Extracted text
In an address delivered before the committee of the Massachusetts Legislature last winter on the matter of the vivisection bill, Mr. E. H. Clement, editor of the Boston Transcript, dealt with what he called “Science with a large S,”’ its pretensions, its dogmatism, its fanaticism, and its tyranny. In the course of his address he pointed out that the day of its domination was drawing to a close.
‘Science with a large S” as presented in the popular press is pretty much anything that anyone chooses to state, providing it has something to do with the material universe. True science is nothing more nor less than humble, patient collation of facts in the material universe, with the ultimate hope of deducting therefrom some of the laws that govern the universe. [True science is true knowledge; and absolute science employs both the inductive and deductive processes of reasoning.—Ed. Flaming Sword.] It is ever seeking knowledge by the process of induction.
Now a perfect induction is possible only when all the facts are known. When all the facts are not known an induction must remain more or less an hypothesis, although, as in one or two cases such as Newton’s laws, deductive proof has confirmed the original induction and doubt is no longer possible. But in most matters and particularly in the case of what is known as evolution the inductive conclusions of science have never attained any greater development than that of a plausible hypothesis, nor should it be forgotten that in this very matter of evolution many hypotheses have been held, practically all being mutually destructive.
The idea of evolution was not born with Darwin. It is to be found in the church. The thing that Darwin gave to the world was a supposed law of evolution commonly known as the law of natural selection, which ‘law’? is today as dead as Pharaoh. It is reasonable to say that most scientific men concede genetic evolution as a very plausible hypothesis. But cancelling out of the argument the mutually destructive theories that have from time to time been advanced in the cause of evolution, all that remains is a statement that variety of species is accounted for by a tendency on the part of species to vary!
Illuminating, is it not? And yet that is where the theory is today, while “Science with a large S” has settled for readers of yellow journalism the origin of matter and force, the origin of motion, the origin of life, the origin and nature of consciousness, the immortality of the soul and free-will, together with all other transcendental problems.
Truly as the sage Billings observes, it is better to know nothing than a whole lot of things that are not so.— Wall Street Journal.
Editorial transcription checked against the cited scans; historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 19, No. 14 · Sep 12, 1905 · PDF p. 12