blems. In a word, anthropology is perhaps the most important
science in the entire hierarchy to-day, precisely because it is an
immature science. Its position to-day is perhaps not unlike that of
paleontology at the close of the eighteenth century. May its promise
find as full fruition!

IX. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE OF MIND

ANY one who has not had a rigid training in science may advantageously
reflect at some length upon the meaning of true scientific induction.
Various illustrations in our text are meant to convey the idea that
logical thinking consists simply in drawing correct conclusions as to
the probable sequence of events in nature. It will soon be evident to
any one who carefully considers the subject that we know very little
indeed about cause and effect in a rigid acceptance of these words. We
observe that certain phenomena always follow certain other phenomena,
and these observations fix the idea in our mind that such phenomena bear
to one another the relation of effect and cause. The conclusion is a
perfectly valid one so long as we remember that in the last analysis the
words "cause" and "effect" have scarcely greater force than the terms
"invariable antecedent" and "invariable consequent"--that is to say,
they express an observed sequence which our experience has never
contradicted.

Now the whole structure of science would be hopelessly undermined
had not scientific men come to have the fullest confidence in the
invariability of certain of these sequences of events. Let us, for
example, take the familiar and fundamental observation that any
unsupported object, having what we term weight, invariably falls
directly towards the centre of the earth. We express this fact in
terms of a so-called law of gravitation, and every one, consciously or
unconsciously, gives full deference to this law. So firmly convinced
are we that the gravitation pull is a cause that works with absolute,
unvarying uniformity that we should regard it as a miracle were any
heavy body to disregard the law of gravitation and rise into the air
when not impelled by some other force of which we have knowledge. Thanks
to Newton, we know that this force of gravitation is not at all confined
to the earth, but affects the whole universe, so that every two bits
of matter, regardless of location, pull at each other with a force
proportionate to their mass and inversely as the square of their
distance.

Were