ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon observed that words become idols and obstruct understanding. Words in common usage designate what is “most obvious to the vulgar.” Men of learning, therefore, alter the common meaning of words in order to achieve accuracy through definition. In the social sciences, men have not accepted the value of knowledge to nearly the same extent as in the natural sciences. It can be said that men should explore such knowledge and its possible benefits to the limit, since they never know enough to determine that limit. There was resistance to the advance of knowledge in the natural sciences as well, and in the absence of constructive alternatives the problems before must be solved by all available avenues of detached inquiry. Scientific inquiry presupposes a belief in science. Most people adhere to this belief in the expectation that “knowledge is power.” In the social sciences, confidence in this maxim has been undermined.
