554 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 43. 



several cross classifications whicli we shall have 

 to employ. It will also be necessary to see 

 whether these symbols cannot be placed in a 

 less conspicuous place on the cards. This is 

 not so easy as would at first appear, for it must 

 be remembered that the same type must be used 

 for the pamphlet edition. 



I have now passed the more important notes 

 in review, hoping that this may facilitate future 

 correspondence. Permit me to state, in closing, 

 that I should be delighted to receive further 

 suggestions in this regard. I must beg, how- 

 ever, some indulgence if I should find myself 

 unable to reply promptly to all friends of the 

 undertaking ; the correspondence has already 

 assumed such proportions that it is almost im- 

 possible to attend to it single-handed. 



Herbert Haviland Field. 



the dogmatism of science. 



To THE Editor op Science — Sir : ' ■ The 

 hardest of intellectual virtues is philosophic 

 doubt," it has been said, and viewing the state- 

 ments and the facts, one is inclined sometimes 

 to assent to it in a literal way, i. e. , as an un- 

 intentional statement of the hardness, density 

 or impenetrability of much that passes under 

 the name of philosophic doubt. By the words, 

 however, it is supposably meant that this ' philo- 

 sophic doubt ' is a virtue above all others, and 

 that it is only the extremely virtuous who may 

 ever reach this lofty pinnacle of greatness. To 

 this I demur. As Heine said : We are natural 

 protestants, and certainly the spirit that de- 

 nies, der Geist der stets verneint, is as a matter of 

 fact the easiest and the most common of ' vir- 

 tues,' though Goethe and humanity have agreed 

 in personalizing it as distinctly Mephistophe- 

 lean, rather than angelic, or even manly. I 

 should add that ' ' the mental vice to which we 

 are most prone is our tendency to assume that " 

 our Verneinung in the name of science of all the 

 religious and poetical truths that have been 

 gained by humanity has anything virtuous or 

 logical or scientific about it. 



As to what is virtue, intellectual or moral, 

 and as to what may be logical, there will never 

 be an end of discussion, but as to what is scien- 

 tific there should nowadays be convictions so 

 indubitable that discussion should end. Even 



the typical scientific dogmatist must admit that 

 science properly considered is the unprejudiced, 

 colorless observation of facts and the inductions 

 from these facts only so far as the facts ivill carry. 

 But the fundamental thesis of a certain class of 

 scientists is that biologic facts are all explainable 

 by the forces of ' mechanical energy and physi- 

 cal matter. ' To ordinary — what I should call 

 normal or healthy — minds, this is as perfect an 

 example of deduction, theory or dogmatism as 

 could be stated. So long as the old materialistic 

 bauble of spontaneous generation remains the 

 the veriest will-o-the-wisp, the most undemon- 

 strated and undemonstrable absurdity, so long 

 have these ' scientists ' not a shred or shadow of 

 evidence that their dogma has any genuine 

 scientific basis. For every biologic fact there 

 must be posited the unexplained, and so far in- 

 explainable fact of life itself, of sentience, or 

 ' sensitive ' or ' irritable ' protoplasm, as the 

 very beginning of the fact. To say in advance 

 that this life, sensitiveness, irritability, etc., is 

 explainable upon the principles or forces of 

 physics is in most absolute contradiction of the 

 scientific spirit, and one who dogmatically as- 

 serts it has yet to learn the a b c of scientific 

 method. The scientist who thus commits scien- 

 tific suicide may charitably be excused on the 

 ground that he is a victim of the subtle laws of 

 psychologic heredity, that he is an 18th century 

 atheist masquerading as scientist, one with a 

 dissident dogma unwarrantably compelling sci- 

 ence to a service from which she must instinc- 

 tively rebel. 



In a recent letter to Science Professor Brooks 

 pathetically pleads for a united front of all 

 scientists against the 'Vitalists,' and that the 

 ' dogmatism of biologists ' must be attacked at 

 both ends of the line. This rallying cry for 

 unanimity of utterance rather than for adher- 

 ence to personal conviction is sadly suggestive. 

 It would seem that a more ' virtuous ' ideal 

 would be that of following truth rather than 

 partisanship. ' Failure to agree ' is stigma- 

 tized, but it might be politic to first ask who 

 are the di.sagreers. The answer to that question 

 might result in the finding that Professor Brooks 

 and his party are the disagreers or sectarians, 

 because if my observation is correct the scorned 

 vitalists, as Professor Gage avers, constitute the 



