THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 183 



lasted, with pauses, for many years, and which was to last for many 

 years to come; war was on every lip and in almost every heart. To- 

 day this meeting has, by a common wish, been so arranged that those 

 two nations should, in the persons of their men of science, draw as 

 near together as the}' can, with nothing but the narrow streak of the 

 channel between them, in order that they may take counsel together 

 on matters in which they have one interest and a common hope. Ma}^ 

 we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many signs that 

 science, though she works in a silent maimer and in ways unseen b}' 

 many, is steadily making for peace? 



Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, on 

 the century which is drawing to a close, while we may see in the his- 

 tory of scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of science of 

 his shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also see 

 much, perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is, indeed, one of 

 the watchwords of science. In the latter-day writings of some who 

 know not science much may be read which shows that the writer is 

 losing or has lost hope in the future of mankind. There are not a few 

 of these; their repeated utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing 

 in matters lying outside science few marks of progress and many 

 tokens of decline or decay, recognizing in science its material benefits 

 only, such men have thoughts of despair when they look forward to 

 the times to come. But if there be any truth in what 1 have attempted 

 to urge to-night, if the intellectual, if the moral influences of science 

 are no less marked than her material benefits, if, moreover, that which 

 she has done is but the earnest of that which she shall do, such men 

 may pluck up courage and gather strength bv laying hold of her gar- 

 ment. We men of science at least need not share their views or theii' 

 fears. Our feet are set, not on the shifting sands of the opinions and 

 of the fancies of the day, but on a solid foundation of verified truth, 

 which by the labors of each succeeding age is made broader and more 

 firm. To us the past is a thing to look back upon, not with regret, 

 not as something which has been lost never to be regained, but with 

 content, as something whose influence is with us still, helping us on 

 our further way. With us, indeed, the past points not to itself, but 

 to the future; the golden age is in front of us, not behind us; that 

 which we do know is a lamp whose brightest beams are shed into the 

 unknown before us, showing us how much there is in front and light- 

 ing up the way to reach it. We are confident in the advance because, 

 as each one of us feels that any step forward which he may make is not 

 ordered by himself alone and is not the result of his own sole efforts 

 in the present, but is, and that in large measure, the outcome of the 

 labors of others in the past, so each one of us has the sure and cer- 

 tain hope that as the past has helped him, so his efforts, be' they great 

 or be they small, will be a help to those to come. 



