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SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1414 



selves as individuals, but of our remote 

 descendants and the earth on which they are 

 to live. It is obvious that a geologist is on 

 safer ground if he confines his thoughts to 

 the domain of geology, and there are some 

 who may adopt the attitude that it is not 

 fitting for him to digress from the pursuit of 

 his strictly geological facts and theories. With 

 that opinion I frankly disagree. It seems to 

 me that there are times when the geologist 

 should consider the relation of his own science 

 not only to other sciences but to the affairs of 

 his country and the world at large. I shall 

 therefore venture to comment upon certain 

 aspects of those relations which seem to me 

 worth considering on such an occasion as this. 

 The old anthropocentric attitude of mind, 

 which characterized even the more progressive 

 nations up to very recent times and is still 

 prevalent among humans in general, exag- 

 gerated the importance of man. All things 

 were regarded as being intended for his use, 

 benefit or punishment. The rain was sent to 

 mature his crops; the forests covered the land 

 in order that he might have wood; the fishes 

 of the sea had been thoughtfully provided for 

 his subsistence; and coal had been formed in 

 the rocks to give him warmth and power. 

 Within the last few decades this attitude has 

 been supplanted to some extent by the evolu- 

 tionary view, which had been incubated long 

 before the time of Darwin, but was by his 

 cogent marshalling of facts given great im- 

 petus in the world of philosophy. Even to-day 

 this point of view is generally modified by a 

 prejudice, which is understandably subtle in 

 its appeal and extremely difficult to cast out. 

 Many were disposed to accept the theory of 

 evolution as appljring to the ordinary plants 

 and animals, but with reservations when it 

 came to the genus Homo. Man was supposed 

 somehow to be an exception, more or less ex- 

 empt from those laws which had governed all 

 organisms for hundreds of millions of years 

 up to the time of his advent. It would be 

 interesting to know how widely this view pre- 

 vails to-day even among that minority of 

 human kind who are considered well educated 

 and philosophically minded. It is tacitly 

 assumed in certain widely used text-books of 



geology, which were current within a score of 

 years. 



Unquestionably we do differ from all other 

 animals in that some of us have learned to do 

 things in a high degi-ee which other animals 

 do only in very low degree or not at all. The 

 faculty of invention, which can be traced as a 

 mere rudiment in some of the other mammals, 

 we have developed in wonderful measure. 

 Communication of thought by sound and 

 gesture — a power possessed by many other 

 mammals as well as birds — we have improved 

 until we are able to communicate ideas accu- 

 rately and in the finest shades of meaning by 

 our vocal language. Many other animals 

 remember their experiences and profit by such 

 recollections, but it is the human species 

 that has vastly increased the store of such 

 remembered ideas and uses them as material 

 for thought. Above all, man is the reasoning 

 animal, fabricating new ideas out of present 

 observations and the records of the memory. 

 This is doubtless the greatest innovation pre- 

 sented to the world by the human species. Can 

 we impartially estimate its value? 



It has often been assumed that these won- 

 derful powers of the mind are fast giving to 

 the human race control over its environment to 

 such an extent that henceforward many of the 

 laws of evolution which have hitherto governed 

 the careers of animals and plants will be abro- 

 gated or greatly modified, so far as concerns 

 man. It has been supposed, in short, that we 

 do or will effectively dominate other organisms 

 and can readily adapt ourselves to those en- 

 vironmental factors, such as climate, which 

 we cannot directly control. 



In some measure this is true. We have 

 lately become so accustomed to triumphing 

 over the lower animals and circumventing the 

 once unpassable barriers of the oceans, the 

 upper air, and the frozen polar regions, that 

 it may be opportune to raise the question 

 whether either domination or adaptation are 

 destined to go as far as is commonly believed, 

 and to what extent they are to last — for the 

 geologist cannot regard anything as permanent. 

 It is a truism among us that the only per- 

 manent thing in the universe is change. 

 In most parts of the world we have by this 



