842^ 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 387. 



It is then with science, pure and applied, 

 that we have to deal as distinguished from 

 those departments of study, called by their 

 votaries the humanities. These are defined 

 as ' the branches of polite or elegant learn- 

 ing, as languages, rhetoric, poetry and the 

 ancient classics.' 



Now we shall have no quarrel with these 

 pursuits or with those devoted to them, 

 unless it be with the assumption that they 

 are essentially the polite and elegant 

 branches of learning as distinguished from 

 the pursuits of science, and that the latter 

 must be relegated to a lower plane. We 

 accept no second place for science either 

 from the standpoint of its importance to 

 the welfare of the human race, or as a 

 means of culture in a system of education. 



No doubt it would greatly benefit many 

 or all of us if we could spare more time 

 from our pressing duties for the enjoyment 

 of poetry, of literature and the fine arts, 

 but we are also persuaded that very many 

 of those who find their vocation in these 

 fields would find great advantages in a 

 more intimate acquaintance with physics, 

 chemistry and biology. 



The object of our Society, as above stated, 

 is to encourage original investigation in 

 science, pui-e and applied. What then is 

 science and what constitutes original inves- 

 tigation? The term science is much 

 abused by many who appropriate it. Ever 

 since the days of St. Paul, and doubtless 

 for a much longer period the human race 

 has had with it innumerable forms of sci- 

 ence falsely so-called. It is as important 

 to-day and for ourselves as it was for 

 Timothy nearly 2,000 yeai's ago, that we 

 should avoid what Paul called the vain 

 babblings of this description of science. 



When, however, we examine critically the 

 meaning of this term we find it to be one 

 which may be employed to designate all 

 departments of human knowledge. ' Scire, ' 

 to know, is the root from which it springs. 



We understand it to apply, however, only to 

 such departments of knowledge as have 

 been formulated and classified with refer- 

 ence to general laws, and it is the attempt 

 to discover such laws, underlying and con- 

 necting the phenomena which we see about 

 us that constitutes scientific investigation. 

 Whenever all of the observed facts of any 

 science, as astronomy or chemistry or biol- 

 ogy, can be so fully understood as to admit 

 of expression in a strictly mathematical 

 form, this science may be considered com- 

 plete. It is perhaps unnecessary to add 

 that we possess no such completed science, 

 nor is there any promise that we ever shall. 



The term science then embraces a great 

 number of departments of knowledge and 

 deals with truth in almost every form, so 

 soon as we have the means of assuring our- 

 selves that foundation principles are in- 

 deed truth and not fiction. Thus we have 

 psychology, theology, economics, sociology, 

 mathematics, the entire range of physical 

 and biological sciences, and many other 

 departments of mental activity which may 

 be regarded as possessing claims, more or 

 less admissible, to be included within this 

 honored body. 



When we refer to the object of this So- 

 ciety as expressed by its founders— to en- 

 courage original investigation in science — 

 we might perhaps infer that we were tak- 

 ing all knowledge as our province. This, 

 however, is not our purpose. The science 

 with which we are now concerned is under- 

 stood to be limited to the mathematical and 

 physical branches. 



This limitation is emphasized by ref- 

 erence to the history of the Society. I 

 quote from the report of a committee ap- 

 pointed in 1893 to consider some matters 

 related to the policy to be pursued. 



The Society was established in 1886 by a few 

 earnest workers in the engineering sciences, as a 

 means of rallying and encouraging those qualities 

 which were deemed of the first importance in 

 their own lines of investigation. It soon became 



