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.
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