half years and 

 for the answer examine some of the state- 

 ments which have been signed by men who 

 were counted among the master scientists 

 of their generation. These sweeping state- 

 ments were many of them false ; and if not 

 known to be by those who subscribed to 

 them, it is clear that an unbiased inquiry 

 must either have revealed the truth or have 

 indicated the necessity for withholding a 

 verdict. This debacle of science which 

 came at the outbreak of the present war 

 is one not easily to be retrieved. 



If I have succeeded in my endeavor, I 

 have shown that scientific theories as they 

 are constructed even to-day with the aid of 

 all modern equipment and inheritance, 

 may contain fatal elements of weakness 

 though they be promulgated by scientific 

 men of the highest rank ,and attainments. 

 Fortunately the student of science to-day 

 enjoys an independence which was never 

 vouchsafed him in the past, when the 

 learner was by the conditions under which 

 he studied an advocate of the doctrines of 

 his master. There are to-day no dictators 

 in science such as were Werner in Ger- 

 many, de Beaumont in France, Murchison 

 in England, or Agassiz, the "pope of Amer- 

 ican science." For what he accepts and 

 teaches the student of science is to-day re- 

 sponsible, and it devolves upon him not 

 merely to examine each theory as regards 

 its inherent plausibility and the degree to 



which it has been confirmed, but to inquire 

 also into the human and other factors 

 which have entered into it or which have 

 accounted for its acceptance into the body 

 of doctrine of science. 



It has seemed to me that the excessive 

 stress which in our science training we now 

 lay upon the careful balancing of evidence, 

 has in a measure taken away our capacity 

 for making decisions. The cult of being 

 open-minded has been elevated into a fetich, 

 with the result that the really vital consid- 

 erations are often hopelessly entangled 

 with non-essentials. A little refiection must 

 show that upon the principle of chances 

 the weight of evidence in the case of but 

 few problems can be evenly balanced; but 

 a clever exaggeration of the non-essentials 

 seldom fails to raise serious doubts in the 

 minds of a considerable proportion of those 

 considered qualified to reach a decision. 

 "Why, if this be not so, have so many of our 

 highly trained scholars failed to see that 

 the events which are now transpiring have 

 long been clearly foreshadowed, and were 

 inevitable results of observed conditions in 

 a world controlled by natural laws. This is 

 due to a lack of vision — of prescience — 

 which above all is dependent upon first 

 clearing away from a question the rubbish 

 which has accumulated about it, and then 

 focusing the attention unerringly upon the 

 heart of the problem. 



Lack of vision largely explains the great 

 inertia of science which causes the reten- 

 tion of useless or harmful theories long 

 after their inadequacy or falsity has been 

 exposed, and this inertia is greatly aggra- 

 vated by potent accessory influences. Any 

 successful theory which occupies a basic 

 position in science, is sure to be built upon 

 as a foundation for other theories, and 

 these are likely to crumble with its collapse. 

 Much money and labor are now invested in 

 treatises and popular works, the income 



