454 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVlll. No. 458. 



of that by induction. Indeed, this is under- 

 stating the case, for in the vast majority 

 of the problems which confront us in every- 

 day life the solution can only be reached if 

 an accurate grasp of the facts can be ob- 

 tained from observation. The training- of 

 the mind solely by means of experiments 

 carefully designed to eliminate all con- 

 fusing and collateral elements savors too 

 much of 'milk for babes' and too little of 

 'strong meat for men.' 



Mr. Teall in his masterly address to the 

 Geological Society in 1901 pointed out 

 'that the state of advancement of a science 

 must be measured, not by the number of 

 facts collected, but by the number of facts 

 coordinated. ' Theory, consistent, compre- 

 hensive, tested, verified, is the life-blood 

 of our science as of any other. It is what 

 history is to politics, what morals are to 

 mamiers, and what faith is to religion. 



It is almost impo.ssible to collect facts 

 at all without carrying a working hypoth- 

 esis to string them on. It is easy to follow 

 Dai'win's advice and speeiilate freely; the 

 speculation may be right, and if wrong 

 it will be weeded out by new facts and criti- 

 cism, while the speculative instinct will sug- 

 gest others. In hypothesis there will always 

 be an ultimate survival of the fittest. 



And it is not only easy but absolutely 

 neces.sary, because in geology, more perhaps 

 than in anj' other science, hj'potheses are 

 like steps in a staircase : each one must be 

 mounted before the next one can be 

 reached; and if you have no intention of 

 coming back again that way, it does not 

 matter if you destroj' each step when you 

 have made u.se of it. Every new hypothesis 

 has something fresh to teach, and nearly all 

 have some element of \mtruth to be ulti- 

 mately eliminated. But each one is a stage, 

 and a necessary stage, in progress. 



In physics and in chemistry the chief 

 difficulties are those which surround the 



making of experiments. When these have 

 been successfully overcome the right theory 

 follows naturally, and verification is not 

 usually a very lengthy process. In geology, 

 on the other hand, theory is more quickly 

 arrived at from the numerous facts ; but the 

 price is paid in the patience required for 

 testing and the ruthless refusal to strain 

 fact to fit theory. Every hypothesis leads 

 back to facts again and again for verifica- 

 tion, extension and improvement. 



Many of the leading conclusions of our 

 science have not yet become part of the 

 conunon stock of the knowledge of the 

 world ; indeed they are not even fully real- 

 ized by many men eminent in their own sci- 

 ences. The momentum given by Werner 

 and Playfair, Phillips and Jukes, Sedgwick 

 and Lyell, and other pioneers of the fighting 

 science, has died down, and in the interval 

 of hard work, detailed observation, minute 

 subdivision, involved classification and 

 pedantic nomenclature which has followed, 

 and which I believe to be only the pre- 

 lude to an epoch of more important- gen- 

 eralization in the immediate future, it has 

 been difficult for an outsider to see the 

 wood for the trees. He has hardly yet 

 realized that facts as ■sital to the .social and 

 economic well-being of the people at large 

 and conclusions of as great importance in 

 the progress of the science and of as far- 

 reaching consequence in the allied sciences, 

 are being wrung from nature now as in the 

 past. 



'The imimaginable touch of time,' the 

 antiquity of the globe as the abode of life, 

 the absolute proof of the evolution of life 

 given by fossils, the proofs of change and 

 evolution in geography and climate, the 

 antiquity of man, the nature of the earth's 

 interior, the tremendoiis cumulative effect 

 of small causes, the definite position of 

 deposits of economic value, the role played 

 by denudation and earth-movement in the 



