THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 165 



Dover of to-day. On moonless nights men groped their wa}^ in its 

 narrow streets b,y the help of swinging lanterns and smoky torches, for 

 no lamps lit the wa^^s. By day the light of the sun struggled into the 

 houses through narrow panes of blurred glass. Though the town 

 then, as now, was one of the chief portals to and from the countries 

 beyond the seas, the means of travel were scanty and dear, available 

 for the most part to the rich alone, and for all beset with discomfort 

 and risk. Slow and uncertain was the carriage of goods, and the news 

 of the world outside came to the town (though it, from its position, 

 learnt more than most towns) tardil}^ fitfully, and often falsely. The 

 people of Dover sat then much in dimness, if not in darkness, and 

 lived in large measure on themselves. They who study the phenom- 

 ena of living beings tell us that light is the great stimulus of life 

 and that the fullness of the life of a being or of any of its members 

 ma}^ be measured by the variety, the swiftness, and the certainty of 

 the means by which it is in touch with its surroundings. Judged 

 from this standpoint, life at Dover then, as indeed elsewhere, must 

 have fallen far short of the life of to- da}'. 



The same study of living beings, however, teaches us that while 

 from one point of view the environment seems to mold the organism, 

 from another point the organism seems to be master of its environ- 

 ment. Going behind the change of circumstances, we may raise the 

 question, the old question. Was life in its essence worth more then 

 than now? Has there been a real advance? 



Let me at once relieve your minds by saying that 1 propose to 

 leave this question in the main unanswered. It may be, or it may not 

 be, that man's grasp of the l^eautiful and of the good, if not looser, is 

 not firmer than it was a hundred years ago. It may be, or it may not 

 be, that man is no nearer to absolute truth, to seeing things as they 

 really are, than he was then. I will merely ask you to consider with 

 me for a few minutes how far and in what ways man's laying hold of 

 that aspect of or part of truth which we call natural knowledge, or 

 sometimes science, ditiered in 1799 from what it is to-day, and 

 whether that change must not be accounted a real advance, a real 

 improvement in man. 



1 do not propose to weary you by what in nw hands would be the 

 rash effort of attempting a survey of all the scientific results of the 

 nineteenth century. It will be enough if for a little while I dwell on 

 some few of the salient features distinguishing the way in which we 

 nowadays look upon, and during the coming week shall speak of, the 

 works of nature around us — though those works themselves, save for 

 the slight shifting involved in a secular change, i-emain exactly the 

 same — from the way in which they were looked upon and might have 

 been spoken of at a gathering of philosophers at Dover in 1799, and 

 1 ask vour leave to do so. 



