Maech 30, 190O.] 



SCIENCE, 



485 



ton's Principia marked an epoch in science. 

 It brought no money to its author, though 

 succeeding generations have built upon 

 it the remunerative science of navigation. 

 Huyghens, Young, and Fresnel established 

 the wave theory of light, the foundation of 

 the now useful science of optics. They 

 gave the products of their labor freely to. 

 the world, living economically, and dying 

 with very small possessions. Gauss and 

 Weber established the modern science of 

 magnetism, while Volta, Oerstedt, Ampere, 

 Ohm, Faraday, Henry, and Maxwell worked 

 together and in succession to make elec- 

 tricity an exact science. Thej' received no 

 pecuniary rewards, but we to-day are reap- 

 ing the fruits of their labors in the electrical 

 industries that afford employment to a 

 million of men and absorb hundreds of 

 millions of capital. Shall we declare that 

 these original investigators, these men of 

 genius, were not representatives of liberal 

 culture, merely because the subjects upon 

 which their brain power was expended 

 happened not to relate to literature, or lin- 

 guistics, or art, or history ? Some of these 

 much decried scientific men, such as Tyn- 

 dall, Huxley, and Darwin proved them- 

 selves to be adepts in the art of writing 

 clear and forcible English. "Were they de- 

 void of culture? Tyndall knew little of 

 Latin and nothing of Greek, but in the 

 battle where tradition was arrayed against 

 truth he displayed such culture and such 

 vigor as to make him a match for more 

 than one classically educated bishop. 



The attempt to establish a line of division 

 between science and liberal culture is an 

 anachronism. We have outgrown the au- 

 thority of our fathers who accepted the ex- 

 clusive gentility of a certain group of studies 

 and shrugged their shoulders at the young 

 parvenue whom they called science. Let 

 me here express my sj^mpathy with the 

 protest directed against the abuse of this 

 comprehensive word, science. If the mean- 



ing of a word is determined by etymology, 

 science merely means knowledge. It makes 

 no difference whether the subject be chem- 

 istry, physics, economics, or philosophy ; if 

 the knowledge be definite, consistent and 

 organized, it is science. If it be vague, if 

 mere fancy is accepted as a substitute for 

 fact, if dogma is balanced against demonstra- 

 tion, it is not science, it is not knowledge, 

 though it may be brilliant imagination. But 

 the meanings popularly attached to words 

 are not determined by etymology. Whether 

 rightly or wrongly, the word science has be- 

 come restricted by tacit popular agreement 

 to our knowledge of things in contrast with 

 our knowledge of words or our speculations 

 about ideals. When we appeal to nature 

 our conclusions need verification before final 

 acceptance. Those methods of investiga- 

 tion which imply verification are conven- 

 tionally called scientific. If they become 

 successfully applied to any subject what- 

 ever, the knowledge thus acquired becomes 

 scientific. 



Thanks to the scientific spirit that has 

 leavened all modern institutions of learn- 

 ing, the scientific method is now increas- 

 ingly applied to subjects which were form- 

 erly bound down by the shackles of tradition . 

 It has raised to a high and dignified level 

 subjects which were not recognized a gener- 

 ation ago as having any place in a liberal 

 education. Prominent among these new 

 sciences, these new elements of liberal cul- 

 ture, are political science and economics, 

 equal in importance with physics and 

 chemistry, even if they do not call for 

 laboratory work. These new sister sciences 

 may not be so traditionally genteel as the 

 prim old sisters called classics and mathe- 

 matics, but they are fresh, smiling and ap- 

 parently quite irresistible. 



The extent to which the old and tradi- 

 tional culture studies are giving place to 

 modern and equally liberal culture studies 

 is well shown by reference to last year's 



