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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1071 



described only the normal workings of the 

 scientific mind as applied to research. The 

 mind of science is one of high ideals. It is 

 a modest mind, for it recognizes that there 

 are many things it does not know. It is a 

 discriminating mind, for it tests and selects 

 or rejects as the test may tell. It is a prac- 

 tical mind, for it aims to find the hidden 

 things of nature and put them to use. It 

 is an honest mind, for it seeks neither to 

 deceive nor to be deceived. It is an open 

 mind, ready to reject the truth which seems 

 to be in favor of that which is proven to be. 

 The scientific mind, if it be true to itself, 

 knows no passion nor prejudice nor pre- 

 dilection, unless it be the passion for the 

 truth that is not yet known, a JTidgment 

 given in advance in favor of that truth 

 when it shall be known and a preference 

 for any form of truth whatever, and a dis- 

 taste for shams. I have a friend who said 

 that if he did not know why he knew what 

 he thought he knew he wanted to know, and 

 in this attitude of thought he expressed 

 something of the outreach of the mind of 

 science, which ever seeks to learn the what 

 and the why of things. 



In the business world facts are respected. 

 This is so because facts are stubborn things 

 and insist upon being respected. They have 

 a way of bowling one over if one does not 

 respect them. Enter a great mill and look 

 about you. The machine which is nearest 

 at hand is itself the illustration we seek. It 

 is the embodiment of ascertained fact. As 

 you stand and look at it and think of how 

 it came to be you will find your mind run- 

 ning back through a long series of facts 

 which one by one were gathered often 

 through many years and which have ended 

 in the mechanism which you see. If it were 

 not made in accord with the facts out of 

 which it grew it would cease to work and 

 become a helpless thing. If it is not used 

 in accordance with the facts which control 



its service it ceases to be useful and again 

 becomes a helpless thing. It is made up out 

 of past facts. It is working out present 

 facts, and its product often points toward 

 the development of facts which are to be. 



We stand, you and I, whether in school or 

 office or mill, in the midst of a constant evo- 

 lution of facts and development of truth. 

 The truth of yesterday is not that of to-day. 

 The truth of to-day is but the parent of 

 that which is to be to-morrow. Prejudice 

 and truth are enemies, and truth has no 

 finer task than that which it daily performs 

 of destroying prejudice. Where prejudice 

 is, truth is so far excluded, for no judgment 

 given in advance of known truth is either 

 sound or safe. 



Let us not, however, go on as if we were 

 paying mere verbal homage to a high ideal. 

 Let us become practical in the matter. The 

 relation men hold to truth, their respect for 

 facts, their use of facts, largely determines 

 their place and power in life. We make 

 progress in the business world not neces- 

 sarily by research for facts but at least by 

 outreach for them and by respectful treat- 

 ment of them when they are found. If the 

 mill you are some day each of you to run is 

 not run in accord with the facts that 

 environ that mill it will not run long. Nay, 

 you may find the more obvious facts that 

 should control the mill and by conforming 

 to them may succeed a little. The amount 

 of success will depend a good deal upon how 

 far your vision goes in seeing the facts that 

 surround you and on the extent to which 

 your practise goes in using those facts. The 

 man of broad mind sees more facts than he 

 who has a narrower vision. Mental near- 

 sight is usually not profitable. To be far- 

 sightsd is at times physically inconvenient 

 but commercially has much in its favor. 

 It is more essential, however, that the sight, 

 whether it be far or near, shall know a fact 

 when it sees it and be ready to abandon a 



