Midland Naturalist/Volume 01/The Meaning of 'Science'

by Frederick Thompson Mott

Passages from Popular Lectures.

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By F. T. Mott, F.R.G.S.

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No. 1.—The Meaning of "Science."

Let us consider what we understand, and what we ought to understand, by the word "Science." The word itself is simply the Latin word Seientia, stripped of its Roman toga and put into an English dress. Its original meaning is "knowledge," and the Romans used it in its widest sense, as including all manner of facts and propositions which were known or supposed to be known. But in later times its meaning has been restricted. The domains of art and of literature have been struck out from the domain of science. In our modern view science deals with principles, art with practice. Science enquires about the laws of matter and mind, art applies these laws in the production of results. To ascertain the laws of animal life and of inherited qualities in science; to improve the breed of sheep and cattle by the application of this knowledge is art. But the domain of science is still very wide, and is further broken up by modern analysis into such sections as "pure science," dealing with abstract ideas; "physical science," investigating nature mathematically; and "natural science," studying the laws of life. Yet there is another analysis which requires to be made, and which seldom is made by those who speak of sciences in a popular manner. Science, we say, means "knowledge:" but what do we understand by "knowledge?" Under cover of this word are commonly confounded two very different states of mind, and the confusion has led to many serious results.

If we say that we know there is light in this room, and that we know the light is produced by the gas, we are speaking of two quite different kinds of knowledge, only one of which has any right in a strict sense to be called knowledge at all. The other is not knowledge but belief.

We know that there is light in this room; but we do not know that it is produced by burning gas; we only believe that it is.

Mark the difference. Knowledge is that of which the mind has direct perception. Belief is that state which the mind arrives at from the balancing of evidence.

That there is light here is not a matter of inference, or judgment, or opinion; it is net a conviction arrived at from weighing evidence; it is the simple perception of a sensation. There can be no possibility of denying it. It is true knowledge.

But to say that the light is produced by gas is to refer to a judgment—not a direct perception, We do not perceive the gas. It is far away from us. We argue in our minds "what produces this light? Is it the sun? Is it the moon? Is it candles? Is it gas?" We consider, and balance the evidence, and conclude that the probability of its being gas far outweighs all other suggestions. A conviction or belief is the result. But this is not true knowledge, and it has nothing like the certainty of true knowledge.

We never can be sure that all possible evidence, upon any subject whatever, has come before us; nor that we have equally and impartially weighed all the evidence we had. How do we know, for instance, that the gas-company are not trying an experiment to-night, and using something which is not gas after all? We mas have had the firmest belief that the light was produced by gas and yet find that we were wrong.

Every belief is open to contradiction, and liable to change. As long as a real belief exists at all it has the same force with us as if it were knowledge, but it is essential to our progress to remember the clear distinction between them, and ia keep the mind open and attentive to fresh evidence, because it may at any time bring ns nearer to the absolute truth.

We know that we exist; that we feel pleasure and pain; that two and two make four; that the whole is greater than its parts; that there are such things as light and darkness, warmth and cold; that the rainbow is curved and coloured; that our cat has four legs, and our brother only two. These are all direct perceptions of truth, whether derived from the senses or from reason. But we only believe that we shall exist at any future time; that certain acts always produces pleasure and others always pain; that we could go to a grocer and buy a pound of sugar for five-pence; that the earth is spherical and revolves round the sun; that every cat has four legs, or every man only two. These are inferences, judgments, not perceptions, liable at any moment to be contradicted and proved false.

At present there is an immense amount of confusion in popular language, and even in scientific language, between propositions of these very different kinds, Almost any one would say in popular conversation, "Oh, you know that a cat has always four legs;" and few scientific writers would hesitate to say "we now know that the sun is about 92,000,000 of miles distant from the earth." Both statements are incorrect in calling that knowledge which is really belief. Probably a time will come in which greater precision of language will be demanded; when belief will be as clearly distinguished from knowledge as art now is from science.

Every student of science should cultivate such precision as one of his most precious instruments in the investigation of nature. For man's attempts to pick her locks are still supremely clumsy. He needs to make his keys a thousand times more delicate than any which he uses now before they will pass the wards of nature's inmost sanctuaries.

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