stars, can be accounted for only by emanations or forms
of force, having probably some similarity with the corpuscles,
electrons, and rays which we are now producing in our laboratories. The
nineteenth century, in passing away, points with pride to what it has
done. It has become a word to symbolize what is most important in human
progress Yet, perhaps its greatest glory may prove to be that the last
thing it did was to lay a foundation for the physical science of the
twentieth century. What shall be discovered in the new fields is, at
present, as far without our ken as were the modern developments of
electricity without the ken of the investigators of one hundred years
ago. We cannot guarantee any special discovery. What lies before us is
an illimitable field, the existence of which was scarcely suspected ten
years ago, the exploration of which may well absorb the activities of
our physical laboratories, and of the great mass of our astronomical
observers and investigators for as many generations as were required to
bring electrical science to its present state. We of the older
generation cannot hope to see more than the beginning of this
development, and can only tender our best wishes and most hearty
congratulations to the younger school whose function it will be to
explore the limitless field now before it.

XX

THE RELATION OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO SOCIAL PROGRESS [Footnote: An
address before the Washington Philosophical Society]

Among those subjects which are not always correctly apprehended, even
by educated men, we may place that of the true significance of
scientific method and the relations of such method to practical
affairs. This is especially apt to be the case in a country like our
own, where the points of contact between the scientific world on the
one hand, and the industrial and political world on the other, are
fewer than in other civilized countries. The form which this
misapprehension usually takes is that of a failure to appreciate the
character of scientific method, and especially its analogy to the
methods of practical life. In the judgment of the ordinary intelligent
man there is a wide distinction between theoretical and practical
science. The latter he considers as that science directly applicable to
the building of railroads, the construction of engines, the invention
of new machinery, the construction of maps, and other useful objects.
The former he considers analogous to those phi