SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY 257 



sure a conclusion as that the anti-toxin for infantile paralysis will be 

 used when once it is discovered. 



One of the surest indications of what this means for the laboring 

 man is the steady increase of estimate of the salary necessary for effi- 

 cient living. John Mitchell fixed it at $600 for cities of less than one 

 hundred thousand population; Streightoff said $650; the New York 

 State Conference of Charities and Corrections say $825 for a family 

 of five, and the Brueres say $1,200 per annum is the minimum upon 

 which a family of five can maintain an adequate degree of industrial 

 efficiency. The fact that we have come to the place where such stand- 

 ards can be set is an augury of the future of our working people. In- 

 voluntary poverty is as sure of elimination as anything in human affairs 

 can be. Time, struggle, courage, patience, individual sacrifice, intel- 

 ligent handling of the growing surplus, will bring us the new day of 

 economic freedom. With that will be established the real basis of a 

 democratic society, a society in which there will be the possibility of 

 individual distinction coincident with the improvement of the whole 

 state, the two guaranteed by a government in which the sovereign is 

 the whole population. 



The period which has seen this reversal of economic conditions is 

 likewise the century of greatest scientific advance. By 1800 Newton 

 had established the law of gravitation; Harvey had discovered the cir- 

 culation of the blood Linnaeus had developed a biological classification 

 and nomenclature, Buffon had written fifteen volumes of natural his- 

 tory, feeling his way toward a theory of organic evolution, Cavendish had 

 discovered hydrogen, and Priestley, oxygen, while Lavoisier had con- 

 structed a chemical nomenclature and discovered the composition of 

 water; surgery had been practised by Hunter and Haller, and physiol- 

 ogy and anatomy were subjects of study ; Locke, Berkeley, Condillac had 

 originated the doctrine of sensationalism in psychology, and Kant had 

 completed Hume's theory of ideas by denying the possibility of know- 

 ing anything beyond the phenomenal world. 



Released from the domination of false theology and bad metaphys- 

 ics, the youthful sciences took mighty steps in the early years of the 

 nineteenth century. Cuvier and Lamarck in biology, Young, La Place, 

 Volta, and Carnot in physics, Dalton in chemistry, were followed a little 

 later by Davy, Faraday, Arago, Ampere, Owen, and a vast army of lesser 

 men. By the middle of the century the pendulum had swung heavily 

 in the direction of biological ideas. Lyell announced the theory of the 

 slow development of the structure of the earth's crust. Johannes Muel- 

 ler had established the physico-chemical school of physiology, Agassiz 

 had collected many of the facts pointing to the theory of evolution, and 

 in 1859 Darwin published the " Origin of Species." Pasteur discovered 

 the organism known as yeast and the relation of germs to putrefaction. 



VOL. LXXXVII. 18. 



