3IO POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



new civilization from the old, 'and the word which expresses this dif- 

 ference is science.' "The height of any civilization," says Dr. Ost- 

 wald, "may be directly measured by the thoughtfulness with which the 

 prophets of civilization understand their calling and are able to predict 

 this future. In the struggle for existence the man will be most efficient 

 who can answer these questions : what will happen ? and with what cer- 

 tainty, more accurately than his fellow men." 



"If we ask," continues Dr. Ostwald: "What is the most general 

 force which has been active in historical times within our knowledge, 

 and is still active, we recognize that it is the conquest of all intellectual 

 ^elds by science. If we imagine the most primitive conditions in the 

 development of mankind, we see that there is no doubt that the indi- 

 vidual and the race which is finally successful in the struggle for exist- 

 ence is the one that learns to see most clearly into the conditions of the 

 future and thus learns to influence them. There are conditions in 

 which the war of physical force seems to settle the question; but even 

 here we see skill, that is, the intellectual or scientific factor, offset a 

 large part of the brute strength, and this factor increases as develop- 

 ment advances. The greatest leaders of men have been those who saw 

 most clearly into the future. 



"Thus every political and moral organization is dependent upon 

 biographical conditions; and these fields are evidently those which are 

 destined to be irresistibly conquered by science." 



To us, as 'prophets of civilization,' to use again Dr. Ostwald 's 

 illuminating phrase, every line of scientific research has its danger — 

 the danger of inadequacy. In causal interpretation, the impulse is 

 toward superficiality, to premature proclamation of opinions issuing 

 from the heart rather than sanctioned by the head, the tendency toward 

 futile speculation, barren epistemology, or florid sentimentalism. 

 While magister fit species, tyro novit classes, a beginner can frame 

 great generalizations and a great many of them, which it would take 

 a master of masters to define and sustain. *A flaw in thought an inch 

 long' — this is a Chinese proverb — 'may be felt for a thousand miles.' 

 It is the flaw in thought, the flaw in fundamental conception, which 

 distinguishes the sage in science from the speculative philosopher. In 

 this matter we are fortunately not without adequate models. The 

 boldest speculator in biology was also the one of all his century most 

 careful as to his facts. In the twenty-five years of building the 

 hypothesis of the origin of variety in life, Darwin scrutinized each 

 least fact as though it were the center of the whole system. From 

 which it followed that there was no unsound material in the fabric he 

 built. And for this attention to each detail, rather than for the great- 

 ness of his final conception, we place Darwin first among the naturalists 

 of all time. Other men had thought of natural selection, had imagined 

 the survival of the fittest, had shown the divergence of forms of life 



