THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 515 



advancement of science? Will it be possible for society to repeat in 

 the twentieth century the appalling intellectual blunders of the nine- 

 teenth century, or have we entered on a new era in which, whatever 

 other obstacles are pending, we may expect man to stand notably 

 less in his own light as regards science than ever before? To a 

 consideration of these and allied questions I beg your indulgence, even 

 though I may pass over ground well known to most of you, and en- 

 croach, perhaps, here and there, on prominences in fields controversial; 

 for it is only by discussion and rediscussion of such questions that we 

 come at last, even among ourselves in scientific societies, to the unity 

 of opinion and the unity of purpose which lead from ideas to their 

 fruitful applications. 



From the earliest historic times certainly, if not from the dawn of 

 primitive humanity, down to the present day, the problem of the uni- 

 verse has been the most attractive and the most illusive subject of the 

 attention of thinking men. All systems of philosophy, religion and 

 science are alike in having the solution of this problem for their ulti- 

 mate object. Many such systems and sub-systems have arisen, 

 flourished and vanished, only to be succeeded by others in the seemingly 

 Sisyphean task. Gradually, however, in the lapse of ages there have 

 accumulated some elements of knowledge which give inklings of partial 

 solutions; though it would appear that the best current opinion of 

 philosophy, religion and science would again agree in the conclusion 

 that we are yet immeasurably distant from a complete solution. Al- 

 most equally attractive and interesting, and far more instructive, as 

 it appears to me, in our own time, is the contemplation of the ways in 

 which man has attacked this perennial riddle. It is, indeed, coming 

 to be more and more important for science to know how primitive, 

 barbarous and civilized man has visualized the conditions of, and 

 reached his conclusions with respect to, this problem of the centuries; 

 for it is only by means of a lively knowledge of the baseless hypotheses 

 and the fruitless methods of our predecessors that we can hope to pre- 

 vent history from repeating itself unfavorably. 



Looking back over the interval of two to three thousand years that 

 connects us by more or less authentic records with our distinguished 

 ancestors, we are at once struck by the admirable confidence they had 

 acquired in their ability to solve this grand problem. Not less admi- 

 rable, also, for their ingenuity and for the earnestness with which they 

 were advanced, are the hypotheses and arguments by which men satis- 

 fied themselves of the security of their tenets and theories. Koughly 

 speaking, it would appear that the science of the universe received its 

 initial impulse from earliest man in the hypothesis that the world is 

 composed of two parts ; the first and most important part being in fact, 



