524 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of science in all the neighboring provinces with which we have been able 

 hitherto to maintain only rather strained diplomatic relations. 



Still more immediately important to us are the evidences of progress 

 manifested in recent years by this Association and by its affiliated so- 

 cieties. Our parent organization, though a half century old, is still young 

 as regards the extent in time of the functions it has undertaken to per- 

 form. It has accomplished a great work; but in the vigor and en- 

 thusiasm of its youth a far greater work is easily attainable. Exactly 

 how these functions are to be developed, no man can foresee. We may 

 learn, however, in this, as in other lines of research, by methods with 

 which we are well acquainted, namely, by the methods of carefully 

 planned and patiently executed observation and experiment. The field 

 for energetic and painstaking effort is wider and more attractive than 

 ever before. Science is now truly cosmopolitan; it can be limited by 

 no close corporations; and no domain of scientific investigation can be 

 advantageously fenced off, either in time or in space, from the rest. 

 While every active worker of this or of any affiliated society is, in a 

 sense, a specialist, there are occasions when he should unite with his 

 colleagues for the promotion of the interests of science as a whole. The 

 results of the specialists need to be popularized and to be disseminated 

 among the people at large. The advance of knowledge, to be effect- 

 ive with the masses of our race, must be sustained on its merits by a 

 popular verdict. To bring the diverse scientific activities of the Ameri- 

 can Continent into harmony for common needs; to secure cooperation 

 for common purposes; and to disseminate the results of scientific in- 

 vestigation among our fellow-men, are not less, but rather much more, 

 than in the past, the privilege and the duty of The American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science. 



Viewed, then, in its broader aspects, the progress of science is in- 

 volved in the general progress of our race ; and those who are interested 

 in promoting the former should be equally earnest in securing the 

 latter. However much we may be absorbed in the details of our 

 specialties, when we stop to think of science in its entirety, we are led, 

 in the last analysis, back to'^he problem of problems — the meaning of 

 the universe. All men ^gifted with the sad endowment of a contem- 

 plative mind' must recur again and again to this riddle of the centuries. 

 We are, so to speak, whatever our prepossessions, all sailing in the same 

 boat on an unknown sea for a destination at best not fully determined. 

 Some there are who have, or think they have, the Pole Star always 

 in sight. Others, though less confident of their bearings, are willing to 

 assume nothing short of second place in the conduct of the ship. Others, 

 still less confident of their bearings, are disposed to depend chiefly on 

 their knowledge of the compass and on their skill in dead reckoning. 

 We of the last class may not impugn the motives or doubt the sincerity 



