PHILOSOPHY AND SPECIALTIES. 
11 
futation must be challenged. Without this process science 
would be a jumble of inconsistent opinions. While such 
testing and comparative discussion should exercise its func¬ 
tions in each specialized society it is yet more important that 
the results as appearing to its members should be carefully 
examined with the greatest freedom by specialists in other 
lines, and this examination is not only for further verification 
and comparison but to extend the area of acquired science. 
Practically science is only the existing condition of human 
knowledge, which of necessity is incomplete, though its form, 
to be science, should not be a broken surface, but a series of 
steps by which greater heights are gained. For these reasons 
all specialties should be tried before a court of general juris¬ 
diction—an Amphictyonic Council. After delay, doubt¬ 
less, the press brings forth scattered judgments of such a uni¬ 
versal tribunal; but a hand-to-hand contest is more active 
and decisive than a protracted war conducted by the dis¬ 
charge of heavy books at long range or by the skirmishing 
shots of pamphleteers. If scientific association is to do the 
most good some time and place for trial by battle should be 
provided, which cannot be done in any or in all of the spe¬ 
cialized societies working separately. 
The propriety of scientific contest on a common plane is 
readily illustrated by the yet undetermined controversy be¬ 
tween geologists and physicists respecting the age of our 
earth. As neither side can yet speak without contradiction 
by the other, neither should speak unless in the hearing of 
the other with expectation of response. A more popular 
illustration is in the historic fight between ordnance and 
engineers—that is, scientific attack by artillery or its equiva¬ 
lent and material defense by fortifications or similar protec¬ 
tion. In no systematized war department can either the 
officer of ordnance or of engineers be confided in except 
when, after experiment satisfactory to his own corps, his 
demonstration shall overcome the corps of his complement¬ 
ary antagonist. 
Thus by the interrelation and counteraction of specialties 
