September 19, 1901] 



NA TURE 



501 



disparage the elevated aspirations and the noble efforts of the 

 evangelists and the humanists who seek to raise the lower to 

 the plane of the higher elements of our race ; but it is now 

 plain as a matter of fact, however repulsive it may seem to some 

 of our inherited opinions, that the railway, the steamship, the 

 telegraph, and the daily Press will do more to illumine the dark 

 places of the earth than all the apostles of creeds and all the 

 messengers of the gospel of " sweetness and light." 



A question of profound significance growing out of the ex- 

 tension of commercial relations in our time is what may be 

 called the question of international health. An outbreak of 

 cholera in Hamburg, the prevalence of yellow fever in Havana, 

 or an epidemic of bubonic plague in India is no longer a matter 

 of local import, as nations with which we are well acquainted 

 have learned recently in an expensive manner. The manage- 

 ment of this great international question calls for the application 

 of the most advanced scientific knowledge and for the most 

 intricate scientific investigation. Large sums of money must be 

 devoted to this work, and many heroic lives will be lost, doubt- 

 less, in its execution ; but it is now evident, as a mere matter 

 of international political economy, that the cost of sound sanita- 

 tion will be trifling in comparison with the cost of no sanitation ; 

 while further careful study of the natural history of diseases 

 promises practical immunity from many of them at no distant 

 day. International associations of all kinds must aid greatly 

 also in the promotion of progress. Many such organisations 

 have, indeed, already undertaken scientific projects with the 

 highest success. Comparison and criticism of methods and re- 

 sults not only lead rapidly and effectively to improvements and 

 advances, but they lead also to a whole-hearted recognition of 

 good work which puts the fraternalism of men of science on a 

 plane far above the level of the amenities of merely diplomatic 

 life. 



When we turn to the general status of science itself, there 

 is seen to be equal justification for hopefulness founded on an 

 abundance of favourable conditions. The methods of science 

 may be said to have gained a footing of respectability in almost 

 every department of thought, where, a half century ago, or even 

 twenty years ago, their entry was either barred out or stoutly 

 opposed. The "Conflict between Religion and Science" — 

 more precisely called the conflict between theology and science 

 — which disturbed so many eminent though timid minds, in- 

 cluding not a few men of science, a quarter of a century ago, 

 has now been transferred almost wholly to the field of the 

 theological contestants ; and science may safely leave them to 

 determine the issue, since it is evidently coming by means of 

 scientific methods. The grave fears entertained a few decades 

 ago by distinguished theologians and publicists as to the stability 

 of the social fabric under the stress put upon it by the rising tide 

 of scientific ideas have not been realised. And, on the other 

 hand, the grave doubts entertained by distinguished men of 

 science a few decades ago as to the permeability and ready 

 response of modern society to that influx of new ideas have 

 likewise not been realised. It is true that we sometimes read 

 of theological tests being applied to teachers of biology, and 

 hear, occasionally, of an earnest search for a good Methodist 

 or a good Presbyterian mathematician ; but such cases may be 

 left for settlement out of court by means of the arbitration of 

 our sense of humour. 



It seems not unlikely, also, that there may persist, for a long 

 time to come, a more or less guerilla " warfare of science " with 

 our friends the dogmatists and the humanists. Some consider 

 this conflict to be, in the nature of things, irrepressible. But I 

 think we may hope, if we may not confidently expect, that the 

 collisions of the future will occur more manifestly than they 

 have in the past in accordance with the law of the conservation 

 of energy ; so that the heat evolvSd may reappear as potential 

 energy in the warmth of a kindly reasonableness on both sides, 

 rather than suffer degradation to the level of cosmic frigidity. 



Great questions, also, of education, of economic, industrial 

 and social conditions, and of legal and political relations are 

 now demanding all the light which science can bring to bear 

 upon them. Though tardily perceived, it is now admitted, 

 generally, that science must not only participate in the develop- 

 ment of these questions but that it alone can point the way to 

 the solutions of many of them. But there is no halting ground 

 here. Science must likewise enter and explore the domain of 

 manners and morals; and these, though already largely modified 

 unconsciously, must now be modified consciously to a still 

 greater extent by the advance of science. Only within quite 



NO. 1664, VOL. 64] 



recent times have we come to realise an approximation to the 

 real meaning of the trite saying that the true study of man is 

 man. So long as the most favoured individuals of his race, 

 accordance with the hypothesis of the first centuries, looked 

 upon him as a fallen, if not a doomed, resident of an abandoned 

 reservation, there could be roused little enthusiasm with respect 

 to his present condition ; all though!; was concentrated on his 

 future prospects. How incomparably different does he appear 

 to the anthropologist and to the psychologist at the beginning 

 of the twentieth century ! In the light of evolution he is seen 

 to be a part of, and not apart from, the rest of the universe. 

 The transcendent interest of this later view of man lies in the 

 fact that he can not only investigate the other parts of the uni- 

 verse, but that he can, by means of the same methods, investi- 

 gate himself. 



I would be the last to look upon science as furnishing a speedy 

 or a complete panacea for the sins and sorrows of mankind ; the 

 destiny of our race is entangled in a cosmic process whose 

 working is thus far only dimly outlined to us ; but it is never- 

 theless clear that there are available to us immense oppor- 

 tunities for the betterment of man's estate. For example, to 

 mention only one of the lines along which improvement is 

 plainly practicable, what is to hinder an indefinite mitigation, 

 if not a definite extinction, of the ravages of such dread 

 diseases as consumption and typhoid fever ? Or what, we may 

 ask, is to hinder the application to New York, Philadelphia 

 and Chicago of as effective health regulations as those now 

 applied to Havana ? Nothing, apparently, except vested 

 interests and general apathy. We read, not many years ago, 

 that a city of about one million inhabitants had, during one 

 year, more than six thousand cases of typhoid fever. The cost 

 to the city of a single case may be estimated as not less, on the 

 average, than one thousand dollars, making an aggregate cost 

 to that city, for one year, of more than six millions of dollars. 

 Such a waste of financial resources ought to appeal to vested 

 interests and general apathy even if they cannot be moved by 

 any higher motives. Thanks to the penetration of the enlighten- 

 ment of our times, distinct advances have already been made 

 in the line of effective domestic and public sanitation ; but the 

 good work accomplished is infinitesimal in comparison with 

 that which can be, and ought to be, done. It is along this, and 

 along allied lines of social and industrial economy, that we 

 should look, I think, for the alleviation of the miseries of man- 

 kind. No amount of contemplation of the beatitudes, human 

 or divine, will prevent men from drinking contaminated water 

 or milk ; and no fear of future punishments, which may be in 

 the meantime atoned for, will much deter men from wasting 

 their substance in riotous living. The moral certainty of speedy 

 and inexorable earthly annihilation is alone adequate to bring 

 man into conformity with the cosmic rules and regulations of 

 the drama of life. 



And, finally, we must reckon amongst the most important 

 of the conditions favourable to the progress of science the 

 unexampled activity in our times of the scientific spirit as mani- 

 fested in the work of all kinds of organisations from the semi- 

 religious Chautauquan assemblies ujD to those technical societies 

 whose programmes are Greek to all the world beside. Litera- 

 ture, linguistics, history, economics, law and theology are now 

 permeated by the scientific spirit, if not animated by the scien- 

 tific method. Curiously enough, also, the terminology, ihe 

 figures of speech and the points of view of science are now 

 quite common in realms of thought hitherto held somewhat 

 scornfully above the plane of materialistic phenomena. Tyndall's 

 Belfast address, which, twenty-se%'en years ago, was generally 

 anathematised, is now quoted with approval by some of the 

 successors of those who bitterly denounced him and all his 

 kind. Thus the mere lapse of time is working great changes 

 and smoothing out grave differences of opinion in favour of the 

 progress of science in all the neighbouring provinces with 

 which we have been able hitherto to maintain only rather 

 strained diplomatic relations. 



Still more immediately important to us are the evidences of 

 progress manifested in recent years by this Association and by 

 its affiliated societies. Our parent organisation, though half a 

 century old, is still young as regards the extent in time of the 

 functions it has undertaken to perform. It has accomplished a 

 great work : but in the vigour and enthusiasm of its youth a far 

 greater work is easily attainable. Exactly how these functions 

 are to be developed no man can foresee. We may learn, how- 

 ever, in this, as in other lines of research, by methods with 



