150 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1934 



hill ahead ", perhaps, or " Turn right " ; not, however, " Go slow ", 

 for that advice science cannot follow. The indictment is of man- 

 kind. Recognition of the truth it contains cannot be absent from the 

 minds of those whose labors are daily increasing mankind's command 

 of Nature ; but it is due to them that the truth should be viewed in 

 proper perspective. It is, after all, war, to which science has added 

 terrors, and the fear of war, which alone give it real urgency; an 

 urgency which must, of course, be felt in these days when some nations 

 at least are showing the spirit of selfish and dangerous nationalism. 

 I may be wrong, but it seems to me that, war apart, the gifts of sci- 

 ence and invention have done little to increase opportunities for the 

 disj^lay of the more serious of man's irrational impulses. The worst 

 they do, perhaps, is to give to clever and predatory souls that keep 

 within the law the whole world for their depredations, instead of a 

 parish or a country as of yore. 



But Sir Alfred Ewing told us of " the disillusion with which, now 

 standing aside, he watches the sweeping pageant of discovery and 

 invention in which he used to make unbounded delight." I wish that 

 one to whom applied science and this country owe so much might 

 have been spared such disillusion, for I suspect it gives him pain. 

 I wonder whether, if he could have added to an "engineer's out- 

 look " the outlook of a biologist, the disillusion would still be there. 

 As one just now advocating the claims of biology, I would much like 

 to know. It is sure, however, that the gifts of the engineer to 

 humanity at large are immence enough to outweigh the assistance 

 he may have given to the forces of destruction. 



It may be claimed for biological science, in spite of vague refer- 

 ences to bacterial warfare and the like, that it is not of its nature to 

 aid destruction. What it may do toward making man as a whole 

 more worthy of his inheritance has yet to be fully recognized. On 

 this point I have said much. Of its service to his physical better- 

 ment you will have no doubts. I have made but the bare reference in 

 this address to the support that biological research gives to the art 

 of medicine. I had thought to say much more of this, but found that 

 if I said enough I could say nothing else. 



There are two other great questions so much to the front just now 

 that they tempt a final reference. I mean, of course, the paradox of 

 poverty amidst plenty and the replacement of human labor by ma- 

 chinery. Applied science should take no blame for the former, but 

 indeed claim credit unfairly lost. It is not within my capacity to say 

 anything of value about the paradox and its cure ; but I confess that 

 I see more present danger in the case of " Money versus Man " than 

 danger present or future in that of the " Machine versus Man " ! 



With regard to the latter it is surely right that those in touch with 

 science should insist that the replacement of human labor will con- 



