Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/528

518 priori method of the dogmatists nor the historico-critical method of the humanists is alone adequate for the attainment of definite knowledge of either the internal or the external world, or of their relations to one another. In fact, it has been shown over and over again that man cannot trust his unaided senses even in the investigation of the simplest and most obvious material phenomena. There is an ever-present need of a correction for personal equation. Left to himself, the à priori reasoner weaves from the tangled skein of thought webs so well tied with logical knots that there is no escape for the imprisoned mind except by resort to the weapon applied to cobwebs. And in the serenity of his repose behind the fortress of 'liberal culture,' the reactionary humanist will prepare apologies for errors and patch up compromises between traditional beliefs and sound learning with such consummate literary skill that even 'the good demon of doubt' is almost persuaded that if knowledge did not come to an end long ago it will soon reach its limit. In short, we have learned, or ought to have learned, from ample experience, that in the search for definite, verifiable knowledge we should beware of the investigator whose equipment consists of a bundle of traditions and dogmas along with formal logic and a facile pen; for we may be sure that he will be more deeply concerned with the question of the safety than with the question of the soundness of scientific doctrines.

Thirdly, it has been demonstrated equally clearly, and far more cogently, that the sort of knowledge we call scientific, knowledge which has in it the characteristics of immanence and permanence, is founded on observation and experiment. The rise and growth of every science illustrate this fact. Even pure mathematics, commonly held to be the à priori science par excellence, and sometimes called 'the science of necessary conclusions,' is no exception to the rule. Those who would found mathematics on a higher plane have apparently forgotten to consider the contents of the mathematician's waste-basket. The slow and painful steps by which astronomy has grown out of astrology and chemistry out of alchemy; and the faltering, tedious, and generally hotly contested, advances of geology and biology have been made secure only by the remorseless disregard which observational and experimental evidence has shown for the foregone conclusions of the dogmatists and the literary opinions of the humanists. Thus it has been proved by the rough logic of facts and events that the rude processes of 'trial and error,' processes which many philosophers and some men of science still affect to despise, are the most effective means yet devised by man for the discovery of truth and for the eradication of error.

These facts are so well known to most of you, so much a matter of ingrained experience, that the categorical mention of them here may