THE 
l ÅMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vu SEPTEMBER, 1887. No. 9. 
_ SCIENTIFIC FACT AND SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE, 
3 BY H, W. CONN, PH.D. 
E is the custom of scientists to regard their contributions to 
knowledge as the only ones concerning which there is any 
5 » requiring no retracing, while non-scien- 
i thought can be certain of nothing, one generation pulling. 
x y different view of nature. Theology is still divided into 
beliefs, each bitterly opposed to the others. What | 
ce has been made our scientists think has been 
through their discoveries, and they sometimes 
which: Production of any positive advance in knowledge 
: S "cat has not been made through the instrumentality of science. 
ona S then, claims to be the only sure realm of knowledge, 
oad claims that its truths, once established, are established for 
Whi an "s scientific method has indeed been defined as one 
Uiisciene: ts nothing without proof, in contradistinction to the 
a method, which is willing to accept entire many the- 
Wha ellei for which there is no proof and the meaning of 
A lea | i 
pan XXIL—no, 9. 
54 
