WILLIAM B. DWIGIIT. 4o 



wealth. This may be illustrated by noting how geo- 

 graphical science suffered when Martin Frobisher cut 

 short his scientific explorations in the arctic regions to 

 turn his second and third voyages into a commonplace 

 and barren search for gold. In the third place, natural 

 science has been too much entangled with religious in- 

 struction and theologic dogmatism. Men had failed to 

 see that two separate lines of research for truth, as re- 

 gards the conditions and surroundings of men, if honest 

 and thorough, must necessarily, in the end, be har- 

 monious and consistent. They therefore too often 

 thought it necessary to harness religious and scientific 

 study tightly together, as one team, to drag behind them 

 a single chariot of human thought. But their mettle 

 and gait have proved quite too diverse to make the ex- 

 periment a successful one. It is found that, if they are 

 disposed each in independent harness, charging none the 

 less side by side over the battle-fields of human progress, 

 they will win more certain victories for men. 



The science of this century is then, as never before, 

 both honest and sinrple. In reaching this point, as we 

 have seen, it has emancipated itself in two ways. First, 

 it has freed itself from everything with which it was 

 formerly involved which does not imply a thoroughly 

 honest seeking for natural laws. Secondly, it has sepa- 

 rated itself from entanglement with other lines of thought 

 which, though they may be in harmony with itself, and 

 equally honest, are not strictly scientific. 



The first claim, then, which may be made for natural 

 science to-day, and the one which is the foundation for 

 all other claims is, that it is now itself — a single inde- 

 pendent, homogeneous unit, as a system of human stud}^. 

 Freed from heterogeneous entanglements, it now forms 

 a measurably well-defined field of thought. There is 

 really no absolutely sharp line of definition between any 

 of these great departments of human thought ; it only 



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