Lectures On the Method of Science

ion, a suggestion was made to the Delegates by Mr. A. W. Brown-formerly Exhibitioner of Christ Church, and now Principal of the University Extension College at Stafford-to the effect that a different plan should be pursued this year. Instead of a course upon some particular branch of scientific investigation, it was suggested that a course should be given illustrating the forms taken by scientific method in various departments of research. The suggestion was approved by the Delegates, and a scheme of Lectures was drawn up. The course as delivered in Oxford was received with . great satisfaction, and it appeared to the Delegates that it might be of value to publish some of the Lectures in the hope that their high interest, both in themselves and in their mutual connexion, would justify their presentation to a wider public. It is unnecessary to point out that the scheme is a difficult one in itself, and was rendered still more so by the fact that the Lecturers, some of whom were not resident in Oxford, had no opportunity of formal conference beforehand as to the exact points to be dealt with by each. They had the scheme before them, and general suggestions as to the purpose of the course, and nothing more. A few words may, therefore, be permitted as to the way in which the lectures now published illustrate the scheme. The first two Lectures, which were introductory to the whole course, describe in general terms the aim and character of scientific method from two slightly different points of view. Professor Case shows the various forms in which the general material of scientific study is exhibited . the various logical processes by which the facts under investigation are co-ordinated and explained. Professor Gotch, on the other hand, draws from an account of an historic incident in the warfare between science and ignorance, the true temper and aims of the scientific man his relentless criticism of authority, his appeal to reason alone, his refusal to regard any fact as unimportant or meaningless together with his bold but cautious use of the imagination for the extension and consolidation of knowledge. From this point we pass to the special sciences and here two methods were possible. The Lecturers might have produced what would have been, in strictness, logical dissertations4iscussions on the method of science with illustrations from their special department. The alternative plan was to describe some particular investigation belonging to each special science, and to show the method of the science, emerging, as it were, from the description of the facts concerned, the way in which they are approached, and the degree and character of the certainty attained. The second of these two plans was the one chosen. Professor Sherrington illustrates by an account of the problem of the warmth of the body his description of Physiology as the study of the working of living things. Professor Weldon shows the difficulties with which the student has to contend who aims at giving an accurate and trustworthy interpretation of the facts involved in Inheritance. Mr... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.