Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-01-05
SCIENCE,

quite recently that we have seen an
article which seriously explains why
this is fact.
The article referred to is headed,
OPINIONS AND BELIEFS IN
SCIENCE,
and appeared conspicuously last week
on one of the front pages of the New
York Scientific American. 1t reads as
follows:
GAS scientific experiments cannot be
repr oduced, authority necessarily re-
mains our principal guide. In re-
markable book which bears the title
Opinions and Beliefs" the well-known
French scientist Gustav LIE Bon shows
how large part mere hearsay plays in
scientific investigation. A scientist
never publishes results which he does
not suppose to be exact, but the influ
ence of suggestion is so strong that
even regarding very precise facts, an
intelligent person may come under an
illusion and take the visions of his
imagination for realities. One of the
most striking of this kind is the mis-
chance to which nearly all of the men,
bers of the Academy of Sciences were
victims about forty years ago. On the
faith of an eminent mathematician, the
assembly inserted in its proceedings
about hundred letters supposed to be
written by Newton, Pascal. Calico,
and others. These had been made en-
tirely by forger of little education and
were full of vulgarities and errors, but
the names of their celebrated authors
and of the scientist who presented
them caused them to be accepted.
Most of the members had no doubts
about their authenticity up to the day
when the forger avowed his fraud.
When the prestige had vanished, the
style of the letters was pronounced
wretched by the same persons who be-
fore had praised them highly.
1.-The recent adventure of the N-rays
is even more typical, and brings out not
only the role of prestige, but also of
suggestion and mental contagion.
Here we have to do not merely with
experiments which are taken as faith
by those who have no opportunity to
verify them, but also with observations
declared to be exact by very large
body of scientists who claimed to have
repeated them. NJ Blondot, leading
professor of physics, observed, as he
thought, that many bodies gave out
special rays, which he called N-rays.
These were detected mainly by their
action on phosphorescence. Their
wave-length could be measured very
closely. What is most singular is
that most of the French scientists
working in this field repeated his ex-
periments and saw exactly what was
suggested to them to see. For two
years the Academy proceedings were
full of reports from scientists such as J
Becquerel, Broca, and Bchat on the
wonderful properties of the rays, and
Prof. D'Arsonval, among others, de-
livered lectures upon them. The French
Academy wished to recompense such an
important discovery, and delegated a
committee headed by M. Mascart to
make an official examination of the
authors researches. The commi ttee
were much impressed, and thus prize
of $40, 900 was awarded to the author.
During this time, however, foreign
scientists who did not come under the
prestige of the French savants, tried in
vain to repeat the experiments. Then
several of them decided to go to the
authors laboratory to observe them.
They soon found that he was the victim
of most complete illusion, for he
would continue to make measurements
of the supposed reflections of the rays,
even when the ''defiecting" was sur
reptitiously removed. The matter was
carefully examined by a number of
scientists, with the result that the
spector of the N-rays was laid, once
for all.
"A few years ago an assistant in
Prof. Lippmann's laboratory at Paris
claimed to have discovered that an
electrified body in movement did not
defect the magnetic needle contrary to
Rowland's experiment., result which
would have been of the highest i'm
portance for the theory of electricity.
The author was not we'll known, but as
the work was done in the presence of
Prof. Lippmann, he had the benefit of
his authority, and the question was dis
cussed by physicists until a foreign
scientist proved that the conclusions
were erroneous and showed the reason
why. In the case of the exact sciences
the truth comes out sooner or later,
as we have to do with real measure
|, mentS and close observation If is moi