542 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. Vni., No. 201 



else. It also corresponds to the distinction which 

 most persons, consciously or unconsciously, make 

 between the so-called physical, and the natural 

 or biological sciences. Most of us, I presume, 

 have for the higher mathematics, and for the 

 astronomers and physicists who use them, that 

 profound respect which pertains to comparative 

 ignorance, and to a belief that capacity for the 

 higher branches of abstract analysis is a much 

 rarer mental quality than are those required for 

 the average work of the naturalist. I do not, 

 however, propose to discuss the hierarchy of the 

 sciences ; and the term ' science ' is now so gener- 

 ally used in the sense of knowledge, more or less 

 accurate, of any subject, more especially in the 

 relations of causes and effects, that we must use 

 the word in this sense, and leave to the future the 

 task of devising terms which will distinguish the 

 sciences, properly so called, from those branches 

 of study and occupation of which the most that 

 can be said is that they have a scientific side. It 

 is a sad thing that words should thus become po- 

 larized and spoiled, but there seems to be no way 

 of preventing it. 



In a general way we may say that a scientific 

 man exercises the intellectual more than the 

 emotional faculties, and is governed by his 

 reason rather than by his feelings. He should be 

 a man of both general and special culture, who 

 has a little accurate information on many subjects 

 and much accurate information on some one or 

 two subjects, and who, moreover, is aware of his 

 own ignorance and is not ashamed to confess it. 



We must admit that many persons who are 

 known as scientists do not correspond to this 

 definition. Have you never heard, and perhaps 

 assented to, some such statements as these : 

 " Smith is a scientist, but he doesn't seem to have 

 good common sense," or "he is a scientific 

 crank"? 



The unscientific mind has been defined as one 

 which "is willing to accept and make statements 

 of which it has no clear conceptions to begin 

 with, and of whose truth it is not assured. It is 

 the state of mind where opinions are given and ac- 

 cepted without ever being subjected to rigid tests." 

 Accepting this definition, and also the implied 

 definition of a scientific mind as being the reverse 

 of this, let us for a moment depart from the beaten 

 track which presidential addresses usually follow, 

 and, instead of proceeding at once to eulogize the 

 scientific mind and to recapitulate the wonderful 

 results it has produced, let us consider the un- 

 scientific mind a little, not in a spu-it of lofty con- 

 descension and ill- disguised contempt, but sympa- 

 thetically, and from the best side that we can find. 

 As this is the kind of mind which most of us 



share with our neighbors, to a greater or less de- 

 gree, it may be as well not to take too gloomy a 

 view of it. In the first place, the men with un- 

 scientific minds form the immense majority of the 

 human race. 



Our associations, habits, customs, laws, occupa- 

 tions, and pleasures are, in the main, suited to 

 these unscientific minds, whose enjoyment of 

 social intercourse, of the every-day occurrences 

 of life, of fiction, of art, poetry, and the drama, 

 is perhaps none the less because they give 

 and accept opinions without subjecting them to 

 rigid tests. It is because there are a goodly num- 

 ber of men who do this that the sermons of clergy- 

 men, the advice of lawyers, and the prescriptions 

 of physicians have a market value. This un- 

 scientific public has its uses. We can at least claim 

 that we furnish the materials for the truly 

 scientific mind to work with and upon ; it is out 

 of this undifferentiated mass that the scientific 

 mind supposes itself to be developed by specializa- 

 tion, and from it that it obtains the means of its 

 own existence. The man with the unscientific 

 mind, who amuses himself with business enter- 

 prises, and who does not care in the least about 

 ohms or pangenesis, may, nevertheless, be a man 

 who does as much good in the world, is as valuable 

 a citizen, and as pleasant a companion, as some of 

 the men of scientific minds with whom we are 

 acquainted . 



And in this connection I venture to express my 

 sympathy for two classes of men who have in all 

 ages been generally condemned and scorned by 

 others, namely, rich men and those who want to 

 be rich. 



I do not know that they need the sympathy, for 

 our wealthy citizens appear to support with much 

 equanimity the disapprobation with which they 

 are visited by lecturers and writers, — a condemna- 

 tion which seems in all ages to have been bestowed 

 on those who have by those wlio have not. 



So far as those who actually are rich are con- 

 cerned, we may, I suppose, admit that a few of 1 

 them — those who furnish the money to endow 1 

 universities and professorships, to build labora- 

 tories, or to furnish in other ways the means of 

 support to scientific men — are not wholly bad. 

 Then, also, it is not always a man's own fault that 

 he is rich ; even a scientist may accidentally and 

 against his will become rich. 



As to those who are not rich, but who wish to 

 be rich, whose chief desire and object is to make 

 money, either to avoid the necessity for further 

 labor, or to secure their wives and children from 

 want, or for the sake of power and desire to rule, 

 I presume it is unsafe to try to offer any apologies 

 for their existence. But when it is claimed for 



