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The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, May 14, 1922, SECTION EIGHT, Image 115

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Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045774/1922-05-14/ed-1/seq-115/

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Science .
THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE. Edited
by J. Arthur Thomson. Vol. 1. G.
P. Putnam's Sons.
^ ^ T" IFE," says Prof. Thomson,
I j "is not for science, but
science for life." This wonderful
book aims not merely to demonstrate
that truth but also to aid
the ordinary intelligent human being
in making a practical, every
day application of it, in bis own
thinking, and, therefore, ultimately
in his own conduct. If one may use
the phrase without being misunderstood,
there is a sense in which this
book is nothing less than an offer of
a new Bible for humanity. It is far
more important in its focusing of
the facts of science and of the inevitable
inductions and arguments
and conclusions from those facts to
a central point of truth than it is as
a mere outline of the various
sciences considered. As an outline
it, of course, makes no pretense of
being encyclopedic; it will not take
the place of more detailed study in
any case. Neither is it an introduc
tory primer, or a receptacle of elementary
information. But as a comprehending
essay toward the statement
of science as a whole, as m
master key for the unlocking of the
riddle of the universe, there is
already enough in this first volume
to mark it as of supreme importance.
"And even more than science,"
Prof. Thomson continues, "to our
way of thinking, is the individual development
of the scientific way of
looking at things. Science is our
legacy; we must use it if it is to be
our very own." The thing that matters
for the present and future "con
trol of life" (to borrow a phrase from
an earlier book by Prof. Thomson)
is precisely the universal acquirement
of that "scientific way of looking
at things." Naturally the attainment
of that goal lies far ahead; it
will need generations of education
and further evolution to reach it, but
such* a book as this is an enormous
! aid, a long step forward, toward that
and. "In any caso?" he says, "we
have to try to square our views with
the facts, not the facts with our
viewB."
It is the attitude of the mind that
is vital; self-reliance and an examination
of facts rather than an evasion
of them by resort to any kind of
magic. That is the message of this
book. Nearly four hundred years
ago a very learned and highly Intel
ligent thinker, Agrippa of Nettesheim,
wrote a book De Incertitvdinc
et Tanitate Scientiarvm el Artium,
which was popular in its day and was
several times reprinted in an English
version. It was a sarcastic attack
upon the science of his day and
the pretensions of the learned.
Agrippa was himself a physician and
a man of force and originality, yet
he ended by turning hack to magic
as the only way out of his puzzles
It has taken mankind fully four
centuries or longer, if one goes back
to the beginnings of the Renaissance,
to get clear of this medieval
appeal to magic and to realize that
science is neither uncertain nor a
vain thing. Emancipation of the
mind is a slow process, and there is
no lack of magicians and of believers
in magic to-day. but they are steadily
decreasing and the guidance of hu
1 -V . Genealogical Tn
% ?! ? (
THE NEW YORK
Focussed F
man affairs Is no longer wholly in
their hands. It is to strengthen and
broaden the power a*d efficiency ot
the partially emancipated that this
book is written.
n.
It is aimed at the layman, the
commonplace citizen who cannot
hope ever to be an expert scientist?
and who does not need to be provided
he can acquire the "scientific
way of looking: at things." Few of
us can aspire to the expert manipulation
of a spectroscope, but all of
us can learn the principle of it and
can appreciate the story it has to
tell us, and understand its irrefutable
teaching.v As this "Outline" is,
in its own phrase, "a plain story,
plainly told," an estimate of it by
a layman, who can make no claim
to more than rudimentary acquaintance
with the details of the several
sciences concerned, is, possibly, more
worth while than an appraisal by
technically competent experts. But
the reader may be assured of its
scientific accuracy and up to dateness,
and the book has been accepted
by experts as authoritative.
Prof. Thomson is Regius professor
uaiuiai iiukUl 7 iu cut? uiuicioll|
of Aberdeen, and baa long: been
recognized as a leader. In addition
After T. B. Huxley Cby permission of Mitt
Skeletons of th
to his vast store of scientific knowledge
he is also the happy possessor
of a beautifully lucid style, a clarity
and directness and simplicity of diction
that is, in itself, a rarity. He
is a master of^ English as well as of
biology. The expression "edited by"
Prof. Thomson strikes one as a
little too modest. Of course he has
had a full corps of assistants and he
quotes freely from standard works,
but It is clear that the actual phrasing
of most of the bqok is his own.
It is a monumental achievement.
It is to be complete in four volumes,
this first one being naturally something
of a general Introduction, a
statement of the main theme, though
it treats in some detail of astronomy,
of the doctrine of evolution, of
biology, "the ascent of man" and the
"dawn of mind" and concludes with
the world of atoms, as the "foundation
of the universe.'' Future
volumes will doubtless amplify these
matters and also cover the remain
ing branches of scientific exploration.
The second volume, it Is announced.
will take up microscopy,
the astonishing new discoveries as to
the human body, and then natural
^ Chelorj?^
:5
M?im) ^ ,
A^.
6 <^r?*
TA.CT'e^aJ'mes
%
ee of Animals.
: herald, sum bay,"
or the Lay
history on broader lines, and will
also discuss the new psychology,
psychoanalysis and the science of
the human mind.
Before examining it in more detail
it is worth while to restate its
purpose, again in its own words?
"This work gives the intelligent student-citizen
... a bunch of intellectual
keys by which to open doors
which have been hitherto shut to
hHn, partly because be got no
glimpse of the treasures behind the
doors, and partly because the portals
were made forbidding by an unnecessary
display of technicalities."
ine dook always avoids too technical
language and it is astonishing
how little of that is really necessary
?and is nowhere above the comprehension
of any moderately intelligent
reader. Neither is it a clever
selection of easily presented facts,
a gathering of half truths likely to
mislead. It does not blink difficulties,
but is perfectly frank when they
ar^ met. Of course it calls for intellectual
effort on the part of the
reader. It is no "get-wise-qulck"
affair, no offering of a patent nostrum
of enlightenment. But the
facts and the doctrines evolved from
them are simply stated?not predigested,
but in a form readily absorbed.
k A
i*rs. Meurmillan).
ie Gibbon, Orang, Chimpanze,
The arrangement of the book is at
first glance a little peculiar. It
evQti appears, almost, to be skipping
about a bit after the opening chapters,
but as one goes on it falls
beautifully into an ordered scheme.
It involves numerous starts, and a
subsequent picking up of different
threads to the making of a complete
pattern, which, doubtless, will be
even more apparent when the work
is complete. And one must bear in
mind th.it it is the body of science
as a whole that he is presenting-, not
merely a glimpse of its component
parts. For anything like a comprehensive
outline of any of these
parts, astronomy, physics, chemistry,
geology, biology, Ac., it would
need a bulkier book than this.
What he is doing is to pick out the
essential portions of each of these
component sciences, the bases upon
which they re3t, and their main contributions
to the resultant whole.
He makes no pretense of finishing
ROLAND PERT
| and the si
i
for
! A gritty youngstei
agrees to do a cerl
] Would
i and chiefly becauj
\ tempting advances
? MEN
ALFRED A. KNOPF,
in Canada from the Mac
axseseeeeacei
MAY 14, 1922:
Reader
with one science before going on
to the next. We are concerned with
detail only so far as it is necessary,
and it is always the coming synthesis
toward which we are moving.
It is in itself a complex piece of
intellectual engineering to erect
I A K/V\lr 00 tWe
which is no less than the universe
itself, reaching out to the most distant
star and down to the tiniest
component of the atom?a universe,
too. that is never static, hut always
in process of becoming, without beginning
or end.
HI.
And that leads to the further observation
that the book is shot
through with an enthusiasm, an
almost emotional quality, a something
that can hardly be called anything
but a religion of science; but
that oomment must not be understood
to imply any slightest divergence
from dispassionate accuracy
of statement, it Has, nowever, tee
effect of a true Inspiration. It helps
one to grasp the ungraspable (for
example, in the immensities of astronomy,
the unthinkable bigness of
its figures and the terrifying quality
of its processes) better than any|
thing else save, perhaps, some ma
pfJL
, Gorilla, Man.
jestlc poem or supernal music. Yet,
of course, it is all taken very
quietly, without any exuberance of
adjectives or sentimentality. But
the scientist is always also the poet,
the seer and the prophet.
He begins, naturally, at the beginning,
so far as one can predicate any
beginning: in the "Romance of the
Heavens," the stellar universe, vast
beyond comprehension, the evolution
of the stars, the nebulae and the
nebular hypothesis, our own solar
system, the sun itself, and our sister
planets, comets and meteors ending
with a summary view of the science
as but a feeble beginning of what
may be learned. He avoids as much
as possible controversial points, but
often states the existing problem, as,
for instance, in the debatable ground
of the nebular hypotheses. One conclusion
emerges, as beyond question,
that is worth quoting, as central
Continued on Following Page.
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