Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/722

704 is the possession of those who have adopted the scientific habit of thought. A writer in the "Lancet" remarks that a supersensitiveness with regard to truth is the essential characteristic of a scientific frame of mind. Every suggestion that is offered in explanation of phenomena which are imperfectly understood is received with cautious reserve. This characteristic is liable to be mistaken for uncertainty or for prejudice; but in reality it is solely the outward sign of a just appreciation of the numerous sources of fallacy, which so often tend to render the most brilliant speculations worthless, when examined rigidly and coldly by the ideal standard of truth. When gauging the probability of the truth of any suggested explanation, it is held to be scientifically unsound to welcome it merely because some one of undoubted honesty of purpose has expressed his entire belief in it. There is always the possibility of mental bias to be reckoned with, as well as the possibility of unconscious delusion. No single sense is to be implicitly trusted. A preconceived idea may lead to the recognition of one property, while others of greater importance are over-looked. Pushed to its logical conclusion, this ideal standard of truth demands more proof than can ever be obtained, and for working purposes it is found convenient to employ what may be called provisional truths, which we accept on account of the facts that appear to support them being vastly more numerous than those that appear to oppose them, or because they have been set forth by careful, conscientious observers, after thorough consideration and elimination of all probable sources of error.

Imperfect education fosters delusion; indeed, delusions are most rife with the ambitious condition which often comes from "a little learning," when the whole is liable to be rashly assumed from the part; when a false appearance of truth may be mistaken for explanation; when the result of an erroneous observation, unchecked by scientific training, may be hastily considered to amount to demonstration. Education can have no more important aim than to equip pupils with the best known method for the recognition of truth. Every day of their fives they will have to decide as to the truth or falsity of some statement; and what is to prevent their going astray, if they have not been practiced in searching out all modifying circumstances of a problem, if they have not been accustomed to finding the balance of evidence, and taught the great lesson that judgment is not to be given rashly, but must be suspended when sufficient data to warrant a decision are not obtainable? The old studies of our schools do nothing toward training the young in examining evidence and forming judgments. The study of science, however, when rightly conducted, mainly consists of the process of investigation, the very instrument which pupils must be able to use handily in after life to save themselves from becoming the victims of impostors and swindlers. Aside from the material advantages involved, the habit of making truth the goal of his exertions inspires in the young learner a respect and fondness for truth for its own sake which can not fail to have an elevating influence on his character. Science should have, therefore, an important place in every school programme; it should be introduced in the lowest grades, in order to give the child's unfolding faculties the proper bent; and it should be continued throughout the school course in order to save the half-formed habit of intelligent inquiry from being lost by an interruption of its exercise. Our children could well afford to grow up in ignorance of the height of Mount Chuquibamba and the length of the Brahmapootra; they might dispense with a smattering of French, or do without the Latin declensions and conjugations, if the time thus saved enabled them to gain some facility in