394 BRAIN WORK AND 



Some will say, of course, that to reduce men 

 of science to the role of manual workers would 

 mean the decay of science and genius. But those 

 who will take into account the following consider- 

 ations probably will agree that the result ought 

 to be the reverse namely, such a revival of 

 science and art, and such a progress in industry, 

 as we only can faintly foresee from what we 

 know about the times of the Renaissance. It 

 has become a commonplace to speak with 

 emphasis about the progress of science during 

 the nineteenth century ; and it is evident 

 that our century, if compared with centuries 

 past, has much to be proud of. But, if we take 

 into account that most of the problems which 

 our century has solved already had been in- 

 dicated, and their solutions foreseen, a hundred 

 years ago, we must admit that the progress 

 was not so rapid as might have been expected, 

 and that something hampered it. 



The mechanical theory of heat was very 

 well foreseen in the last century by Rumford 

 and Humphry Davy, and even in Russia it 

 was advocated by Lomonosoff.* However, much 

 more than half a century elapsed before the 

 theory reappeared in science. Lamarck, and 

 even Linnaeus, Geoflroy Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus 



* In an otherwise also remarkable memoir on the Arctic 

 Regions. 



