HEBER D. CURTIS 57 



should be a good thing for a scientist; to paraphrase 

 Mark Twain, it will keep him interested and prevent 

 him from brooding over being a scientist. 



I personally prefer another definition for science. 

 Science is the body of things known, with the attempt 

 to arrange all things in orderly fashion. The impor- 

 tant words are italicized with intent. The first one 

 indicates that science need place no limit whatever on 

 Its attempts to explain things. Under this ruling, the 

 speculations of religionists and philosophers regarding 

 a First Cause are a form of science. Many of these 

 may be wrong, as have been many scientific theories 

 relating to more mundane data. Secondly, my cosmos 

 must be orderly; I must have connections uniting the 

 totality of data In what we term order. I care little 

 how we shall define "order"; whether we call it cause 

 and effect, sequential harmony, or the concept of pur- 

 pose and end. Neither do I worry lest this "order" 

 I am attempting to postulate for the universe Is sim- 

 ply a projection outward Into the universe of my own 

 laws of thought, and a conceivably fallacious analogy 

 with entirely unallied developmental gamuts. I have 

 no other process, and this must serve. As will be 

 illustrated later, modern science, In spite of itself, is 

 beginning to admit here and there, the formerly dis- 

 trusted and hated element of hypothesis. In order 

 to avoid that doubtful word, "hypothesis," or Its 

 brother, "speculation," it is quite usual to substitute 

 the more innocuous and apparently more scientific 

 phrase, — "scientific inference." Scientific inference, a 

 deductive method, Is of wide and valid use, yet when 

 we use it to the limit, the boundaries between It and 

 pure hypothesis are vague and ill-defined. 



