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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 295. 



(3) The scientific spirit keeps one close to the 

 facts. — One of the hardest things in my 

 teaching experience has been to check the 

 tendency of many students to use one fact 

 as a starting point for a flight of fancy 

 which is simply prodigious. Such a tend- 

 ency is corrected of course when facts ac- 

 cumulate somewhat, and flight in one direc- 

 tion is checked by a pull in some other 

 direction. But most of us have the tend- 

 ency, and the majority are so unhampered 

 by facts that flight is free. This exercise is 

 beautiful and invigorating if it is recognized 

 to be just what it is, a flight of fancy ; but 

 if it results in a system of belief it is a de- 

 ception. There seems to be abroad a notion 

 that one may start with a single well-at- 

 tested fact, and by some logical machinery 

 construct an elaborate system and reach an 

 authentic conclusion, much as the world has 

 imagined for more than a century that 

 Cuvier could do if a single bone were fur- 

 nished him . The result is bad, even though 

 the fact have an unclouded title. But it too 

 often happens that great superstructures 

 have been reared upon a fact which is 

 claimed rather than demonstrated. 



We are not called upon to construct a 

 theory of the universe even upon every well- 

 attested fact, and the sooner this is learned 

 the more time will be saved and the more 

 functional will the observing powers remain. 

 Facts are like stepping stones ; so long as 

 one can get a reasonably close series of them 

 he can make some progress in a given di- 

 rection, but when he steps beyond them he 

 flounders. As one travels away from a fact 

 its significance in any conclusion becomes 

 more and more attenuated, until presently 

 the vanishing point is reached, like the rays 

 of light from a candle. A fact is really 

 only influential in its own immediate vicin- 

 ity ; but the whole structure of many a sys- 

 tem lies in the region beyond the vanishing 

 point. 



We must wonder what lies beyond, we 



must try our wings in an excursion now 

 and then, but very much stress must never 

 be laid upon the value of the results thus 

 obtained. 



Such ' vain imaginings ' are delightfully 

 seductive to many people, whose life and 

 conduct are even shaped by them. I have 

 been amazed at the large development of 

 this phase of emotional insanity, commonly 

 masquerading under the name of subtle 

 thinking. Perhaps the name is expressive 

 enough, if it means thinking without any 

 material for thought. And is not this one 

 great danger of our educational system, 

 when special stress is laid upon training ? 

 There is danger of setting to work a mental 

 machine without giving it suitable material 

 upon which it may operate, and it reacts 

 upon itself, resulting in a sort of mental 

 chaos. An active mind turned in upon 

 itself, without any valuable objective ma- 

 terial, can certainly never reach any very 

 reliable results. 



It may not be that the laboratory in 

 education is the only agency, apart from 

 common sense, which is correcting this ten- 

 dency : but it certainly teaches most im- 

 pressively, by object lessons which are con- 

 crete and hence easiest to grasp, that it is 

 dangerous to stray away very far from the 

 facts, and that the further one strays away 

 the more dangerous it becomes, and almost 

 inevitably leads to self-deception. 



There is no occasion for a further analy- 

 sis of the scientific spirit or attitude of 

 mind. It could be followed out into vari- 

 ous ramifications of greater or less impor- 

 tance, but enough has been said to indicate 

 its tendency. JS"or is any further claim 

 made at this point than for the laboratory 

 method, for the scientific spirit is now be- 

 ing developed by subjects which are not 

 grouped among the sciences as defined in 

 this paper. It simply follows from the 

 laboratory method, but as this came in by 

 way of the sciences, and is still of easiest 



