SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1886. 



SCIENTIFIC MEN AND THEIR DUTIES. 



The lionor of the presidency of such a society 

 as this — carrying with it, as it does, the duty of 

 giving at the close of the term of office an address 

 on some subject of general interest — has been 

 aptly compared tf; the little book mentioned in the 

 Revelations of St. John, — the little book which 

 was 'sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly.' 

 I can only thank you for the honor, and ask yom* 

 indulgence as to the somewhat discursive remarks 

 which I am about to inflict upon you. 



There is a Spanish proverb to the effect that no 

 man can at the same time ring the bell and walk 

 in the procession. For a few moments to-night I 

 am to ring the bell, and being thus out of the pro- 

 cession I can glance for a moment at that part of 

 it which is nearest. At first sight it does not ap- 

 pear to be a very homogeneous or well-oydered 

 parade, for the individual members seem to be 

 scattering in every direction, and even sometimes 

 to be pulling in opposite ways ; yet there is, after 

 all, a definite movement of the whole mass in the 

 direction of what we call progress. It is not this 

 general movement that I shall speak of, but rather 

 of the tendencies of individuals or of certain 

 classes ; some of the molecular movements, so to 

 speak, which are not only curious and interesting 

 of themselves, but which have an important bear- 

 ing upon the mass, and some comprehension of 

 which is necessary to a right understanding of 

 the present condition and future prospects of 

 science in this country. 



The part of the procession of which I speak is 

 made up of that body or class of men who are 

 known to the public generally as 'scientists,' 

 ' scientific men,' or ' men of science.' As com- 

 monly used, all these terms have much the same 

 significance ; but there are, nevertheless, shades 

 of distinction between them, and in fact we need 

 several other terms for purposes of classification 

 of the rather heterogeneous mass to which they 

 are applied. The word ' scientist ' is a coinage of 

 the newspaper reporter, and, as ordinarily used, 

 is very comprehensive. Webster defines a scien- 

 tist as being ' one learned in science, a savant,' — 

 that is, a wise man, — and the word is often used 

 in this sense. But the suggestion which the word 



President's address oeiore the Philosophical society of 

 Washington, D.C., Dec. 4, 1886, toy John S. BiUings. 



conveys to my mind is rather that of one whom 

 the public suppose to be a wise man, whether he 

 is so or not, of one who claims to be scientific. I 

 shall therefore use the term ' scientist ' in the 

 broadest sense, as including scientific men, whether 

 they claim to be such or not, and those who claim 

 to be scientific men whether they are so or not. 



By a scientific man I mean a man who uses 

 scientific method in the w^ork to which he specially 

 devotes himself ; who possesses scientific knowl- 

 edge, not in all departments, but in certain special 

 fields. By scientific knowledge we mean knowl- 

 edge which is definite and which can be accurate- 

 ly expressed. It is true that this can rarely be 

 done completely, so that each proposition shall 

 precisely indicate its own conditions, but this is 

 the ideal at which we aim. There is no man now 

 living who can properly be termed a comjplete 

 savant, or scientist, in Webster's sense of the 

 word. There are a few men avIio are not only 

 thoroughly scientific in their own special depart- 

 ments, but are also men possessed of much 

 knowledge upon other subjects, and who habitu- 

 ally think scientifically upon most matters to 

 which they give consideration ; but these men are 

 the first to admit the incompleteness and super- 

 ficiality of the knowledge of many subjects which 

 they possess, and to embrace the opportunity which 

 such a society as this affords of meeting with 

 students of other branches and of making that 

 specially advantageous exchange in which each 

 gives and receives, yet retains all that he had at 

 first. 



Almost all men suppose that they think scien- 

 tifically upon all subjects ; but, as a matter of 

 fact, the number of persons who are so free from 

 personal equation due to heredity, to early associa- 

 tions, to emotions of various kinds, or to tempora- 

 ry disorder of the digestive or nervous machinery, 

 that their mental vision is at all times achromatic 

 and not astigmatic, is very small indeed. 



Every educated, healthy man possesses some 

 scientific knowledge, and it is not possible to fix 

 any single test or characteristic which will dis- 

 tinguish the scientific from the unscientific man. 

 There are scientific tailors, bankers, and poli- 

 ticians, as well as physicists, chemists, and biolo- 

 gists. Kant's rule, that in each special branch of 

 knowledge the amount of science, properly so 

 called, is equal to the amount of mathematics it con- 

 tains, corresponds to the definition of pure science 

 as including mathematics and logic, and nothing 



