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Youmans, Dr Edward Livingston - Popular Science Monthly

Whatever subjects involve accessible and observable phenomena, one causing another, or in any way related to another, belong properly to science for investigation.

Intellect, feeling, human action, language, education, history, morals, religion, law, commerce, and all social relations and activities, answer to this condition ; each has its basis of fact, which is the legitimate subject-matter of scientific inquiry.

Those, therefore, who consider that observatory watching, laboratory work, or the dredging of the sea for specimens to be classified, is all there is to science, make a serious mistake. Science truly means continuous intelligent observation of the characters of men as well as of the characters of insects.

It means the analysis of mind as well as that of chemical substances.

It means the scrutiny of evidence in regard to political theories as inexorable as that applied to theories of comets.

It means the tracing of cause and effect in the sequences of human conduct as well as in the sequences of atmospheric change.

It means strict inductive inquiry as to how society has come to be what it is, as well as how the rock systems have come to be what they are.

In short, science is not the mystery of a class, but the common interest of rational beings, in whom thinking determines action, and whose highest concern it is that thought shall be brought into the exactest harmony with things — and this is the supreme purpose of education.