May 30, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



845 



the beginning spoken of, or shall we push 

 our investigation farther into the remote 

 past, to account for the existence and char- 

 acteristics of this nebulous matter which 

 constitutes raw material out of which suns 

 and worlds are formed? 



After a long and active struggle which 

 even now perhaps is hardly ended, it has 

 come to be understood that scientific re- 

 search and theological views cover entirely 

 different ground and that any conflict be- 

 tween the two is purely of man 's invention. 

 It is now more than 250 years since Galileo 

 was compelled to renounce the heretical 

 doctrine which placed the sun and not the 

 earth at the center of the planetary system. 

 But little more than one tenth of that time 

 has passed since a distinguished geologist, 

 himself an active Methodist, is said to have 

 been compelled to sever his connection with 

 a so-called university for holding the view 

 that this planet had been occupied by the 

 human race for a longer period than 6,000 

 years. 



It was the Greek philosophers who first 

 attempted by reason and research to solve 

 the physical problems with which we as a 

 society are concerned. Many of these were 

 men of remarkably keen intelligence and the 

 measure of their success marked the highest 

 level reached in these directions for 1,500 

 years or more. Until the somewhat indefi- 

 nite period known as the renaissance, 

 almost the only science known, at least in 

 Europe, was that of the Greeks. No one 

 can deny that humanity is deeply indebted 

 to them for this heritage. Regarded how- 

 ever as a solution of the problem in 

 vicAV, the efforts of the Greek philosophers 

 were one and all a sad failure. Their effort 

 was nothing less than to find an answer to 

 that ancient and insoluble riddle, the prob- 

 lem of the universe; their method, the 

 utterly fruitless one for this purpose, that 

 of deduction. They hoped to find a great, 

 general, all-embracing principle, and by 



pure reason to evolve from it everything 

 which exists. Thus Thalis regarded water 

 as the origin of all things, another ascribes 

 this place of honor to air, and another to 

 fire. It is true that Aristotle and others in- 

 sist upon the importance of observing and 

 classifying the facts of nature, and study- 

 ing in this way the fundamental laws con- 

 necting and governing them, but how 

 effectually or ineffectually this was done 

 may be shown by one simple example, viz., 

 the law of falling bodies as enunciated by 

 Aristotle himself. This he states to be that 

 bodies descend more quickly in proportion 

 as they are heavier. It seems almost in- 

 credible that a statement, the falsity of 

 v.iiich is so easily proved, should have been 

 made by Aristotle in the first place, and in 

 the second place should have been accepted 

 apparently without question for 2,000 

 years. I know of no example dra\vn from 

 the history of science which impresses me 

 more forcibly with the propensity of the 

 average human being persistently to close 

 his eyes to those things going on around 

 him, and to refer to the authority of another 

 for an account of that which it would seem 

 he could hardly avoid seeing for himself. 

 In the present case it was only necessary to 

 drop two stones of unequal weight from a 

 house top to prove the statement erroneous, 

 but if any one took upon himself the small 

 amount of trouble this implied, before 

 Galileo utilized for the purpose the leaning 

 tower of Pisa, history is silent on the sub- 

 ject. 



Perhaps the most ambitious attempt ever 

 made towards evolving a universal science 

 was that of Descartes. This philosopher 

 boldly asserted that he should consider it 

 of small importance to show how the uni- • 

 verse is constructed, unless he could show 

 that it could not have been constructed in 

 any other way. His method was that which 

 had been so often tried and found wanting 

 as an instrument for the study of nature — : 



