258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In 1869 Lister announced his method of antiseptic surgery. Helmholtz 

 had published his " Physiological Optics " in 1866, and in 1879 Wundt, 

 his greatest pupil, had established the psychological laboratory in Leip- 

 zig, coincident with the beginnings of experimental psychology by 

 James at Harvard. In the very closing years of the last century and 

 the first decade of the present, physics, which in popular favor had suf- 

 fered a temporary eclipse by biology and psychology, was revivified by 

 the discoveries of Eontgen and Madame Curie, and now disports itself 

 with a youthful exuberance suggestive of the renaissance, while chem- 

 istry and all the sciences allied to medicine engage men and money in a 

 fabulous way. In the field of human affairs, we are attempting to apply 

 the methods of science not only to health, but to education, to industry, 

 and commerce, to marriage, religion and government. 



To believe that the great economic change of the last one hundred 

 years and the triumphant march of science have been merely coincident, 

 but not causally connected, would be a great mistake. Without tracing 

 in detail this causal sequence, one can get a vivid idea of the relation of 

 the two phenomena by trying to imagine the result of eliminating science 

 and its achievements from our modern life. Out go the electric light, 

 the gas, the gasoline and the kerosene. Our world which now knows no 

 night is plunged half its time into a darkness relieved only by the flicker 

 of tallow candles and burning wood. The telegraph, telephone, and 

 railroad which have shrivelled this earth into a mere fragment of its 

 former size crumble into ashes, and San Francisco moves away from 

 New York ten times farther than it now is. Ocean steamers become 

 sail boats, distancing London from New York fifty, sixty, seventy days 

 instead of six as at present. Instead of eating foods gathered from 

 the ends of the earth, the average citizen is limited to the products of his 

 own locality and to primitive methods of food preparation. Eapid com- 

 munication between distant places becomes impossible 1 ; books and 

 newspapers, few and expensive; common interests and understanding 

 grow more difficult; illiteracy increases, suspicion arises, popular gov- 

 ernment over wide areas becomes impracticable, and our twentieth-cen- 

 tury civilization a fool's dream. 



The consequent shrinkage in the wealth of the world, would be enor- 

 mous, our civilization of a surplus would become one of deficit, every 

 class would suffer retrenchment, but most of all the workers, who, by 

 reason of birth, tradition or other limitations, would feel most keenly 

 the scantiness of the world's supply of material goods. 



In this perspective we see how science has worked for the liberation 

 of all classes of society. In the long process of civic emancipation it 

 has finally opened the way for the rise of the man who works with his 

 hands. Nor will the former masters of society be willing to cut short 

 the beneficent results of science, for it adds to the pleasure and efficiency 



