198 



DISCOVERY 



BritlsK Museum despatched an expedition, under the 

 leadership of Captain George H. Wilkins, a member 

 of the recent Quest Expedition, to Australia last 

 February. This expedition will make as exhaustive 

 . a collection as possible of the mammals and flowers 

 of the island continent. Such a collection is certain 

 to throw a great deal of new light on the past land- 

 bridges between Australia and the larger continents 

 of to-day. 



* * * * * 



The effects of the Chilian earthquake on the ocean 

 bed of the Pacific off the American continent are to 

 be investigated bv an expedition under the auspices 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and warships 

 of the United States Ga\'ernment will be employed. 

 The area to be covered lies off the Pacific Coast of 

 America, between San Francisco and the Mexican 

 boundary, and soundings will be made over some 

 10,000 square miles of ocean. 



***** 



Last January a very interesting new society was 

 formed at Burlington House by a meeting of men of 

 science — the Scientific Research Association. Xo 

 doubt we shall be in the position of bringing the 

 activities of this association before our readers from 

 time to time, but for the moment we may mention 

 that one of its first decisions was to organise an expedi- 

 tion to start this summer for the South Pacific, where 

 scientific research of various kinds is to be carried out, 

 and the effects of the Chilian earthquake in this direc- 

 tion are to be examined. 



***** 



The likelihood of any further discoveries of land in 

 the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean is very small ; 

 the voyage of the Quest, admittedly hampei'ed by 

 engine trouble and iU-luck, resulted in no " finds " of 

 mythical lost islands. The world which we inhabit 

 is becoming commonplace ; we cannot, like our fore- 

 fathers of several centuries ago, look forward to the 

 excitement of some expedition revealing new lands 

 and new peoples in unknown quarters of the globe. 

 From the early days of Greek civilisation and onwards 

 to Elizabethan times, there was always the possibility 

 present in men's minds, not merely of discovering 

 new lands, but of discovering in those lands com- 

 munities enjoying a life of greater freedom and happi- 

 ness than that to which they were accustomed them- 

 selves. Nothing could have been more natural than 

 that imaginative men in the past, standing on the 

 shores of their respective coimtries, looking out across 

 great wastes of water, and feeling tired of the circum- 

 stances of life which they and their fellows had to 

 endure, should have conceived of distant Utopias 

 beyond the rim of the horizon — the Hesperides, the 



Isle of Avalon, the Blessed Land of tite Dead, the Ely- 

 sian Fields, the Fortunate Isles. Even Francis Bacon, 

 who never let his ideals endanger his safety and comfort, 

 wrote of a New Atlantis where science and the arts had 

 been brought to a high degree of efficiency. 



For imaginative power, breadth of outlook, and 

 bravery of vision, the Neiv Atlantis does not bear 

 comparison with More's Utopia written a century ear- 

 lier. This wonderful book, of which a new translation 

 has just been published,' constitutes a landmark in 

 the progress of idealism even greater than St. Augus- 

 tine's De Civitate Dei and Plato's Republic, to which 

 it owes much of its inspiration. It paints the picture 

 of a country inhabited by a true commonwealth in 

 which there is no private property and " though no 

 man has anjlhing, \-et all are rich," in which science 

 and philosophy have come into their o\Yn, where war 

 is regarded "with utter loathing," and where selfish 

 aims and ambitions obtain no reward. 



***** 

 In the clash between Capitalism and Labour to-day 

 we are naturally apt to think too much of present 

 " wrongs " and immediate " dangers." The ideal of 

 a state in which health, happiness, beauty, and 

 progress of knowledge shall be ensured is sacrificed to 

 political ideals which should be subservient to it. 

 More important than the destruction of systems of 

 government is the destruction of disease, slum areas, 

 outworn traditions, ignorance. Science ui aU its 

 branches is working towards establishing a Utopia 

 on this eartli. Last year will remain memorable as 

 the year in which man found out how to allay, if not 

 entirely to cure, the disease of diabetes ; this year he 

 has discovered a vaccine which may sooner or later 

 rid the world of consumption ; this year, too, sees the 

 start of the most determined onset on cancer that has 

 ever been attempted. The sciences of anthropology 

 and psychology are giving us a knowledge of the work- 

 ings of the individual mind and of the behaviour of 

 " groups " of individuals, which is being felt directly 

 or indirectly in social life and traditions all over the 

 civUised world. 



***** 



A brilliant forecast of what our world may be like 

 several thousand years hence is given in Mr. H. G. 

 Wells's Men Like Gods.- Though his Utopia is placed 



1 Move's Utopia. Translated into modern English by G. C. 

 Richards. (O.xford : Basil Blackwell, 3s. 6ti.) Earlier trans- 

 lations from the original Latin have been characterised by a 

 dullness of language, which has rendered them almost unread- 

 able. This new translation by a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 

 is admirably lucid, though it adopts to a certain extent the 

 written English of More's own period. 



- Cassell & Co., 1922. 



