180 THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



at first sight seem otherwise. In no l)raneh of science has there dur- 

 ing these hiter years been greater activit}^ and more rapid progress 

 than in that which furnishes the means by which man brings death, 

 suffering, and disaster on his felk)wmen. If the healer can k)olv with 

 pride on the increased power which science has given him to alleviate 

 human suffering and ward off the miseries of disease, the destroyer 

 can look with still greater pride on the power Avhich science has given 

 him to sweep away lives and to work desolation and ruin; while the 

 one has slowh^ been learning to save units, the other has quickly learned 

 to slay thousands. But, ha])pily, the very greatness of the modern 

 power of destruction is already becoming a bar to its use, and bids 

 fair — may we hope before long — wholl}" to put an end to it; in the 

 words of Tacitus, though in another" sense, the very pi'c pa rations for 

 war, through the character which science gives them, make for peace. 



Moreover, not in one branch of science only, but in all, there is a 

 deep undercurrent of influence sapping the very foundations of all 

 war. As I have already urged, no feature of scientific inquiry is more 

 marked than the dependence of each step forward on other steps which 

 have been made before. The man of science can not sit by himself in 

 his own cave weaving out results by his own efforts, unaided by others, 

 heedless of what others have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a 

 great system, a joint in a great machine, and he can only work aright 

 when he is in due touch with his fellow workers. If his labor is to be 

 what it ought to be, and is to have the weight which it ought to have, 

 he must know what is being done, not by himself, but by others, and 

 by others not of his own land and speaking his tongue only, but also 

 of other lands and of other speech. Hence it comes about that to the 

 man of science the barriers of maimers and of speech which pen men 

 into nations become more and more unreal and indistinct. He recog- 

 nizes his fellow-worker, wherever he may live, and whatever tongue 

 he. may speak, as one who is pushing forward shoulder to shoulder 

 with him toward a common goal, as one whom he is helping and who 

 i.s helping him. The touch of science makes the whole world kin. 



The historj'^ of the past gives us many examples of this brotherhood 

 of science. In the revival of learing throughout the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries, and some way on into the eighteenth century, 

 the common use of the Latin tongue made intercourse easy. In some 

 respects in those earlier days science was more cosmopolitan than it 

 afterwards became. In spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, 

 the men of science of different lands again and again met each other 

 face to face, heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes what their 

 brethren had to say or show. The Englishman took the long journey 

 to Italy to study there; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German 

 wandered from one seat of learning to another; and many a man held 

 a chair in a country not his own. There was help, too, as well as inter- 

 course. The Royal Society of London took upon itself the task of 



