January 4, If^O.j.] 



SCII'LXCK 



to say in a clear and intoirsting manner, 

 and Clerk Maxwell, the mathematical phys- 

 icist, could \^Tite paragraphs and vci-sos 

 racj- enough for Fimch. No better writers 

 of instructive and agreeable English can be 

 wished for than Darwin, Tyndall, Huxlej- 

 and Spencer. Sciknce hopes to be so for- 

 tunate as to discover and awaken the de- 

 sired talent among the American students 

 of nature. Its experience is worth some- 

 thing. Its managers know the rocks and 

 shoals that must be avoided. They will 

 welcome aid, suggestions, contributions, 

 news, from everj- t|uarter. They ask co- 

 operation. Thej- bi'lieve that the art of 

 writing can be acqiured. One of the fun- 

 damental canons of success is to WTite so 

 clearly that the rapid reader can perceive 

 what is meant. 



Such will be the aims of the new manage- 

 ment of SCIEXCE. 



Finally,— 



" If to do were as easy as to know wliat were good to 

 do, chapels luul been eluirches and poor men's cottages 

 princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his 

 own instructions : I win easier teach twenty what 

 were goo<l to lie done, than to be one of the twenty 

 to foUow mine own teaching." 



D. C. GiLMAX. 



John's Hopkins University. 



THE CHARACTER AND AIMS OF SCIEXTIFIC 

 INVESTIGATION.'^ 



The influence of this Association is in the 

 highest and best sense of the word educa- 

 tional. Its discussions are aimed to present 

 the correct methods of scientific investiga- 

 tion and to be guided by the true spirit of 

 scientific iiKiuiry. Permit me to explain 

 this statement a little, for in it lies more 

 than anywhere else the right to existence 



* From the introductory address of I)r. Itaniel <!. 

 Brinton, President of tlie American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, at the annnal n\eetiT)g in 

 Brooklyn, Angnst, 1894. 



of our organization and the best etl'ects it 

 can exert ui«)n its own members or upon a 

 community where it convenes. 



The goal which we endeavor to attain is 

 scientific truth, the one test of which is that 

 it will bear untrammelled and unlimited 

 investigation. Such truth must be not only 

 ^erified, but always verifiable. It must 

 welcome every test ; it must recoil ft'om no 

 criticism, higher or lower, from no analysis 

 and no skepticism. It challenges them all. 

 It asks for no aid from faith ; it appeals to 

 no authority ; it relies on the dictum of no 

 master. 



The evidence, and the onlj' evidence, to 

 which it appeals or which it acknits, is that 

 which is in the power of every one to judge 

 — that which is fiu-nished directly by the 

 senses. It deals with the actual world 

 about us, its objective realities and present 

 activities, and does not relegate the inquirer 

 to dusty precedents or the mouldy maxims 

 of commentators. The only conditions 

 wliich it enjoins are that the imperfections 

 of the senses shall be corrected as far as 

 possible, and that their observations shall 

 be interpreted by the laws of logical induc- 

 tion. 



Its aims are distinctly beneficent. Its 

 spirit is that of charity and human kind- 

 ness. From its peaceful victories it returns 

 laden with richer spoils than ever did war- 

 rior of old. Through its discoveries the 

 hungry are fed and the naked are clothed 

 by an improved agriculture and an in- 

 creased food supply ; the dark hours are de- 

 prived of their gloom through methods of 

 ampler illumination ; man is brought into 

 fi-iendly contact with man through means 

 of rapid transjiortation ; sickness is dimin- 

 ished and pain relieved by the conquests of 

 chemistry and biologj-; the winter wind is 

 shorn of its sharpness by the geologist's 

 discovery of a mineral fuel ; and so on. in 

 a thousand ways, the comfort of our daily 

 lives and the pleasurable employment of 



