222 ANNUAL EEPOBT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



but not inconceivable day when the human body may be understood 

 from a chemical standpoint we shall no longer be unable to solve 

 the inscrutable problems which to-day puzzle even the most learned 

 hygienist and physician. Is not a part, at least, of the tragedy of 

 disease a relic of barbarism? A race which could have put as much 

 energy and ingenuity into the study of physiological chemistry as 

 mankind has put into aggressive warfare might have long ago 

 banished many diseases by discovering the chemical abnormalities 

 which cause them. 



May not the study of subtler questions, such as the nature of 

 heredity, also lead us finally into the field of chemistry in our search 

 for the ultimate answer? Even psychology may some time need 

 chemical assistance, since the process of thinking and the transmis- 

 sion of nervous impulse are both inextricably associated with chemi- 

 cal changes in nervous tissue ; and even memory may be due to some 

 subtle chemical effect. In the realm of thought there can be no 

 question of the blessed service already performed by science in dis- 

 pelling grim superstitions which haunted older generations with 

 deadly fear. 



In brief, more power is given mankind through the discoveries of 

 chemistry. This power has many 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 distorted to sei^e malignant ends. Is not this calamity due 

 rather to the fact that the spiritual enlightenment of humanity has 

 not kept pace with the progress of science? The study of nature 

 can lead an upright and humane civilization ever higher and higher 

 to greater health and comfort and a sounder philosophy, but that 

 same study can teach the ruthless and selfish how to destroy more 

 efficiently than to create. The false attitude toward war, fostered 

 by tradition and by the glamor of ancient strife, is doubtless one of 

 the influences which have held back mankind from a wider applica- 

 tion of the Golden Eule. 



There is, in truth, no conflict between the ideals of science and 

 other high ideals of human life. With deep insight, a poetic thinker 

 on life's problems, in the opening lines of a sonnet, has said : 



Fear not to go where fearless Science leads, 



Who holds the keys of God. What reigning light 



Thine eyes discern in that surrounding night 



Whence we have come, . . . 



Thy soul will never find that Wrong is Right. 



Our limited minds are confined in a limited world, with immeasur- 

 able space on all sides of us. Our brief days are as nothing com- 

 pared with the inconceivable seons of the past and the prospect of 

 illimitable ages to come. Both infinity and eternity are beyond our 



