IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
21 
confusion; let us call things by their right names. Let mental, 
nervous and all sorts of more or less imaginary ailments be 
treated as the symptoms indicate; let effect be linked to appro- 
priate cause as elsewhere in physiological research, and scien- 
tific methods may, at length, discover all attainable truth; but, 
let no man, forgetful of every principle of scientific procedure, 
and oblivious to its very first requirements, heaping up rub- 
bish from the deservedly forgotten idealistic philosophy of the 
middle ages, go forth in the name of science to proclaim that 
there is no pain; that there is no disease; that there is no 
bodily ill; that “all, all is mind! ” Science knows him not! 
That such delusions find lodging among most excellent 
people, in no wise affects the case. The remedy lies, I shall 
still maintain, in the inculcation of real science which insists 
on the ascertainment of truth, and especially in the application 
of the method of science which trusts the evidence of the 
senses acting in their normal province and in a natural way. 
But is it not astonishing that almost every ancient delusion 
that aims nowadays to lift its head among enlightened men 
assumes to speak in the name of science, thus unwittingly pay- 
ing tribute to the reputation which the scientific movement has 
made for itself in the world? Thus we have “occult science,” 
strange contradiction of terms! and “esoteric science” and 
“mystic science ” and “monistic science,” “spiritualistic 
science,” “ theosophic science, ” and I know not what. Surely 
science has difficulties and perplexities of its own to deal with, 
sufficient that it may be allowed to protest against the imposi- 
tion of such a burden of unheard-of accumulated rubbish. I 
repeat; the only remedy for false science is true science; the 
only knowledge that will save people from the constant recur- 
rence of dominant superstition is found in that form of human 
knowledge and activity which this academy is set to foster. 
Literature will not do it; art will not do it; even religion, 
divine though her mission be, will not do it; has not done it. 
Her gospel seems to assume the spread of another gospel, that 
of common sense, and the gospel of common sense is modern 
science. If our people could once get into the way of looking 
at things as they really are, and judging the natural world on 
the principles of simple, clear-eyed, common sense, wisdom 
would at last be justified of her children. 
But there is still another phase of the situation which I 
think ought to be mentioned here to-night. There is to-day, at 
