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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI No. 417. 



share its spirit and method. They must 

 love learning as well as professional suc- 

 cess, in order to have their perfect use- 

 fulness." The perfect usefulness of the 

 professional school consists, not merely in 

 teaching our embryo physician how to de- 

 stroy bacteria, to remove tumors, or to 

 calm the fire of fevers. These things he 

 must understand, and these he must do 

 daily for the suffering individual. Biit 

 beyond these are larger tasks. The phy- 

 sician's should be a life of service and of 

 leadership combined. He serves well when 

 he relieves suffering; still better when he 

 teaches men how to live ; but he serves best 

 of all when he pushes out into the unknown 

 and makes medical science the richer for 

 what he contributes to it. ,The knowledge 

 of wise men, the deeds of diligent men 

 and the valor of heroes are the gift of 

 those who have preceded him. Let us see 

 to it that he pass on this heritage, aug- 

 mented, to those who follow. 



Frederic S. Lee. 

 Columbia University. 



HISTORIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF 

 PHYSICS. 



The study of the science of physics, like 

 that of any other of the expressions of 

 activity of the human mind, may be ap- 

 proached from two different points of view. 

 First, the attention may be confined to the 

 stiidy of phenomena and of the inductions 

 based upon them. These inductions are seen 

 to lead to what are called laws of physics. 

 From the method of their establishment 

 it is evident that these laws are but 

 resumes of physical experience— they are 

 classifications of phenomena according to 

 some principle of analogy. The study of 

 physics is usually approached in this way 

 —a way which is open to the very serious 

 objection that the student is very apt to 

 think that the principles or laws with which 

 he becomes familiar are laws in the judicial 



sense and not mere' resumes of experience 

 in the formation of which the mind which 

 makes the resume also plays a part. This 

 must be evident to any one who considers 

 the nature of classification and induction. 

 There is always behind the induction, in 

 the mind of the man who makes it, some 

 idea or principle upon which the classifica- 

 tion is based. 



In the second place the science of physics 

 may be studied as if it were a vital organ- 

 ism. We say without hesitation that this 

 science grows and develops—expressions in 

 which it is tacitly agreed that we are deal- 

 ing with a living organism, for what grows 

 and develops must surely have life in some 

 form. We may then fairly put the ques- 

 tion, 'In what does the life of science con- 

 sist?' The answer to this question seems 

 to me to be 'In the ideas and conceptions 

 upon which the inductions and classifica- 

 tions of tlie science are based.' Examples 

 may help to make this clear. Ptolemy ex- 

 plained the solar system upon one set of 

 ideas, Copernicus on another. Sir Isaac 

 Newton deduced the laws of optics with 

 the help of certain conceptions of rapidly 

 moving particles of matter. Young and 

 Fresnel classified those same observed 

 phenomena upon the basis of ideas of 

 waves in an elastic medium. Faraday and 

 Maxwell resumed the same experimental 

 facts by conceiving them to be manifesta- 

 tions of electric and magnetic forces. The 

 development in these sciences is thus seen 

 to consist in the changes in the conceptions 

 and ideas which lie at the basis of the 

 classifications and inductions which lead to 

 scientific laws. Hence if we would study 

 science as if it were a living organism we 

 must investigate the ideas which are back 

 of it and which form its real life. 



When studied in this latter way it will 

 be found that the science of physics is not 

 an isolated subject in the thought of man- 



