502 



NATURE 



[September 19, 1901 



which we are well acquainted, namely, by the methods of care- 

 fully planned and patiently executed observation and experiment. 

 The field for energetic and painstaking effort is wider and more 

 attractive than ever before. Science is now truly cosmopolitan ; 

 it can be limited by no close corporations, and no domain of 

 scientific investigation can be advantageously fenced off, either 

 in time or in place, from the rest. While every active worker 

 of this or of any affiliated society is, in a sense, a specialist, 

 there are occasions when he should unite with his colleagues for 

 the promotion of science as a whole. The results of the 

 specialists need to be popularised and to be disseminated among 

 the people at large. The advance of knowledge to be effective 

 with the masses of our race must be sustained on its merits by a 

 popular verdict. To bring the diverse scientific activities of the 

 American continent into harmony for common needs ; to secure 

 cooperation for common purposes ; and to disseminate the 

 results of scientific investigation among our fellow-men, are not 

 less, but rather much more, than in the past the privilege and 

 the duty of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. 



Viewed, then, in its broader aspects, the progress of science 

 is involved in the general progress of our race ; and those who 

 are interested in promoting the former should be equally earnest 

 in securing the latter. However much we may be absorbed in 

 the details of our specialities, when we stop to think of science 

 in its entirety, we are led, in the last analysis, back to the 

 problem of problems — the meaning of the universe. All men 

 "gifted with the sad endowment of a contemplative mind" 

 must recur again and again to this riddle of the centuries. 

 We are, so to speak, whatever our prepossessions, all 

 sailing in the same boat on an unknown sea for a 

 destination at best not fully determined. Some there are who 

 have, or think they have, the Pole Star always in sight. Others, 

 though less confident of their bearings, are willing to assume 

 nothing short of second place in the conduct of the ship. Others, 

 still less confident of their bearings, are disposed to depend 

 chiefly on their knowledge of the compass and on their skill in 

 dead reckoning. We of the latter class may not impugn the 

 motives or doubt the sincerity of the first two classes. We would 

 find it difficult, probably, to dispense with their company in so 

 long a journey after becoming so well acquainted with them ; 

 for among them we may each recall not a few of those rarer in- 

 dividuals of the genus homo called angels on earth. But it 

 must be said in all truth, to resume the figure, that they have 

 neither improved much the means of transportation nor perfected 

 much the art of navigation. They have been sufficiently occu- 

 pied, perhaps, in allaying the fears of the timid and in restraining 

 the follies of the mutinous. Other types of mind and other 

 modes of thought than theirs have been essential to work out 

 the improvements which separate the earlier from the later 

 nautical equipments of men ; such improvements, for example, 

 as mark the distinction between the dug-out of our lately 

 acknowledged relatives, the Moros and the Tagalogs, from the 

 Atlantic-liner of to-day. At any rate, we are confronted by 

 the fact that man's conceptions of the universe have undergone 

 slow but certain enlargement. His early anthropocentric and 

 anthropomorphic views have been replaced, in so far as he has 

 attained measurable advancement, by views that will bear tests 

 of astronomy and anthropology. He has learned, slowly and 

 painfully, after repeated failures and many steps backward, to 

 distinguish, in some regions of thought, the real and the per- 

 manent from the fanciful and fleeting phenomena of which he 

 forms a part. His pursuit of knowledge, in so far as it has led 

 him to certainty, has been chiefly a discipline of disillusionment. 

 He has arrived at the truth not so much by the genius of direct 

 discovery as by the laborious process of the elimination of error. 

 Hence he who has learned wisdom from experience must look 

 out on the problem of the universe at the beginning of the 

 twentieth century with far less confidence in his ability to 

 speedily solve it, and with far less exaggerated notions of his 

 own importance in the grand aggregate of Nature, than man 

 entertained at the beginning of our era. But no devotee of 

 science finds humiliation in this departure from the primitive 

 concepts of humanity. On the contrary, he has learned that 

 this apparent humiliation is the real source of enlightenment and 

 encouragement ; for notwithstanding the relative minuteness 

 of the speck of cosmic dust on which we reside, and notwith- 

 standing the relative incompetency of the mind to discover our 

 exact relations to the rest of the universe, it has yet been possible 

 to measure that minuteness and to determine that incompetency. 



NO. 1664, VOL, 64] 



These, in brief, are the elements of positive knowledge at which 

 we have arrived through the long course of unconscious, or only 

 half-conscious, experience of mankind. All lines of investigation 

 converge towards or diverge from these elements. It is along 

 such lines that progress has been attained in the past, and it 

 is along the same lines that we may expect progress to proceed 

 in the future. 



THE GLASGOW MEETING OF THE BRITISH 

 ASSOC I A TION. 



'T'HE seventy-first annual meeting of the British Asso- 



-*■ elation came to an end yesterday. For the purposes 

 of the meeting the entire accommodation of the College 

 Buildings was placed at the disposal of the .Association by 

 the University authorities, while for the opening meeting 

 the St. Andrew's Hall was granted by the Corporation. 

 Between 2000 and 3000 persons attended at the St. 

 Andrew's Hall to hear the opening address of the presi- 

 dent. Prof. A. \V. Riicker, F.R.S. The retiring presi-. 

 dent, Sir William Turner, F.R.S., took the chair and 

 introduced his successor, who afterwards delivered the 

 presidential address, which was printed in last week's 

 N.\TURE ; and on Thursday morning the work of the 

 sections commenced. Reports of the proceedings of the 

 sections will appear in these columns as in previous 

 years. 



Melancholy interest was given to the meeting by 

 the expressions of sympathy sent to the United States 

 by the Association in connection with the assassination 

 of the late President M'Kinley. At the first meeting of 

 the General Committee, it was decided, upon the pro- 

 position of Sir Michael Foster, seconded by Sir John 

 Evans, that the following telegram be sent on behalf of 

 the Association : — " That the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, assembled at Glasgow, desires 

 to make known to President M'Kinley its feeling of 

 horror at the attempt upon his life, its sympathy with 

 him in his suffering, and its earnest hope for his speedy 

 and complete restoration to health." A reply expressing 

 thanks for the sympathy was received from the late 

 President's secretary on Thursday evening. 



The news of the death of President M'Kinley became 

 known on Saturday morning, when only two sections of 

 the Association were sitting. At the close of the meet- 

 ing of one of these sections — Educational Science — Sir 

 John Gorst, the president, referred in touching terms to 

 the profound grief which British people share with those 

 of the United States at the terrible event that had 

 occurred. The members present stood while expression 

 was being given to their feelings by the president, and 

 the following resolution, moved by him and seconded by 

 Sir Philip Magnus, was adopted in solemn silence : — 



"That this section of the British Association has 

 heard with profound grief of the death of President 

 M'Kinley, and records its deep sympathy with the family 

 of the late President and the people of the United States 

 of America in their domestic and national bereavement." 



Many distinguished members of the Association were 

 present at the opening by Lord Lister, on September 12, 

 of the new Anatomical Department of Glasgow Uni- 

 versity, comprising an extensive laboratory, museum, &c. 

 The building has been presented to the University by 

 the trustees of the late Mr. J. B. Thomson, and Lord 

 Lister, in opening this important addition to the resources 

 of the University, remarked that it comprised "as fine a 

 laboratory as existed in the world, and at the same time 

 a capacious, commodious, and beautiful anatomical 

 museum adjoining it." Prof Cleland has presented to 

 the University his large collection of anatomical speci- 

 mens, and this, with the specimens collected by his 

 predecessors and placed in the museum, makes the 



