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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 504. 



ophers first endeavored to place science 

 upon a purely rational basis and they were 

 accused of impiety. To be sure, it may 

 be said that such impeachments have not 

 ceased to sound for over two thousand 

 years and cost the lives of many good and 

 noble men. The church considered Galileo 

 and similar workers as rank heretics. Cer- 

 tain scientific endeavors were tolerated, and 

 the knowledge gained confined within mon- 

 .astic walls. In the hearts of some was that 

 yearning to make known the truths they 

 had dreamed ; and monks like Roger Bacon, 

 Basil Valentine and Berthold Schwartz put 

 forth writings so mysterioiis as to be in- 

 comprehensible to many, but having hidden 

 realities not previously made known. 



Science was centuries acquiring its nat- 

 ural voice. In the dark ages only a small 

 band of learned folk made itself known, 

 yet the voice of Kepler, saying 'The scien- 

 tist's highest privilege is to Imow the mind 

 and to think the thoughts of God, ' sounded 

 three centuries ago, has echoed with in- 

 creasing reverberations to our own time. 

 Science, harassed by ding-dong, useless and 

 unnecessary authority, was driven into 

 rigid pious paths. As the very spirit of 

 science is inquiry, it lives upon liberty and 

 would not be bound by authoritative mis- 

 conceptions. It is not strange, then, that 

 in a democracy of thought permitting the 

 widest range of opinions men should have 

 been borne away to the other extreme, and 

 such catching expressions as 'every one for 

 himself and no god for any one' became 

 prevalent. 'Scientific arrogance' was a 

 pet expression of theologians Avho tres- 

 passed none the less than had the scientists. 

 'The abuse heaped upon Newton for sub- 

 stituting blind gravitation for an intel- 

 ligible Deity' that Johu Fiske tells about, 

 was nothing in comparison with the subse- 

 quent treatment of geologists by theologians 

 for disturbing the Biblical chronology. The 

 highest teaching of scientific verities is the 



absolute necessity for the existence of God. 

 In fact, one need not go far for a chemical 

 confirmation of the resurrection, as death 

 is but a phase of our continual internal 

 change; 'so when this corruptible shall 

 have put on incorruption and this mortal 

 shall have put on immortality, ' our natural 

 body sown in dishonor and weakness, shall 

 be raised a spiritual body, clothed in glory 

 and power; 'and as we have borne the 

 image of the earthly, we shall also bear the 

 image of the heavenly.' It is only in the 

 most modern times that the scientific spirit, 

 which looks to the relative and temporarily 

 excludes the absolute, has begun to be fully 

 applied and extended to ideas of every 

 order. 



I am by no means unmindful of the dog- 

 matism of science at times, for it may be 

 recalled that Daguerre was actually tem- 

 porarily incarcerated in an asylum because 

 he maintained he could transfer his like- 

 ness to a tin plate; Franklin's paper on 

 lightning conductors was laughed at and 

 not published by the Royal Society; and 

 Galvani was attacked by his colleagues, 

 designated a know-nothing, and called 'the 

 frog's dancing master.' The Count de 

 Gasparin even wrote in the Journal des 

 Deiats, 'Take care; the representations of 

 the exact sciences are on their way to be- 

 come the inquisitors of our days. ' 



Science does not pretend to say the last 

 word in regard to the universe, but it builds 

 hypotheses upon observed and unobserved 

 facts which are altered or cast aside in the 

 light of all new correctly obtained facts. 

 It is ever ready to declare the increasing 

 uncertainty of many delightful and ideal 

 conceits, which is not to be taken as vacil- 

 lation, but as evohition, growth. The late 

 distinguished Lord Playfair at the Aber- 

 deen meeting of the British Association 

 said: "The changing theories which the 

 world despises are the leaves of the tree 

 of science drawing nutriment to the parent 



