August 29, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



333 



things have been accomplished malces many 

 more ready to regard as possible almost any 

 absurdity annoiinced by some so-called ' pro- 

 fessor. ' 



Probably at no time in the history of the 

 world has the public shown such ready 

 credulity. Indeed, it seems as if the more 

 grotesque and preposterous an idea the 

 more likely it is to receive attention. And 

 this credulity is not confined to those who 

 are altogether ignorant of science. A man 

 may be a very narrow expert in one direc- 

 tion of science and be wholly ignorant of 

 the rules of the game in reference to anoth- 

 er science. For instance, when an eminent 

 biologist says 'bell-ringing, the playing on 

 musical instruments, stone-throwing and 

 various movements of solid bodies, all with- 

 out human contact or any discoverable 

 physical cause— still occur among us as they 

 have occurred in all ages,' * the statements 

 show the author to be so lacking in a com- 

 prehension of the principles of physics 

 that he is unable to estimate whether or 

 not a phenomenon of physics is likely or 

 not likely to be true. It is clear that a man 

 may be an authority as to biology, and yet 

 be so ignorant of the rules of physics that 

 he may be as simple as a child in reference 

 to that subject. Upon the other hand, a 

 man who has a firm understanding of the 

 principles applicable to a case, or, in other 

 ■words, knows the rules of the game, is like- 

 ly to be able to reach a rather definite con- 

 chision as to whether or not an explanation 

 which suggested itself is in accordance with 

 those rules, and therefore may be true, or 

 disagrees with some of the well established 

 rules, and therefore is not worth consider- 

 ing. 



A geologist once said to me of my teach- 

 er and early geological guide, Professor Ir- 

 ving, that he was more correct as to the 

 structure of the Lake Superior region than 



* ' The Wonderful Century,' by Alfred Russell 

 Wallace, p. 211. 



he ought to have been. But I say that 

 every man is just as correct as to deduc- 

 tion beyond observed facts as he should be. 

 Men with defective basal training and poor 

 intellectual power will always fail when 

 they try to put complex facts together un- 

 der principles, and especially when they at- 

 tempt to project by deduction beyond ob- 

 served facts. But men who have a firm 

 grasp of the principles of the sciences basal 

 to geology, the capacity to correlate these 

 principles and apply them to the facts of 

 geology, will go beyond their observations 

 and by deduction will reach conclusions 

 with perfect confidence which are far in ad- 

 vance of observation. Indeed in this way 

 only can the best geological work be done. 

 After one has projected his deductions in 

 advance of observations, he returns to the 

 field with these new ideas, and then carries 

 his observations farther than he was able to 

 do before. The geologist whose ideas are 

 not continually outrunning his observations 

 will never go far in the science. He whose 

 mind is behind his observations instead of 

 in advance of them, will ever be mediocre. 

 The minds of the leaders of geology are on 

 the mountain heights before their feet have 

 more than touched the foothills. 



The conclusions deduced by a scientific 

 genius may go so far in advance of observa- 

 tions that he who announces the conclu- 

 sions may not be able to make observations 

 which confirm the theories during his life- 

 time. In such cases subsequent observa- 

 tions made through many j^ears by others 

 will find the phenomena confirming the 

 principles. The truths announced by men 

 of insight are often not accepted by slower 

 men until this later observational work is 

 done. Many cases could be cited illustra- 

 ting these statements. Darwin, in 1860, 

 ]{new that life had existed that would fill in 

 the great gaps in the very imperfect paleon- 

 tological record. Since 1860 -all the greater 

 gaps have been filled by discovered fossih. 



