32 Kansas Academy of Science. 



his struggles upward to attain the goal for which he was 

 created. 



What have the scientists wrought, when measured by the 

 standard mentioned, that will encourage us to our highest 

 efforts to push forward with stronger determination and 

 greater zeal the work committed to our hands by those who 

 have labored with much success in the past? 



Prophecy and revelation are to-day reserved for the scien- 

 tist, as shown in his work, which involves the gathering of 

 knowledge through observation, its classification, and the de- 

 duction of general principles connecting and explaining all 

 the known facts, with the elimination of self, thus establish- 

 ing the relation among phenomena. It is this kind of work 

 that gives us the profound difference between the work of the 

 nineteenth century and that of all the preceding ones. 



One thing of the greatest value which science has taught 

 humanity is the realization and appreciation of its discover- 

 ies. In a word, it has given to man a wide, open mind, ready 

 and willing to learn any and all truth, from any and all 

 sources, and to believe that any truth will be strengthened 

 by submitting it to the most rigid and varied tests. It took 

 centuries to convince mankind of xthe true form and motion 

 of the heavenly bodies, of the great law of gravitation; but 

 only one generation to make the great law of evolution gen- 

 erally accepted. 



No one, who has studied the movements of the last century, 

 can fail to be impressed with the large and ever increasing 

 role that modern science has played. Most every phase of 

 our thought and activity has been modified by the new ma- 

 terials introduced, and especially by its changing our view- 

 point and our methods of work. Men have ceased to believe 

 that any one man is good authority in every field of inquiry. 

 We have reached a point in advancement where it is necessary 

 to find out what the workers in any particular field say, and 

 upon their conclusions to found our answers to any questions 

 of inquiry in their special line of work. By the work of the 

 scientists of the nineteenth century, every branch of learning 

 and investigation is placed upon an equal footing, and those 

 who would know all the truth must be content with a little 

 knowledge in some one field of investigation, and a faithful 

 reliance upon the workers in other lines for the truth or 

 falsity of any statement in their particular field of work. 



