136 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 



Society, of which he had been the honoured Preeident, was founded, the further- 

 ance of Natural Knowledge. 



The part which physical science has played in the conduct of the war on 

 our side has been an important one, but it has by no means been so decisive as 

 it might and ought to have been. And here lie the lessons which I think we 

 can draw from the terrible events which have taken place. Some few people, 

 mostly hostile to or jealous of science, whose vision of facts and tendencies 

 seems to me to be hopelessly obscured by prejudice, would try to impose on 

 the advance of natural knowledge and the supposed increased influence of 

 scientific ideas on the minds of men, or, perhaps more precisely, on the diminu- 

 tion of the study of the so-ca.lled humanities, the sole or the main re.sponsibility 

 for the outbreak of war. It seems to me that a good many people allow 

 themselves to be misled by a name. The name Hwnanity is given in the Scottish 

 Universities to the department of the Latin language and literature, and in a 

 wider usage the study of Latin and Greek is referred to as that of Ljtterm 

 Humaniores. But I am not aware that there is any more humanity, in the 

 common acceptation of the term, about these studies than there is in many 

 others. And experience has shown that the assertion that these studies have 

 a special refining influence, while the pursuit of science has a brutalising 

 tendency, is based on ignorance and partiality. The truth is that the man who 

 knows nothing of science, and he who has neglected the study of letters, are both 

 imperfectly educated. 



Well, the accusation I refer to may be dismissed without argument. 

 This is certainly not the time nor the place for a discnssion of the causes of 

 the war, or of the ethics of the extraordinary methods introduced into warfare 

 by our enemies. But one- thing I will say in this connection. Even poison gas 

 is innocent in itself, and it occurs as a product in perfectly indispensable and 

 eminently useful chemical processes. The extraordinary potency of scientific 

 knowledge for the good of civilised mankind is frequently conjoined with a 

 potency for evil ; but the responsibility, for an inhuman use of it does not lie 

 with the scientific investigator. The gui'lt lies at the door of the High Com- 

 mand, of the high and mighty persons, themselves in feeling and temper 

 utterly imscientific, who approved and directed the employment of methods of 

 attack which destroyed the wounded and helpless, and wrecked for ever the 

 health of many of those who emerged alive from the inferno. 



As regards the help which British science was able to render in the defence 

 against the German attack and the operations which followed when the fortune 

 of war changed so dramatically, and the enemy, was driven back towards the 

 chain of fastnesses from behind which he originally emerged, one or two obvious 

 reflections must have occurred to everyone. In one form or another these have 

 been referred to by various writers, but I may recall one or two of them, for as 

 a people we are incorrigibly forgetful and appear to be almost incapable of 

 profiting from experience, which, according to the Latin proverb, teaches even 

 fools. 



Nearly twenty years ago the urgent necessity for the reorganisation of our 

 military machinery had been, in the view of civilians at least, who had t« bear 

 the cost of the war in South Africa, demonstrated ad nmiseam, but nothing of 

 real importance in the way of reforming the War Office seems to have been done. 

 The shocks we had received were forgotten, and soon the nation returned to 

 its insular complacency, the old party, cries resounded in the market-place, the 

 hacks of party politics again resum.ed their occupation of camouflage and hood- 

 winking, and of giving 'parliamentary answers,' and the country drifted on 

 towards its fate. 



All this time an enormously powerful war machine was being built up on 

 the Continent, and its diiTerent parts tested so far as that could be done with- 

 out actual warfare. The real object of these preparations was carefully^ veiled 

 by an appearance of frankness and professions of good will, though it was 

 revealed every now and then by the indiscretions of the German military caste. 

 To these indications and to others the country, ostrich-like, covered its eyes. 



Now, it is often alleged that men engrossed in the pursuit of science are 

 unbusinesslike, but I think that, if there had been any truly scientific element 

 in the personnel of the Government (there never is by any chance), attention 



