IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 25 



are instantly at his summons everywhere to save him and his 

 from suffering and disease. Nay, the very fact of the matter 

 is that science made possible the continued existence of Mr. 

 Tolstoi and his serfs, when a few years since but for science- 

 invented steamships and telegraphs all the people of southern 

 Russia would have perished by starvation together. Mr. 

 Tolstoi probably appreciates this, but he fancies that the world 

 suffers more from selfishness and tyranny than from ignorance 

 of nature and her laws, which may be true; but the antidote 

 for tyranny is intelligence, for selfishness wisdom, and in the 

 winning of such virtues science is certainly a contributor not 

 to be despised. The most democratic statesmen in Europe 

 to-day are not the men of religion, the clericals, but the men of 

 science. It is one function of this Academy, at least, to keep 

 the people of Iowa from lapsing in their allegiance to what 

 may well be called, as it seems to me, the noblest and most 

 beneficent intellectual movement of modern times. 



It would seem gratuitous thus to enter upon a defense of 

 science or the scientific methods; they really need no defense; 

 but after all, it is w^ell sometimes to declare the truth. In 

 fact science, as such, has never been popular. As usual, 

 results only are popular. The toilsome, laborious researches 

 recounted in the tomes of all the academies of earth are not 

 attractive, not popular. They mean long days and nights of 

 weary labor. Faraday and the electricians before him dis- 

 covered and knew nearly all that we know to-day concerning 

 induction and alternating currents, but Faraday never heard 

 through a telephone the voice of his friend, nor walked in the 

 blaze of an electric light. That came later. It is easy for men 

 to sit by an incandescent lamp and write criticisms of the 

 scientific method, but such men ought at least be honest 

 enough to acknowledge their indebtedness, to own that it pays 

 to have scientific work done, however unsatisfactory the 

 method of the scientist may seem to them to bo. How many 

 men there are ready to ridicule meteorology, the latest effort 

 in the field of scientific research, and yet every year, even with 

 our present imperfect methods and knowledge, the saving to 

 humanity by our weather service in property, health and even 

 life itself is of moment incalculable. Besides, who shall doubt 

 that the day is coming when the currents of the upper air may 

 be mapped and known as exactly, perhaps, as those of the 



