Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/527

Rh All these methods have been used more or less by all thinking men. But for the purpose of ready classification it may be said that the first has been used chiefly by dogmatists, including especially the founders and advocates of all fixed creeds from the atheistic and the pantheistic to the theistic and the humanistic; the second has been used chiefly by humanists, including historians, publicists, jurists and men of letters; and the third has been used chiefly by scientists, including astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, naturalists, and more recently the group of investigators falling under the comprehensive head of anthropologists. The first and third methods are frequently found to be mutually antithetical, if not mutually exclusive. The second occupies middle ground. Together they are here set down in the order of their apparent early development and in the order of their popularly esteemed importance during all historic time previous to, if not including, this first year of the twentieth century.

No summary view of the progress of science, it seems to me, can be made intelligible except by a clear realization of these two facts, which may be briefly referred to as man's conception of the universe and his means of investigating it. What, then, in the light of these facts, has been the sequel? The full answer to this question is an old and a long story, now a matter of minute and exhaustive history as regards the past twenty centuries. I have no desire to recall the dramatic events involved in the rise of science from the Alexandrian epoch to the present day. All these events are trite enough to men of science. A mere reference to them is a sufficient suggestion of the existence of a family skeleton. But, setting aside the human element as much as possible, it may not be out of place or time to state what general conclusions appear to stand out plainly in that sequel. These are our tangible heritage and upon them we should fix our attention.

In the first place, the progress of science has been steadily opposed to, and as steadily opposed by, the adherents of man's primitive concepts of the universe. The domain of the natural has constantly widened and the domain of the supernatural has constantly narrowed. So far, at any rate, as evil spirits are concerned, they have been completely cast out from the realm of science. The arch fiend and the lesser princes of darkness are no longer useful even as an hypothesis. We have reached—if I may again use the cautious language of diplomacy—a satisfactory modus vivendi if we have not attained permanent peace in all our foreign relations. Enlightened man has come to see that his highest duty is to cooperate with Nature, that he may expect to get on very well if he heeds her advice, and that he may expect to fare very ill if he disregards it.

Secondly, it appears to have been demonstrated that neither the à