SEPTEMBER 14, 1899] 
NATURE 
469 
only. In the first place, this her influence must be acknow- 
ledged ; she must be duly recognised as a teacher no less than 
as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. And the pursuit 
of science must be followed, not by the professional few only, 
but, at least in such measure as will ensure the influence of 
example, by the many. But this latter point I need not urge 
before this great Association, whose chief object during more 
than half a century has been to bring within the fold of science 
all who would answer to the call. In the second place, it must 
be understood that the training to be looked for from science is 
the outcome, not of the accumulation of scientific knowledge, 
but of the practice of scientific inquiry. Man may have at his 
fingers’ ends all the accomplished results and all the current 
opinions of any one or of all the branches of science, and yet 
remain wholly unscientific in mind ; but no one can have carried 
out even the humblest research without the spirit of science in 
some measure resting upon him. And that spirit may in part 
be caught even without entering upon an actual investigation in 
search of a new truth. The learner may be led to old truths, 
even the oldest, in more ways than one. He may be brought 
abruptly to a truth in its finished form, coming straight to it 
like a thief climbing over the wall ; and the hurry and press of 
modern life tempt many to adopt this quicker way. Or he may 
be more slowly guided along the path by which the truth was 
reached by him who first laid hold of it. It is by this latter 
way of learning the truth, and by this alone, that the learner 
may hope to catch something at least of the spirit of the scien- 
tific inquirer. 
This is not the place, nor have I the wish, to plunge into the 
turmoil of controversy; but, if there be any truth in what I 
have been urging, then they are wrong who think that in the 
schooling of the young science can be used with profit only to 
train those for whom science will be the means of earning their 
bread. It may be that from the point of view of the pedagogic 
art the experience of generations has fashioned out of the older 
studies of literature an instrument of discipline of unusual 
power, and that the teaching of science is as yet but a rough 
tool in unpractised hands. That, however, is not an adequate 
reason why scope should not be given for science to show the 
value which we claim for it as an intellectual training fitted for 
all sorts and conditions of men. Nor need the studies of 
humanity and literature fear her presence in the schools, for if 
her friends maintain‘ that that teaching is one-sided, and there- 
fore misleading, which deals with the doings of man only, and 
is silent about the works of nature, in the sight of which he 
and his doings shrink almost to nothing, she herself would be 
the first to admit that that teaching is equally wrong which 
deals only with the works of nature and says nothing about the 
doings of man, who is, to us at least, nature’s centre. 
There is yet another general aspect of science on which I 
would crave leave to say a word. In that broad field of human 
life which we call politics, in the struggle, not of man with man, 
but of race with race, science works for good. If we look only 
on the surface it may at first sight seem otherwise. In no 
branch of science has there during these later years been greater 
activity and more rapid progress than in that which furnishes 
the means by which man brings death, suffering, and disaster on 
his fellow-men. If the healer can look with pride on the 
increased power which science has given him to alleviate human 
suffering and ward off the miseries of disease, the destroyer can 
look with still greater pride on the power which science has 
given him to sweep away lives and to work desolation and ruin ; 
while the one has slowly been learning to save units, the other 
has quickly learnt to slay thousands. But, happily, the very 
greatness of the modern power of destruction is already be- 
coming a bar to its use, and bids fair—may we hope before 
long 2—wholly to put an end to it; in the words of Tacitus, 
though in another sense, the very preparations for war, through 
the character which science gives them, make for peace. = 
Moreover, not in one branch of science only, but in all, there 
is a deep undercurrent of influence sapping the very foundations 
of all war, As I have already urged, no feature of scientific 
inquiry is more marked than the dependence of each step for- 
ward on other steps which have been made before. The man 
of science cannot sit by himself in his own cave weaving 
out results by his own efforts, unaided by others, heedless of 
what others have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a 
great system, a joint ina great machine, and he can only work 
aright when he is in due touch with his fellow-workers, If his 
NO. 1559, VOL. 60] 
labour is to be what it ought to be, and is to have the weight 
which it ought to have, he must know what is being done, not 
by himself, but by others, and by others not of his own land 
and speaking his tongue only, but also of other lands and of 
other speech. Hence it comes about that to the man of science 
the barriers of manners and of speech which pen men into nations 
become more and more unreal and indistinct. He recognises 
his fellow-worker, wherever he may live and whatever tongue 
he may speak, as one who is pushing forward shoulder to 
shoulder with him towards a common goal, as one whom he is 
helping and who is helping him. The touch of science makes 
the whole world kin. 
The history of the past gives us many examples of this 
brotherhood of science. In the revival of learning throughout 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and some way on into: 
the eighteenth century, the common use of the Latin tongue 
made intercourse easy. In some respects, in those earlier days. 
science was more cosmopolitan than it afterwards became. In 
spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, the men of 
science of different lands again and again met each other face 
to face, heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes what 
their brethren had to say or to show. The Englishman took 
the long journey to Italy to study there ; the Italian, the French- 
man, and the German wandered from one seat of learning to 
another ; and many a man held a chair in acountry not his own. 
There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal Society 
of London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the 
works of the great Italian Malpighi, and the brilliant Lavoisier, 
two years before his own countrymen in their blind fury slew 
him, received from the same body the highest token which it 
could give of its esteem. 
In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great 
need of mutual knowledge and of common action felt by men of 
science of different lands is being manifested in a special way, 
Though nowadays what is done anywhere is soon known every- 
where, the news of a discovery being often flashed over the 
globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in the direc- 
tion of organisation to promote international meetings and inter- 
national co-operation. In almost every science inquirers from 
many lands now gather together at stated intervals in inter- 
national congresses to discuss matters which they have in 
common at heart, and go away each one feeling strengthened 
by having met his brother. The desire that in the struggle to 
lay bare the secrets of Nature the least waste of human energy 
should be incurred is leading more and more to the concerted 
action of nations combining to attack problems the solution of 
which is difficult and costly. The determination of standards of 
measurement, magnetic surveys, the solution of great geodetic 
problems, the mapping of the heavens and of the earth—all 
these are being carried on by international organisations. 
In this and in other countries men’s minds have this long 
while past been greatly moved by the desire to make fresh 
efforts to pierce the dark secrets of the forbidding Antarctic 
regions. Belgium has just made a brave single-handed attempt ; 
a private enterprise sailing from these shores is struggling there 
now, lost for the present to our view; and this year we in 
England and our brethren in Germany are, thanks to the pro- 
mised aid of the respective Governments, and no less to private 
liberality, in which this Association takes its share, able to begin 
the preparation of carefully organised expeditions. That in- 
ternational amity of which I am speaking is illustrated by the 
fact that in this country and in that there is not only a great 
desire, but a firm purpose, to secure the fullest co-operation, 
between the expeditions which will leave the two shores. If 
in this momentous attempt any rivalry be shown between the 
two nations, it will be for each a rivalry, not in forestalling, but 
in assisting the other. May I add that if the story of the past 
may seem to give our nation some claim to the seas as more 
peculiarly our own, that claim bespeaks a duty likewise peculiarly 
our own to leave no effort untried by which we may plumb 
the seas’ yet unknown depths and trace their yet unknown 
shores? That claim, if it means anything, means that when 
nations are joining hands in the dangerous work of exploring 
the unknown South, the larger burden of the task should fali to 
Britain’s share ; it means that we in this country should see to 
it, and see to it at once, that the concerted Antarctic expedi- 
tion, which in some two years or so will leave the shores of 
Germany, of England, and, perhaps, of other lands, should, so 
far as we are concerned, be so equipped and so sustained that 
the risk of failure and disaster may be made as. small, and the 
