34 Kansas Academy of Science. 



gested population and thus lessening all that train of evils. 

 This scientific conquest of nature is one of the strongest allies 

 of the Christian religion. It takes from man the drudgery 

 of muscular labor and allows him to accomplish that which 

 he desires much more successfully, easily, and safely, through 

 the manipulation of the subtle and mighty forces and mate- 

 rials of nature ; thereby giving to man a vastly greater oppor- 

 tunity for mental and moral improvement and enjoyment. It 

 has been estimated that the invention of the steam-engine 

 alone has doubled the productive capacity of the world's labor. 



Superstition and tradition are the most implacable enemies 

 of science. The cause of their existence is the simple ignor- 

 ance of the way in which nature works, while a careful and 

 intelligent study of man and his relations, along his present 

 and past environment, will demonstrate to any one, in an in- 

 controvertible way, the reign of law in the universe. That 

 superstition which has made man its most abject slave and 

 has kept him in the depths of ignorance and folly has been 

 largely conquered by the scientists of the past century. How- 

 ever, each age brings new demands, and through the scien- 

 tific study of nature every one is better fitted to cope with his 

 environment and successfully solve the problems of life as 

 he finds them. Those of the past centuries are interesting as 

 matters of history ; while those of the present and future will 

 be solved by men who have learned to look for all the facts 

 and all the causes, and from these combined to make correct 

 conclusions. We plead that this training is very desirable and 

 essential. 



In all the discoveries of the past which have been true in- 

 sights into the future, man saw the correct explanation from 

 the facts of nature actually recorded, showing the unity and 

 simplicity of the apparently unconnected and unassociated 

 phenomena. We expect this to continue and the generaliza- 

 tions of the future to disclose a greater and closer unity in 

 origin and purpose of the phenomena of the universe. Fur- 

 ther researches in the minute structure of matter with its 

 various dissociations and combinations, in the molar and mo- 

 lecular forces with the products of their many and varied 

 transformations, will undoubtedly lead to a closer and more 

 fundamental unity among the many scientific lines. May it 

 not be the same force that gives us stereo-isomerism and that 

 holds the planetary systems in their proper relations to all the 



