Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/577

Rh ; and in the application of these methods it shows a rigor which, by ill-prepared minds, might be mistaken for dogmatism. It insists upon an exact definition or delimitation, so to speak, of the object to be considered. "What are we talking about?" is a question always in order. It declines to have any dealings with things that are in their nature inaccessible to observation. It refuses to convert sentiments into convictions, or to build assurance upon doubtful analogical inference. It insists upon stopping short just where the facts stop short, and where, therefore, further verification fails. It shuns the dead-reckoning of metaphysical argumentation, and is no less guarded in its denials than in its affirmations. What it can not disprove it will not deny, any more than it will affirm what it can not prove. But if, because a statement or theory can not be disproved, any one wishes to claim that it is proved, Science protests, just as it would do if one were to pretend that, because a thing can not be proved, it is disproved. On every occasion Science says, "Let us take an exact measure of the facts, and let our words conform thereto." It is this severely truthful attitude which draws down upon men of science so much disfavor in certain quarters. If the scientist would only be a trifle accommodating, and where he sees but little would consent to believe much; if he would only accept the currency of confused thoughts and indeterminate expressions; if he would administer metaphysical comfort instead of constantly pointing to the unalterable and demonstrable conditions of human life he would be more popular with the unthinking multitude, and even with some would-be leaders of thought. But the scientist knows that, if there is any solidity in the edifice of science to-day, it is due to the firm attitude his predecessors, and in part his contemporaries, have maintained toward pleasing and popular errors to their determination to see the truth, and to bear witness to it, and to nothing else. We may say, using the words in a certain accommodated sense, that "scientific orthodoxy" requires that this attitude shall be maintained. Not to take every possible means for the elimination of error would not be "orthodox" from a scientific point of view; but further than this we can scarcely go in the use of the term. There need be no fear that the progress of knowledge will be checked, or that originality of view will in any way be repressed. The world never had so splendid a generation of scientific workers as it has to-day; and never, as we have already said, was scientific work being done under less restraint, or less undue influence from any kind of personal authority.

is impossible to read without intense interest of the experiments made in the New York State Reformatory to ascertain whether the moral and mental faculties of criminals might not be roused, and to some extent developed, by a judiciously arranged course of physical exercise. It appears, from the report furnished by Dr. H. D. Wey, that these experiments have been attended with marked success: mental growth has been promoted, and moral control has been increased as a direct result of the physical training administered. Accepting these statements as correct, as we are quite prepared to do, we see vast possibilities opened up of moral reform among a class of the population whose deficiencies have hitherto been the despair of philanthropists and philosophers. The true spirit of humanity was probably never stronger in any man than in Tom Hood; and yet even he was disposed to leave criminals to their own darkened intelligences and evil dispositions.

"'Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate,"