EDITOR'S TABLE. 



127 



In practical applications of the 

 Rontgen ray America is taking a 

 leading part. But is it to her credit 

 that here, as in so many other cases, 

 she should be willing to have the 

 pioneer work of science performed 

 abroad? Do the planters and water- 

 ers of American universities fully 

 realize that if there is to be applied 

 science there must first of all be 

 science to apply, that original re- 

 search has the first claim upon their 

 regard? "There is that scattereth 

 and yet increaseth ; and there is that 

 withholdeth more than is meet, but 

 it tendeth to poverty." 



BEGENEBA TION AND SCIENTIFIC 

 ETHICS. 



Nordau has been answered. An 

 anonymous author has done it in a 

 book entitled Regeneration.* This 

 champion declares pretty nearly 

 everything sound which Nordau 

 finds degenerate, and charges Nor- 

 dau himself with German, philis- 

 tine, and irreligious bias, though 

 conceding "value as telling factors 

 in the development of our race " to 

 him and his work. With this crit- 

 ic's discussion of literary and artistic 

 matters we will not concern our- 

 selves ; but he has one chapter, or, 

 more accurately, a chapter heading, 

 which we hope will not be taken 

 too seriously. This is The Bank- 

 ruptcy of Science. The charge that 

 science is bankrupt that it has not 

 redeemed its promises arose with 

 the French symbolists. In his ex- 

 amination of these writers Nordau 

 repels the charge, and cites a con- 

 siderable list of scientific achieve- 

 ments as evidence of the solvency of 

 science. Our author does not find 

 this conclusive; for, he says: "The 

 promises which the symbolists refer 

 to as being dishonored by science 



* London : Archibald Constable & Co. ; New 

 York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



are not of the kind that could pos- 

 sibly be redeemed by the achieve- 

 ments referred to in Nordau's splen- 

 did list. They allude to promises 

 not really made by science, but by 

 rash and prejudiced scientists." In 

 other words, these promises are for- 

 geries, and any one who would call 

 science bankrupt because of its in- 

 ability to redeem all the forgeries 

 made in its name must be degenerate 

 indeed. The fact that such fraudu- 

 lent promises have been made and 

 accepted, and of sufficient numbers 

 and face value to attract attention, is 

 really as impressive a testimony to 

 the high standing of science as any- 

 thing that Dr. Nordau has advanced 

 in its behalf. No knave is ever 

 fool enough to forge large drafts 

 upon a concern that has not proved 

 its ability to meet heavy obliga- 

 tions. 



Our author next tells what these 

 unauthorized promises were that 

 science was to furnish substitutes 

 for religion and morality and to 

 lead the human race into an ideal 

 mode of life and goes on through 

 a dozen pages charging evil conse- 

 quences to their nonfulfillment, and 

 denouncing the scientists who made 

 them. Although he says all this 

 under the heading The Bankruptcy 

 of Science, he is careful everywhere 

 not to charge the dishonored prom- 

 ises in question to science itself, but 

 to the "rash and prejudiced scien- 

 tists," before mentioned, with whom 

 he declares Nordau to be in sympa- 

 thy. Our author's aggressive chap- 

 ter heading is, therefore, merely a 

 convenient phrase borrowed from 

 the symbolists, and he is guilty of a 

 petty deceit in using it without quo- 

 tation marks or other qualification 

 over pages which do not prove nor 

 even charge bankruptcy against sci- 

 ence itself. 



In discussing the promises of the 

 "rash and prejudiced scientists," 



