SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH 



CENTUKY. 



It is an interesting fact that the life of our Association is almost 

 coextensive with that nineteenth century of Christian civilization 

 which is now drawing to a close. In intellectual, as in physical 

 phenomena, we are tempted to overestimate the magnitude of 

 near objects and to underestimate that of distant ones ; but science 

 and art tend to advance with accelerated velocity, and we are 

 undoubtedly right in ranking the achievements of our age in 

 science and its applications as far greater than those of any pre- 

 vious century. 



When our predecessors assembled a hundred years ago to organ- 

 ize this Academy, they could avail themselves of no other means 

 of transportation than those which were in use before the time of 

 Homer. If they were required to traverse distances over land 

 too great for convenient walking, they were carried or drawn by 

 horses. If they had occasion to cross bodies of water, they used 

 oars or sails. We have been brought to our destination to-day by 

 the forces of steam and electricity. 



The harnessing of these mighty forces for man's use has trans- 

 formed not only the modes of transportation, but also the processes 

 of production of all kinds of commodities. It has wrought a revolu- 

 tion in the whole industrial system. The day of the small work- 

 shop is gone. The day of the great factory is come. Every 

 phase of human life is affected by those arts which have arisen 

 from the applications of science. Comforts and luxuries which a 

 hundred years ago were beyond the reach of the most wealthy, 

 are now available for the use of even the poor. Aniline dyes give 

 to fabrics used for clothing or decoration colors beside which 

 those of the rainbow are pale neutral tints. Sanitary science 

 arrests the massacre of the innocents, and increases the average 

 duration of human life. Anaesthetics and antiseptics take away 

 from surgery its pain and its peril. 



But, though our Association is an Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, it has, at least in its later life, devoted itself chiefly to 

 the cultivation of pure science, leaving to other organizations the 



