Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
that compose it, aims no less at unfolding the true constitution of
society, the springs of human action, the strength and weakness of human
character, the possibilities of good and evil that reside in every
individual, the misery that waits on wrongdoing, and the happiness that
flows from just and pure deeds. There is a way, we are persuaded, of
presenting the world of humanity to the minds of the young which would
tend to create in most--in the vast majority--a strong desire to take
a helpful part in the work of their age and generation, and not to
concentrate all their efforts on the business of self-advancement. It is
merely a question of seeing the facts in a broadly human, which is after
all the only true, light.
Let us have in education literature and analytical studies and science
with its grand constructions and sanifying discipline--all the useful
elements--but let the true goal of education be kept ever in view, which
is, not to enable this individual or that to shoot to a pre-eminence
over his fellows, but to place the individual in right relations with
his fellows, to give to each a career of useful activity, and to prevent
that dreary disappointment with life and all its works which overtakes
so many in their declining years. Life has its burdens, but it is not
vanity; and the normal action of human beings on one another should be
to give to each separate existence a higher value and deeper sources of
happiness.
_A DOUBTFUL APPENDIX TO SCIENCE._
It was perhaps to be expected that Sir William Crookes, as president
of the British Association, would, whatever else he touched upon in
his presidential address, say something in regard to the special views
which have now for many years been associated with his name. In point of
fact he did do so. Beginning with a survey of the world's resources in
the matter of wheat production, and an inquiry as to how the fertility
of the soil may in future be kept up, he passed to the constitution of
matter and molecular action as illustrated by the phenomena of Röntgen
rays, and finally referred to "experiments tending to show that, outside
our scientific knowledge, there exists a force exercised by intelligence
differing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals." These
experiments were made, we are told, more than thirty years ago. It does
not appear that any substantial or indubitable addition has been made
to the evidence which these experiments afforded, or were supposed to
afford; but Professor Crookes "thinks" he can "see a little further
now." "I have glimpses," he says, "of something like coherence among the
strange, elusive phenomena." That undoubtedly is a good thing to get
glimpses of; but there is perhaps room for question whether the extreme
interest of the professor in the "strange elusive phenomena" has not
led him to make a little more of the "glimpses" than strict scientific
method would warrant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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