Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899

Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899 - Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899

The popular mind persists in thinking that there is a wide difference between science and knowledge in general. Yes, there is a wide difference, but it is just the difference that there is between a trained and organized body of men for the accomplishing of some great work, and a crowd of men unorganized and undisciplined. What unscientific knowledge has accomplished may be roughly seen in the condition of savage races to-day; while the changes wrought by knowledge trained and organized, in enlarging the sum of knowledge, in extending men's power of perception, and in increasing the facilities not merely for living, but for living well, are changes in comparison with which all others recorded in history are trifling. It will be profitable for us, in order to get a clearer idea of scientific method, to trace as briefly as possible the history of science and the development of the scientific idea. The very beginning of science is beyond our ken. We can form no idea of just what stage in the intellectual development of the race witnessed the rise of training and order in men's knowledge. Long before the dawn of history there must have been some degree of orderliness in men's knowledgesome grouping of facts, and reasoning from one thing to another. Rude classification would be made, e. g., among animals, as some were found to be good for food and others not; so among herbs, as to size, form, color, use for food and medicine, poisonous qualities, etc.; so among woods, as[Pg 290] some were better adapted than others to use as instruments of war and of the chase. Men must also, very early in their development, have noticed the changes that took place in the heavens: the sun by day, the moon and the stars by night; have grouped the stars into little clusters here and there as they seemed rudely to resemble forms of things which they knew, and as some were brighter than the rest; have begun to reckon periods of time according as position of sun and moon varied. In their observation of the heavens no other phenomenon would have attracted as much attention as an eclipse, and for a long time men would have ascribed this occasional phenomenon to the intervention of some supernatural power. In process of time, however, as their observations were made with more care and recorded, some regularity would be noticed in these, as in other phenomena of the skies; and the period of their recurrence being at last approximately known by those more learned than the rest, predictions of eclipses would be made and verified by what would seem to the multitude direct supernatural aid. Hence the earliest scientific records that have come down to us are of eclipses observed, and in time regularly predicted, by the Chaldeans; hence also the reputation that was always given to the Chaldeans of having magical power. Coming down now to the time when men first seemed to have a genuine spirit of scientific inquiry, we find it among the Greeks some five hundred years B. C. Whatever of rudely scientific work had been done before, seems to have been for practical or religious purposes. About that time, however, men began to investigate and speculate in order to find out the truth, and soon we see a class of men, known as philosophers, whose one aim was to find out, because they loved, the truth. "What they saw excited them to meditate, to conjecture, and to reason; they endeavored to account for natural events, to trace their causes, to reduce them to principles" (Whewell). They set about this, too, in no small, narrow way. They wanted to go right to the bottom of things, of everything at once, and to know the great principles, as they called them, of Nature and of life. That was the reason why the actual scientific results of Greek thought, with all its splendid powers, were so meager. Two things are the necessary conditions of sciencefacts, and the human power of reasoning. Two processes must be carried out in order to yield any scientific result: facts must be patiently accumulated, and the mind must set its reasoning powers to work on them. It was in the first of these that the Greeks were wanting. They did not realize the need of endless patience in learning the details of Nature's way of working. They wished to take in all of Nature with one tremendous sweep of thought. They did a little investigating and a great deal of reasoning. Occasionally, however, we[Pg 291] find an instance of inquiry into the cause of more definite and limited phenomena, which seems much more to suggest the true spirit of physical inquiry. We have one recorded by Herodotus, which is the more remarkable from being so nearly alone. It is in reference to the fact which he had observed about the flooding of the Nilethat it was flooded for one hundred days, beginning with the summer solstice; and that from that time it diminished, and was during the winter months very low. He tells us that he made pressing inquiries about the cause of it from many of the Egyptians, but that he found no satisfaction, and apparently little interest in the matter. Three different theories on the subject that had been propounded by the Greeks he examines in detail and confutes; and finally he states a theory of his own. And yet even in this instance of scientific inquiry he commits the usual fault of the Greekshe does not pursue far enough the investigation of the facts of the case, and the absence of the facts he tries to make up for by exhaustive arguments on words used in describing the phenomena. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

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Ebook Number: 45361
Author: Various
Release Date: Apr 11, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English

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Editor: Youmans, William Jay, 1838-1901