MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



to us to-day they would find themselves unable to 

 comprehend the very phraseology in which even a 

 rudimentary lesson in science might be given in a 

 college classroom. 



"Such words as X-Ray, radium, radioactivity, elec- 

 tron, Zeeman effect, Mendelism, serum-therapy, sal- 

 varsan, Finsen ray, argon, krypton, neon, aeroplane, 

 radiograph, ultra-microscope, and the like would 

 have for them absolutely no meaning. They would 

 have but vague notions as to what dirigible balloons 

 might be like. Diesel engines, vaccine therapy, the 

 meteoritic hypothesis, carborundum, the side-chain 

 theory, anaphylaxis, unit characters, dominant and 

 recessive traits, eugenics, all these would be un- 

 meaning terms, or terms quite lacking their present- 

 day significance. The entire coterie of new sciences 

 associated with these words supplemented in each 

 case by a more or less elaborate terminology of allied 

 words has sprung into being in the brief interval 

 that has elapsed since these great expositors of nine- 

 teenth century science died. 



"In no other way, perhaps, could we make more 

 vividly manifest the extraordinary progress of our 

 new era than by reflecting on the great variety of 

 subjects, now matters of common knowledge, about 

 which Huxley and Tyndall knew nothing." 



