792 é Scientific Fact and Scientific Inference. i 
Now, nothing is more plain than that science does mot con 
itself to demonstrated truth. It is easy to find ins 
‘publications hundreds of theories which have been ad 
defended, disputed, and rejected. Scientific literature is 
filled with speculations and theories which are no more 
onstrated than the most unreliable of non-scientific th 
Scarcely a publication appears that does not contain some! 
speculation, so that science is burdened with hundreds of 
proved, unprovable hypotheses, making it as difficult some 
to discover accepted truth of scientific teaching as to di 
the accepted truth of those lines of thought which we call 1 
scientific. Yet in spite of this coming and going of hypothe 
or rather, as we shall see later, on account of it, the í 
still that science is the only sure thing, and its conclusi 
the only ones that cannot be gainsaid. We find it alme 
versally recognized, not only among scientists, but am 
thinking men, that if a universally-accepted scientific con 
comes in conflict with any other, it is the scientific cone 
which stands and eventually modifies the other. If this a 
for scientific facts is both consciously and unconsciously ; 
nized, it must rest upon some foundation. 
Absolute knowledge is, of course, impossib 
what we observe or prove, it is always open to the agno 
deny all knowledge. We can never be certain that ouf 
not utterly deceiving us, and that our mental processes an i 
contradistinction to reality. We can never prove that w p 
verse is intelligible, nor can we prove that the fact of o y 
compelling us to assume nature to act in certain W4 
_ that nature does act in these ways. It is, of course 
attempt to demonstrate the truthfulness of nature es 
for this reason scientific observations and conclusions 
to doubt as well as all others, Fundamentally, no Of 
more certain than another, because a question as to ae 
of thought affects everything alike. No advance g 
without the fundamental assumption of the truth of | 
nature. We must, then, always start with this ass” ning 
the question we are to consider becomes this: i ich 
truthfulness of mind and nature, are the conclusions 
call scientific any more likely to be correct than 
we call non-scientific? That they are ‘almost u! 
le. No m 
pao 
pil 
