3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



raised, and as democracy is perfected, so that each is given opportunity 

 to do the work for which he is fit, the wealth and means of subsistence 

 increase still more rapidly. The law of Malthus and the law of dimin- 

 ishing returns, like the law of the degradation of energy, may ulti- 

 mately prevail, but not in any future with which we are concerned. 

 The population of a civilized country, in which science is cultivated, 

 need not be limited by famine, pestilence or war. Over-population and 

 the need of expansion by conquest are obviated by democracy and sci- 

 ence; the cause of war which may be regarded as inevitable and legiti- 

 mate is thus abolished. In providing adequately for the subsistence of 

 an increasing population, science has made a contribution to peace the 

 magnitude of which can not be easily overstated. 



Another great service for peace to be credited to science is the de- 

 velopment of commerce, travel and intercommunication. Steam and 

 electricity are handmaids of peace. Trade disputes and the misad- 

 ventures of missionaries, travelers and immigrants may serve as causes 

 or pretexts of wars, but the balance of commerce, travel and immigra- 

 tion is large on the side of peace. With the existing commerce among 

 the nations, each dependent on every other, a war of any kind does in- 

 jury to all. A nation at war destroys its own property throughout the 

 world, and all the nations suffer. A neutral nation can no more afford 

 to countenance a needless war than mobs burning its own cities and 

 killing its own citizens. In New York, London, Berlin and Paris are 

 business houses and representatives of every country in the world. 

 How could any nation wish to destroy or to permit the destruction of 

 these cities? . . . 



Science has given us democracy, it has given us ample means of 

 subsistence, it has given us commerce and intercommunication, and 

 these three achievements are the principal factors which have lessened 

 warfare and will eventually lead to its complete abolition. Other con- 

 tributions of science, though less momentous, are by no means unim- 

 portant. Warfare is now in large measure applied science, and this 

 tends towards its decrease. Wars between nations with scientific equip- 

 ment and savage and barbarous peoples are no longer waged on equal 

 terms and are of short, duration. The extermination, despoliation and 

 subjugation of the non-Caucasian races may be the world's great trag- 

 edy, and in so far as some of these peoples are able to adopt our science 

 there will be a readjustment which may be written in blood or may be 

 a triumph of common sense and justice. However this may be, the in- 

 vincibility that science has conferred on the western nations has made 

 them safe from attack and invasion, and while it may on occasion have 

 led to wanton aggression, it has, on the whole, limited warfare. If we 

 call to mind the centuries of invasion and threats of invasion by North- 

 men, Ottomans and Saracens, we can appreciate the value of the means 

 of defense which science has given to the civilized nations. 



