674 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
We hear a great deal nowadays about the humanities and the 
humane studies—the study of “ancient elegance and historic wis- 
dom ”—and I should be the last to minimize in any degree the value 
and intense interest which is attached to the study of the writings 
and utterances of the mighty dead. They will always retain un- 
dimmed their attraction and inspiration for man, and man will 
always think with gratitude and affection of their authors; but 
surely the humanities consist of something more than the study of 
the writings and philosophy of the ancients. To limit them to that 
is to take the view of the schoolmen, the death blow to which was 
given by Bacon and Bruno. 
We have got beyond that; we claim that the true study of the 
humanities is a far wider thing—it is the study of the stupendous 
mechanism of the universe of which man forms a part, and the under- 
standing of which is necessary for his happiness. That is the true 
humanity of which the other forms only a small portion. The time 
_is coming when the principal preoccupation of man shall be the 
gradual disclosure of this mechanism and his principal delight the 
contemplation of its beauty. 
In spite of the work and writings of such men as Bacon and 
Bruno in the end of the sixteenth century, the progress of science was 
at first but slow and the workers few. We have, of course, the im- 
mortal achievements of Newton and Harvey, and the foundation of 
the Royal Society, and the tremendous outburst of scholarship as 
typified in this country by Bentley and his coworkers; but the eight- 
eenth century was, on the whole, characterized by intellectual 
quiescence both in scientific output and in literary creation. The 
quiescence was apparent rather than real. To borrow a metaphor 
from the garden, though there was little growth above ground, active 
root formation was going on. Linnzeus (1707-1778) was at work in 
Sweden creating the framework which rendered future work in 
botany and zoology possible; Buffon in France was cautiously feeling 
his way toward a theory of organic evolution; Henry Cavendish 
(1731-1810), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), and Antoine Lavoisier 
(1743-1794) were laying the foundations of modern chemistry; 
Albrecht von Haller (1707-1777), Kaspar Friederick Wolff (1733- 
1794), and John Hunter (1728-1793), those of anatomy and physi- 
ology. The spade work of these men, together with the improvement 
of the microscope was necessary for the great outburst of scientific 
investigation which characterized the nineteenth century. Ushered 
in by the work of Cuvier (1769-1832), Lamarck (1744-1829), St. 
Hilaire (1772-1844), in biology, Thomas Young (1773-1829) , Laplace 
(1749-1827), Volta (1745-1827), Carnot (1758-1823), in physics, it 
was adorned in its middle and latter period by the names of Davy, 
