THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 375: 
Thus expressing clearly the view that the greatest beings that have 
been upon earth are products of the force of nature. 
The pursuit of knowledge of any kind has a levelling tendency. 
It was by no accident that the phrase, republic of letters, was coined. 
In literature there is no king. There are no more democratic bodies 
than companies of learners, and the capacity to appreciate any given 
book, puts at least for a time, the peasant on the same platform with 
the prince. In the department of physical science, in particular, a 
man’s standing depends completely on his merit. It affords a very 
good example of the carrying out of the democratic maxim : 
La carriére onverte aux talens, 
The tools to him that can use them. 
More than this, the very spirit of investigation fostered by the 
study of the physical sciences is fatal to respect for any authority 
based on no real claim. When men of science take to politics they 
generally show decided democratic leanings. Again, the improve- 
ments in industrial processes, the labour-saving inventions, the many 
contrivances for increasing the control of man over nature which have 
resulted from the discoveries of men of science, have linked them, in 
an intimate way, with the masses of mankind. They are in fact the 
high priests of industrialism, which is always democratic. 
And this leads me to remark that the cultivation of the physical 
sciences has been favourable to democracy in another way. It has 
resulted in the building up of a great learned class independent of 
the court, the nobility, and the clergy, and without any class interests 
or class organization that can be inimical to the well-being of the 
state. The importance of this has perhaps not been sutfliciently 
noticed, if noticed at all. 
It remains now to still further remark upon the influence of the 
scientific spirit upon literature. It has, indeed, affected every branch 
of it. I have already said that the modern philosophical method of 
writing history had its origin in the eighteenth century. Since then, 
the scientific method has demolished many a false historical fabric, 
and a beginning has been made in the science of comparative politics. 
We have ceased to believe in Romulus and the she-wolf that 
suckled him ; all early Roman history has been re-written ; we are 
doubtful whether there was a Homer ; William Tell’s splitting of the 
apple with his arrow has been shown to be a myth. The pervading 
scepticism of the scientific method has caused almost all statements. 
