294 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



forced from his environment the readjustments necessary 

 for his well-being. Not always is this possible. The path 

 is not one of ease, but it is being steadily pursued. In the 

 essay entitled " Nature's Insurgent Son," a noted British 

 scientist 5 compares man to an insurgent gone so far in his 

 rebellion that there is no return, for whom capitulation can 

 mean only death. The rebel against natural forces must 

 continue on his course until the end is won, if he would find 

 safety. Man cannot now return to the dominion of nature, 

 he must see the battle through, and succeed by mastering 

 his environment and so controlling his destiny. Hence 

 knowledge of how to secure this mastery is more vital to 

 him than aught else. 



Again, take the poetry of modern invention. For it is 

 there in plenty when you know how to find it, as Kipling has 

 done time and again, but nowhere better than in his verses 

 on "The Deep-sea Cables. " 



The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar 

 Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea- 

 snakes are. 



There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, 

 Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables 

 creep. 



Here in the womb of the world here on the tie-ribs of earth 

 Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat 

 Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth 



For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet. 



They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their 



father Time; 



Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun. 

 Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime, 

 And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!" 



There is a great fund for imagination in the wireless 



6 Lankester, E. Ray, "The Kingdom of Man." 



