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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 783 



dent. At the end of the year he is thought 

 to have retired so far that he may safely 

 be permitted to say what he wishes on 

 some subject of his choice without undue 

 hazard to the association. This permits 

 him to deliver himself with a large degree 

 of freedom. If he shall say anything 

 amiss, the burden thrown on the associa- 

 tion is merely the reflection that at an 

 earlier stage in the evolution of the asso- 

 ciation, now lapsing into dimness of mem- 

 ory, an unfortunate selection was made. 



The established custom of occasions of 

 this kind leads the association to expect 

 that its retiring president will address it 

 upon some theme connected with the field 

 of his own work. I shall not altogether 

 ignore this custom, but I have chosen a 

 theme that is at once peculiarly humanistic 

 and distinctly prophetic. Geology has not 

 usually been regarded as in any special 

 sense a humanistic science, much less a 

 prophetic one. But it is just because it has 

 not been so regarded and because I have 

 fondly dreamed that it might become trib- 

 utary in an eminent degree to humanistic 

 problems and to a prophetic insight that 

 I have chosen the theme assigned for the 

 evening. 



Ever since the race came to a virile 

 state of intelligence, it has tried to peer- 

 into the future that it might guide itself 

 by its foresight. Now and then it has pro- 

 longed its vision beyond mere temporary 

 concerns and has endeavored to prophesy 

 the end of the race and the destruction of 

 the earth. At all stages the depth of its 

 vision into the things before has been close 

 akin to the length of its vision backward 

 and to the depth of its insight into the 

 things about it. The lamp of the past and 

 the illumination of the present have been 

 its light for the future. This must doubt- 

 less always be its true method, for only as 

 the race sees far into the past, sees widely 



and deeply into the present, has it any 

 firm basis for a confident prophecy of the 

 future. Even in its early days, the race 

 did not fail to note that— though this may 

 not be so of the ultimate entities— the ex- 

 isting forms come into existence, live their 

 day and pass away; why not, therefore, 

 the race and the earth on which it dwells? 

 Even as the race grows into its fuller ma- 

 turity and the horizon of its vision is en- 

 larged, there will doubtless still remain 

 the conviction that there has been a be- 

 ginning of the current order of things, and 

 a like conviction that there will be an end. 

 The enlargement of vision will only serve 

 to bring into view an additional multitude 

 of organisms and organizations that have 

 come into form, endured for a time and 

 passed away. Any future change in hu- 

 man forecasts is not likely to be one of 

 method, but one of measure. Some of the 

 features that have entered into former 

 prophecies will no doubt disappear and 

 perhaps new ones be added. The fore- 

 easts of pre-scientific times often made the 

 doom of the earth hinge on some lapse in 

 the conduct of man-made a physical dis- 

 aster serve as a moral punishment. With 

 a better knowledge of the moral law and 

 of man's place in nature, this anthropic 

 view will no doubt give place to a more 

 consistent insight into the sequences of the 

 moral and the physical worlds. 



In the earlier days of the race the back- 

 ward look was short and the putative 

 origin of the race and of the earth was 

 placed but a few thousand years in the 

 past; in consonance with this, the forward 

 look placed the end not far in the future. 

 So too, as the beginning was made chaotic, 

 the end was made cataclysmic. 



The dawn of the earth sciences was fol- 

 lowed by a new forecast, and as these 

 sciences grew this underwent revisions and 

 recasts. It was learned that the history of 



