via THE DARWIN CENTENARY. [April 23, 



and applied by the illustrious founder of this Society, Benjamin 

 Franklin. 



From this comparison of the growth of this scientific spirit in 

 these two branches, the human sciences, and the sciences of observa- 

 tion in the natural world, such as physics and chemistry and natural 

 history, let us return to note the great effect which during the last 

 eighty years the growth and rapid advance of natural science in all 

 its branches has exerted upon the students of historical and political 

 sciences. To-day natural science, to a degree which was never 

 known before, has come to permeate the atmosphere that we breathe. 

 It is impossible for anyone who has any tincture of letters or knowl- 

 edge not to feel that he is moving about in a world permeated by 

 ideas and methods of natural science to the extent that was never 

 known at an earlier period of history. This has, of course, told upon 

 the students of historical and political science. It has made them 

 endeavor to emulate that attention to the smallest details, that 

 accuracy in observing and recording, which the votaries of natural 

 science bring to their work. We are all debtors to the men of 

 science for helping to impress these things upon us and for giving 

 us the highest standard of diligence, of patience, of care, of the 

 removal of all personal emotion and feeling from the quest of truth. 

 In this way there can be no doubt at all that the natural sciences have 

 had a potent influence upon the growth of the sister sciences which 

 deal with human afifairs. It would indeed be a good thing if every- 

 one who studied history and those other sciences were to acquire 

 some knowledge — at least an elementary knowledge, and elementary 

 knowledge need not be a superficial knowledge — of the methods of 

 some one of the natural sciences, because it would tend to raise his 

 conception of what the exactitude and finish of scientific method 

 may be, and improve him in applying it to his own line of research. 

 Every serious student, whatever his special subject, must be grate- 

 ful to Charles Darwin for the light he cast on the field of natural 

 knowledge. He enlarged our conception of the reign of law through 

 the whole realm of animate nature, and he also presented in his own 

 person a shining ensample of the mental and moral qualities and 

 habits which every man ought to bring with him into the search for 

 truth. In these respects we who follow the study of history honor 



