August 26, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



269 



stems, and enabling it to put forth new 

 branches and to produce fruit ; and, though 

 the leaves fall and decay, the very products 

 of decay nourish the roots of the tree and 

 reappear in the new leaves or theories which 

 succeed. ' ' With this spirit, it will not hesi- 

 tate to attack any of our pet scientific, so- 

 ciological or theological dogmas, which are 

 frail as all human systems must be. These 

 attacks are without venom, however, for 

 "Science * * * requires for its satisfactory 

 prosecution the employment of our very 

 noblest powers, and it is by them alone that 

 we can hope to attain a knowledge of the 

 most supreme and ultimate truths which 

 our intellectual faculties have the power to 

 apprehend. ' ' — (Mivart. ) 



Although Goiigh remarked to Dalton, 

 ' The human mind is naturally partial to 

 its own conceptions and frequently con- 

 descends to practise a little self-delusion 

 when obliged by the force of facts and 

 arguments to abandon a favorite notion,' 

 the supreme lesson in the history of science, 

 most marked in our own time, is the pur- 

 suit of truth. Much time has been spent 

 in defining art and casting that which did 

 not fit a pet definition into a rubbish box 

 called science, or 'natural knowledge' as a 

 member of the Royal Society was pleased 

 to term it. Many of those insisting upon 

 such a classification are not without reason, 

 for have not certain phylogenetics promul- 

 gated on the flimsiest excuse some pan 

 mixia, as Weismann's germ-plasm theory 

 and then easily remembering the conclu- 

 sions, but forgetful of the evidence, main- 

 tained that it was a law? Or has not a 

 Tesla over magnanimously taken the public 

 into his confidential conversations with the 

 inhabitants of Mars? 



It has been fashionable in years gone by 

 to say that poetry and truth were antagon- 

 istic. Coleridge and Poe, I think, insisted 

 that science and poetry were irreconcilable. 

 Incongruous statements, as when Shake- 



speare speaks of a toothache 'as humor or 

 a worm,' doubtless gave rise to such 

 thoughts. The Avon poet put it according 

 to the scientific teachings of his time. 

 Civilization and methods of interpreting 

 the truth change and progress, but truth 

 itself is eternal. Science will no more re- 

 place literature than can a geometric dia- 

 gram be substituted for a landscape paint- 

 ing. 



Science, to be sure, is destructive of con- 

 ventions. Freedom is the breath of science, 

 and the unshackled movement of boundless 

 human curiosity must affect literature. 

 Men of science look not pleasantly upon 

 their scavenging camp followers, who, riot- 

 ous in thought, indulge in a license of 

 speech which provokes quite justly those 

 who conscientiously differ from them, and 

 unfortunately inculcates ideas in those un- 

 able to winnow the chaff from the grain. 



Thus it may be seen that modern science 

 makes for purity and genuineness. There 

 is nothing more abhorrent to a man of sci- 

 ence than the pretenses of a scientific 

 mountebank. This elevation is dual in its 

 effect, general and local. As an evidence 

 of the former there have resulted amelio- 

 rated conditions of society by protecting 

 food from harmful adulterations, improved 

 sanitation, better and more reasonable 

 treatment for diseases, general distribution 

 of the products of wealth among all civil- 

 ized peoples, and in many other ways too 

 numerous to mention. A reader after 

 Count Tolstoy and his 'recognition of the 

 bankruptcy of experimental science,' can 

 not but be impressed with his earnestness, 

 and yet feel that he looks only very close 

 at home when he writes: "The men of 

 science of our time think and speak and 

 the crowd follows them, while at the same 

 time there was never a period or a people 

 among whom science in its complete sig- 

 nificance stood on so low a level as our sci- 

 ence to-day. One part of it, that which 



