66 The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XVIII, No. 3, 



relieved when the Marne gave hope that there was still power 

 enough in the world to frustrate the dream of the bully. This 

 pall has been slowly growing upon us again, however, in spite 

 of the persistent efforts of the German propaganda amongst us 

 to conceal and belie the reports of the damnable conduct of 

 their armies and government at home and in the hapless 

 countries for a time at their mercy. Because of these things we 

 see men everywhere bowed down and depressed as it becomes 

 clearly demonstrated that science, mental endowments and 

 education are no specifics against a wicked heart. These 

 things we really knew before but refused to believe. They are 

 demonstrated to us now by appalling examples so that the 

 whole thinking community has become so mentally and spir- 

 itually depressed that one has great difficulty in going about 

 one's normal work, health is damaged and continued research 

 is a matter of great difficulty. A nation of unusual opportuni- 

 ties, great mental endowment and development in science seems 

 to have become the willing or at least easily manipulated pawn 

 in the hands of the unscrupulous statesman. We have not for- 

 gotten that it was a chemist Ostwald, in the early days of the 

 war when he was acting as spokesman for Germany to men of 

 science throughout the world, who was quoted, when Germany 

 was in the flush of her initial victories over Belgium, as saying, 

 the world had outgrown the idea of freedom for little or weak 

 peoples. 



War, therefore, is a universal mental depressant and as such 

 alone, must damage progress in science. It saps national energy 

 and material resources. It destroys the life of the younger 

 generation of scientists and in large part, the student material 

 from which the scientists of the future are recruited. It inter- 

 feres with systematic research in many lines by mentally 

 depressing the workers, placing insuperable difficulties in their 

 path and at times by destroying priceless work, records and 

 literature. Certainly war is not desirable to science, even if 

 we could restrain our detestation of it and all its works. 



Bitterly as we may condemn war, we would be wrong, how- 

 ever, to claim that science stagnated or declined in war time. 

 Since war requires brains, science is of course utilized, and since 

 the demand is inexorable, science must produce, and when 

 science and engineering are producing, they grow. We have 

 come to learn that modern war is a scientific business under- 



