October 28 \Sgj 



NATURE 



623 



expanded, the primary sciences became divided into separate 

 departments for more minute study— how new sciences have 

 arisen, some of which have now grown to vast proportions — how 

 improved instruments and appliances of infinite delicacy have 

 been invented to aid research — and how, in the present age, the 

 i:ains of pure science have been turned to innumerable channels of 

 practical utility. 

 The advances made in physics and mechanics during the 

 \enteenth and eighteenth cenuturies prepared the way for the 

 mention and perfection of the steam-engine in the nineteenth 

 century. The introduction of the steam-engine increased at a 

 bound the power of the human arm many-fold.^ Through its 

 instrumentality the land has been covered with railways, and the 

 sea with ocean steamers. Electrical science has given us the 

 telegraph and telephone, a new illuminant, and a new motor. 

 The steam printing press, the telegraph, and the railway 

 together, have made it possible to produce that perhaps most 

 wonderful of all the indirect outcomes of the growth of science — 

 the modern newspaper. The great science of chemistry has 

 revealed the composition of the material world ; has originated 

 vast industries, which give work and wages to millions of the 

 population ; and has placed all kinds of manufacturing processes 

 upon a basis of scientific precision. Under cover of chemistry 

 have sprung up the sub-sciences of photography and spectroscopy, 

 which have given a new and unexpected development to our know- 

 ledge of the heavenly bodies. The revelations of palasontology 

 and embryology have led to the establishment on a firm basis of 

 the theory of organic evolution. This theory — by far the most 

 penetrating generalisation of our time — has not only thrown a 

 flood of light upon the deepest problems of natural history, but 

 has also revolutionised the whole domain of speculative thought. 

 Physiology and practical medicine have profited immensely by 

 the general advance of the sister sciences, and by the adoption 

 of scientific methods in the prosecution of research. Optical 

 science gave birth to the achromatic microscope. The microscope 

 has laid bare the minute structure of plants and animals, and 

 introduced zoologists and botanists to a vast sub-kingdom of 

 minute forms of life, previously undreamt of. The microscope 

 also, in conjunction with chemistry, founded the new science of 

 bacteriology. Bacteriology has inspired the beneficent practice 

 of antiseptic surgery; it has also discovered to us the parasitic 

 nature of zymotic diseases — -and opened out a fair prospect of 

 ultimate deliverance from their ravages. 



Thus have the several sciences advanced, and are still 

 advancing, in concert, step on step, by mutual help, at an ever- 

 increasing speed — pushed on by that irrepressible forward im- 

 pulse which has characterised the scientific movement from its 

 inception. This movement has now become the dominant 

 factor in civilisation. 



There is no doubt that, under the reign of science, a striking 

 amelioration in the state of society has taken place. The mass 

 of the people are better housed and fed— and, above all, better 

 educated. Their sanitary surroundings are improved, and the 

 death-rate has fallen. Crime and pauperism have diminished, 

 and there is greater security for person and property. The 

 amenities and enjoyments of life are on the increase, and the 

 average scale of comfort is markedly raised. Moreover, this 

 amendment is not confined to the material and physical well- 

 being of the population. There is some evidence that the com- 

 plex of conditions we term "modern civilisation" is acting 

 favourably in the direction of making people more reasonable 

 and better conducted. Peace is now the normal condition 

 between civilised states ; and there is a growing trend of opinion 

 in favour of settling international differences by the more rational 

 method of arbitration, rather than by war. Political morality 

 approximates more nearly to that recognised as proper in private 

 life. The duel has almost been laughed out of court. Industrial 

 quarrels are conducted with more order ; there is an appeal to 

 facts and reason on both sides, and more readiness to adjust- 

 ment by compromise. 



The whole environment of modern life seems in several ways 

 calculated to foster habits of correct thinking and acting. The 

 inclusion of science in the scope of general education is a very 

 important innovation. This extends the range of subjects in 

 regard to which precise reasoning is possible ; and tends to pro- 

 mote the application of scientific modes of thinking and reason- 



1 Mr. Mulhall calculates that " our steam-power in the United Kingdom 

 is equal to the force of 169,000,000 able-bodied men, a number greater than 

 the whole population of Europe could supply."— A'a/Zowa/ Progress during 

 the Queen's Reign, p. 22. 



NO. 1 46 1, VOL. 56] 



ing to all the problems of life. We may be quite sure that 

 exact thinking leads in the main to correct conduct ; an evil 

 deed is not only a crime, but also a blunder. The periodical 

 press must, one would think, be a good training-school for 

 thinking and reasoning. The discussion of all sorts of questions 

 in its columns can scarcely fail to have an educating effect. The 

 disputants must perforce read one another's arguments, and be, 

 consciously or unconsciously, influenced thereby. It may be 

 assumed, or at least hoped, that there is in arguments, as in 

 orgar^ic forms, a tendency to the survival of the fittest — and that 

 in the long run the better argument carries the day. The blaze 

 of publicity amid which we live, through the ubiquitous news- 

 paper, lends an additional motive to right-doing. The " fierce 

 light which beats upon a throne '' beats nowadays also upon 

 the citizens, and doubtless helps to keep them in the straight 

 path. 



But, say the prophets of evil : " This will not endure ; modern 

 civilisation, based on science, will in time go the way of all its 

 predecessors, and end in extinction or in decay and stagnation." 

 It is proverbially unsafe to dogmatise about the future ; and in 

 all human affairs, even those termed scientific, there is nothing 

 so certain as the unexpected. This, however, may be affirmed : 

 that if modern civilisation is to come to an end, it will not 

 perish in the same way, nor from the same causes, as previous 

 civilisations. 



One of the standing perils of civilised communities in ancient 

 times was the risk of being subjugated by less civilised neigh- 

 bours, or of being overwhelmed by hordes of barbarian invaders. 

 This danger no longer threatens us. Power has passed for ever 

 into the hands of the nations which cultivate science, and 

 I invent. The appliances of war are now placed on a scientific 

 I basis ; and the issue of battle is decided in the laboratories of 

 I the engineer and the chemist. The late C. H. Pearson argued 

 I that the dark and yellow races, in virtue of their greater number 

 I and fecundity, might in time come to dispute the supremacy of 

 ' the white races — that they would learn the drill and copy the 

 j armaments of European armies, and thus equipped would be 

 \ able, by their superior mass, to hem in and curb, if not to 

 I subjugate, the Western nations. But the march of science and 

 I invention never stops ; and it is inconceivable that the scientific 

 1 nations shall not always be many stages in advance of the un- 

 scientific nations in the destructiveness of their weapons and the 

 perfection of their military equipments — and this would give 

 them an advantage which scarcely any disparity of numbers 

 could neutrahse. The "yellow terror" can never be more than 

 a phantom until these races begin to show capacity for scientific 

 discovery, and the further (and somewhat different) capacity for 

 turning their discoveries to practical uses. 



Against the more insidious peril of decay and stagnation the 

 scientific movement seems also to ofTer effective safeguards. 

 We sometimes hear complaints of the hurry and bustle — the 

 stress and strain — of modern life ; this unrest may incommode 

 individuals — but it is the antiseptic of society. Probably the 

 deadliest predisposing factor in the decline of former civilisa- 

 tions was the mental inanition arising from deficiency of fresh 

 and varied intellectual pabulum. Physiological analogies lead 

 us to the inference that an idle brain, like an idle muscle or an 

 idle gland or nerve, would deteriorate in function ; and, con- 

 versely, that a well-exercised brain- would tend to reach its 

 possible best. I conceive that our forefathers and the ancients, 

 lor the most part, led somewhat monotonous lives. They had 

 but little fresh and varied food for thought. The generality 

 could not, for lack of "news," take a sustained interest in the 

 course of public events. The world of science was an unopened 

 book. Intercommunication was slow and difficult ; and the 

 whole current of existence flowed sluggishly. Contrast this with 

 the vivid abounding life of the present day. Veins of interest 

 are greatly multiplied — to meet and .satisfy the infinitely varied 

 individual aptitudes of men and women. A considerable number 

 of persons of both sexes now busy themselves, either as amateurs 

 or something more, with the study of some branch of science or 

 natural history. Those who.se bent is to politics, art, letters, 

 sport, or fashion, find in the daily newspaper and the periodical 

 press an unfailing fresh supply of the mental food they love. 

 Business and pleasure are carried on with a briskness formerly 

 unknown, and the pulse of national life is quickened through 

 every part. It seems impossible that decay should invade the 

 body politic while such conditions of all-pervading activity 

 prevail — and there is no valid reason why these conditions should 

 not continue to prevail. It has often been remarked that 



