Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Secondly, they defy prejudice. They call for the open court, the fair
trial, the impartial judge. They say “No” to worthless witnesses and to
packed juries.
Thirdly, they demand a sufficient amount of evidence. True science is
the enemy of wildcat theories and reckless generalizations. “The United
States has always come out on top in every war!” cries one. “There’s
no danger that we’ll ever be whipped.” “I don’t like foreigners,” says
another. “I had a Frenchman for a neighbor once, and he was dishonest.
I’m in favor of shutting out foreigners.” Such reasoning as this--and
how astoundingly common it is!--must be cut down at the root by the
habit of trained induction.
Fourthly, the love of truth and appeal to reason, which are in the
very grain of the scientific mind and heart, laugh at credulity. They
do not scoff at authority, or reject it. But they say: “We must know.
If we learn from you, we must know that you know. Who are you? How do
you know? If you know, you will not offer us absurd contradictions of
reason and accepted truth.”
Again, they make their abode with the man who can receive them at his
own intellectual fireside. They require that his mind be his own, that
his opinions be his own, that his acts be his own, and that he defend
his property in them, have pride in them, and stand by them.
Again, they demand sufficient time for care, for securing the evidence
and for weighing it, and for considering its effect. They demand the
completed work, and they reject all results which do not come from time
employed, but are hasty guesses.
And they are not tossed about like a wave of the sea. They do command
to prove all things, but they also exhort to hold fast that which is
good. First, to what is good of our own and in ourselves. It is well
enough to throw away our guesses, quickly made and often wrong. But the
fruit of honest investigation, the conclusions of careful reasoning on
sufficient information, these are the science student’s riches. He may
add to them or replace some of them by better, but he will not throw
them away at a suggestion, or trade them to the first speculator who
offers something else. He will not have a supply of new beliefs for
every day, or for every month, or for every year. Second, we should
hold fast the proved good which we have received from others. And we
should honor and revere those who have opened the way for us to the
truth--those who have above other men possessed the power of reason
and beneficently used it for the world. The spirit of science, which
sets infinite value on knowledge, can not fail to teach reverence for
those who have made it possible for us to know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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