RADIOACTIVE LEAD RICHARDS. 219 



cially if ordinary lead should really be found to be thus complicated, 

 many, if not all, other elements should be tested in the same way. 

 The outcome, while not in the least affecting our table of atomic 

 weights as far as practical purposes are concerned, might lead to 

 highly interesting theoretical conclusions. 



How can such remote scientific knowledge, even if it satisfies our 

 ever-insistent intellectual curiosity, be of any practical use? Who 

 can tell ? It must be admitted that the practical value is apparently 

 slight as regards any immediate application, but one can never know 

 how soon any new knowledge concerning the nature of things may 

 bear unexpected fruit. Faraday had no conception of the electric 

 locomotive or the power-plants of Niagara when he performed those 

 crucial experiments with magnets and wires that laid the basis for 

 the dynamo. Nearly 50 years elapsed before his experiments on elec- 

 tric induction in moving wires bore fruit in a practical electric light- 

 ing system; and yet more years before the trolley car, depending 

 equally upon the principles discovered by Faraday, became an every- 

 day occurrence. At the time of discovery, even if the wide bearing 

 and extraordinary usefulness of his experiments could have been fore- 

 seen by him, they were certainly hidden from the world at large. 



The laws of nature can not be intelligently applied until they are 

 understood, and in order to understand them, many experiments 

 bearing upon the ultimate nature of things must be made, in order 

 that all may be combined in a far-reaching generalization im- 

 possible without the detailed knowledge upon which it rests. When 

 mankind discovers the fundamental laws underlying any set of 

 phenomena, these phenomena come in much larger measure than be- 

 fore under his control, and are applicable for his service. Until we 

 understand the laws, all depends upon chance. Hence, merely from 

 the practical point of view, concerning the material progress of hu- 

 manity, the exact understanding of the laws of nature is one of the 

 most important of all the problems presented to man; and the un- 

 known laws underlying the nature of the elements are obviously 

 among the most fundamental of these laws of nature. 



Such gain in knowledge brings with it augmented responsibilities. 

 Science gives human beings vastly increased power. This power has 

 immeasurably beneficent possibilities, but it may be used for ill as 

 well as for good. Science has recently been blamed by superficial 

 critics, but she is not at fault if her great potentialities are sometimes 

 perverted to serve malignant ends. Is not such atrocious perver- 

 sion due rather to the fact that the ethical enlightenment of a part 

 of the human race has not kept pace with the progress of science? 

 May mankind be generous and high-minded enough to use the boun- 

 tiful resources of nature, not for evil, but for good, in the days to 

 come! 



