The Spirit of the Age

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Certainly those papers which have assumed to condemn the establishment of a chair of positive philosophy at Harvard, and the publication of lectures of Professor John Fiske, the rble expounder of "positivism" in that institution, by the New York lVorld, have greatly mistaken the spirit of the age. The thinkers of the period are struggling by every possible means to arrive at truth. 'I'hey have disembarrassed themselves of all superstitious reverence for old doctrines and old beliefs, and have entered into their work with the determination to recognize nothing as true merely because it has long been accepted as such. They are obeying the injunction of St. Paul : "Prove all things." The clamor of bigots against free thought and free discus-cussion avails no more to stem the current of thought, than the howling of the wind below Niagara to stay the mighty cataract. If some—if all the men who are molding the thought of the age, are wrong in their conclusions, the prohibition of discuion in our publie institutions is the very best way to perpetuate their errors. It has been in all ages by prohibiting discussion that falsehood and quackery have flourished. And no essentially false theory can ultimately outlast the scrutiny which is brought to bear upon it by free discussion. Therefore, if positivism is a false philosophy, it has been brought to execution in its introduction to the thought which pervades our universities, and its enemies should ask no greater advantage than is given through its public exposWon by one of its acknowledged champions, in the columns of a widely circulated journal. It thus offers itself to general attack, and its defeat is morally certain if it has not truth for its basis. Those who refuse to confront it are moral cowards, who do so only in the fear that their favorite creeds will suffer in the conflict.

It’s Time to Stand Up for Science

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.

If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.

In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Thank you,

David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American