SENTIMENT AND t^CIENCE. 727 



but is the result of hasty conclusions and sweeping generalizations made by the 

 masses. 



The people ought to remember what the faithful investigator cannot forget, 

 that science is yet largely tentative and hypothetical, and that her best established 

 conclusions are only strong probabilities. 



A recent EngUsh scholar has expressed his conviction, " That before a vigor- 

 ous logical scrutiny the reign of law will prove to be an unverified hypothesis, 

 the uniformity of nature an ambiguous expression and the certainty of our scien- 

 tific inferences to a great extent a delusion." 



The value of science is, of course, very high, while the conclusions are kept 

 well within the limits of the data upon which they are founded, but it is pointed 

 out that our experience is of the most limited character, compared with what 

 there is to learn, while our mental powers seem to fall infinitely short of the task 

 of comprehending and explaining fully the nature of any one object. "Ours 

 must be a truly positive philosophy, but that a false negative philosophy, which, 

 building on a few material facts, presumes to assert that it has compassed the 

 bounds of existence, while it nevertheless ignores the most unquestionable phe- 

 nomena of the human mind and feelings." This writer defines a law of nature 

 not as an uniformity which must be obeyed by all objects, but "merely an uni- 

 formity which is as a matter of fact obeyed by those objects which have come be- 

 neath our observation," and adds that it would not be incompatible with logic 

 nor any reproach to our scientific method if objects were discovered which should 

 prove exceptions to any law of nature. 



It is not my purpose to awaken unreasonable doubt where certainty may be 

 had, but I want to suggest the propriety of caution and candor, the distinguishing 

 traits of the real student in whatever field. As the domain of knowledge widens 

 man discovers with an ever increasing degree of probability that no one branch 

 of science is independent of all or any of the others and that no one of them all 

 can be rightly understood without taking account of its relations to the rest. 



The too exclusive study of a single subject leads to an over confident and 

 dogmatic spirit, to unjust and harmful discriminations. The labor of specialists 

 is, it is true, enriching the world with its results — but the labor of many special- 

 ists — not one 



There is a large amount of conceit in the reputed dying statement of a cer- 

 tain German student, regretting that he had not devoted his entire life to the 

 single letter " Iota." But the world would have been little better for his "Iota," 

 if others had not studied the rest of the Greek letters and all of the cases. In 

 the better mood of our age no department of learning will say to any other "I 

 have no need of thee." Each acknowledges to every other its peculiar domain 

 and its peculiar importance, and each in its own way points onward to a more 

 complete understanding of man, " the proper study of mankind." 



This institution, in observance of whose first annual Commencement we have 

 gathered here to-night, is founded upon this principle of comparative study. It 

 seeks to apply the general principle to the special department of medical science. 



Vl-46 



