396 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 717 



hibit in the plainest way the universal 

 I'resence of a mnemic factor. 



"We may fix our eyes on phylogeny and 

 r- gard the living world as a great chain 

 oi forms, each of which has learned some- 

 thing of which its predecessors were ig- 

 norant; or we may attend rather to onto- 

 geny, where the lessons learned become in 

 part automatic. But we must remember 

 that the distinction between phylogeny 

 and ontogeny is an artificial one, and that 

 routine and acquisition are blended in 

 life.=2 



The great engine of natural selection is 

 taunted nowadays, as it was fifty years 

 ago, with being merely a negative power. 

 I venture to think that the mnemic hypo- 

 thesis of evolution makes the positive 

 value of natural selection more obvious. 

 If evolution is a process of drilling organ- 

 isms into habits, the elimination of those 

 that can not learn is an integral part of 

 the process, and is no less real because it 

 is carried out by a self-acting system. It 

 is surely a positive gain to the harmony of 

 the universe that the discordant strings 

 should break. But natural selection does 

 more than this; and just as a trainer in- 

 sists on his performing dogs accommo- 

 dating themselves to conditions of increas- 

 ing complexity, so does natural selection 

 pass on its pupils from one set of condi- 

 tions to other and more elaborate tests, 

 insisting that they shall endlessly repeat 

 what they have learned and forcing them 

 to learn something new. Natural selec- 

 tion attains in a blind, mechanical way the 

 ends gained by a human breeder; and by 

 an extension of the same metaphor it may 

 be said to have the power of a trainer — of 



^ This subject is dealt with in a very interest- 

 ing manner in Professor James Ward's forth- 

 coming lectures on the " Realm of Ends." Also 

 in his article on " Mechanism and Morals " in the 

 Eilhert Journal, October, 1905, p. 92; and in his 

 article on Psychology in the " Encyclopedia Brit- 

 annica," 1886, Vol. XX., p. 44. 



an automatic master with endless patience 

 and all time at his disposal. 



Francis Darwin 



THE ANALYST, THE CHEMIST AND THE 

 CHEMICAL ENGINEER'' 



Let us consider that the terms, the an- 

 alyst, the chemist and the chemical engi- 

 neer, represent those members of the chem- 

 ical profession who devote their time to the 

 practical and industrial aspects of the sci- 

 ence, as contrasted with the teachers of 

 chemistry and the workers in abstract re- 

 search. 



The teacher of chemistry and the man of 

 abstract research may be compared to the 

 exciter, the industrial chemist to the dy- 

 namo, which supplies whatever power is to 

 be derived from the science of chemistry, 

 to the industrial world. 



It is essential that the industrial chemist 

 and the teacher should work closely to- 

 gether, that each should know the aims 

 and needs of the other, if the power of 

 chemical science is to be developed to its 

 full capacity. 



There is no more important member of 

 the community to-day than the chemist. 

 I doubt that there ever were more impor- 

 tant members of the community even in 

 the more primitive conditions of society 

 than the men who smelted the iron, and 

 tanned the leather, or the women who 

 wrought and burned the earthen pots and 

 dyed the fibers for weaving. And these 

 technologists were the early representatives 

 of the chemical profession, they were the 

 industrial chemists of those early times — 

 chemists to this extent: they knew the 

 properties of certain substances and the 

 chemical transformations in certain direc- 

 tions which these substances were capable 

 of undergoing. 



The soldier, the priest and the medicine 

 ' Address delivered before the New Haven meet- 

 ing of the American Chemical Society. 



