THE JUST CLAIMS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



AX ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE VASSAR 



BROTHERS INSTITUTE, 



October 14. 1884. 



BY PROF. WILLIAM B. DWIGHT. CHAIRMAN OF THE SCIENTIFIC SECTION. 



It is only within comparatively recent times that nat- 

 ural science has become sufficiently restricted to its 

 proper and independent work, so that by the nature and 

 extent of that work its claims upon society can be fairly 

 judged. The expression natural science is here intended 

 to cover the entire study of material nature in all its 

 departments. During earlier stages of human history 

 it has suffered, either by being too much involved with 

 other departments of human thought and industry, or 

 still worse, from being used, under the name of an honest 

 study of nature, to promote pursuits whose motives 

 were more or less sordid and unworthy. 



The low estate of scientific study during those transi- 

 tional ages, and the steps by which it developed into the 

 free and noble science of to-day, were set before us last 

 week in a most learned, graphic, and philosophic way 

 by the honored president of this Institute. If you will 

 recall the points on that occasion so clearly brought to 

 your attention, there will be little need for me to say 

 more on this point than to give a few general statements 

 as to the difference between the work and status of nat- 

 ural science now from what these were in former days. 



The great department of astronomy was for centuries 

 intermingled with the untruthful so-called science of as- 

 trology. This unholy alliance wrought constant injury, 



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