Makch 2, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



217 



state of gigantic preparedness for a renewal 

 of the stupendous struggle, the constant ex- 

 penditure and strain directly involved will be 

 no more certain than such consequences in the 

 domain of the intellect as Professor Brown 

 foreshadows, and as other men concerned for 

 the future of intellectual aspiration have un- 

 doubtedly been apprehending. If, on the 

 other hand, the world shall be blest with such 

 an outlook at the close of the war as will make 

 the recurrence of such a calamity seem prac- 

 tically out of the question, it is by no means 

 impossible that release from the fearful strain 

 of the war wiU carry with it a spontaneous 

 rush of lofty minds into regions as remote as 

 possible from that into which the life of man 

 had been so inexorably forced during the 

 years of terror. To trust to any analogy of 

 the past, when the present is in some vital re- 

 spects so utterly without precedent, would be 

 most unsafe; yet it is not without significance 

 that in this very domain of pure mathematics 

 two periods of the highest fecundity have oc- 

 curred precisely when it might have been sup- 

 posed that the minds of men were completely 

 absorbed in the tremendous actualities of war. 

 During and for some years after the wars of 

 the First Eepublic and of ISTapoleon, there was 

 in France such a flowering of mathematical 

 genius and such splendor of mathematical 

 achievement as have hardly been matched in 

 the history of the world; and it was imme- 

 diately after the war of 1870 that, after a long 

 period of comparative quiescence, that same 

 spirit flashed out in the brilliant group of 

 mathematicians of whom Henri Poincare was 

 but one, though the most illustrious, exemplar. 

 However this may be, there can be no doubt 

 that the gospel of relentless " efficiency " to 

 which the war has given so great an impetus 

 carries, deeply embedded in it, the seeds of 

 hostility to all activities and interests which 

 find their spring in intellectual aspiration or 

 enthusiasm. At best, from the standpoint of 

 the eificiency cult, such endeavors have to be 

 justified by the plea that, divorced as they 

 may seem to be from practical objects, they 

 do conduce to the advancement of the common 

 ends of the nation or of mankind, though the 



connection may be remote or subtle. The plea 

 can be made good over a very broad area, 

 and in the case of mathematics the constant 

 interplay between the advancement of pure 

 theory and the pursuit of its physical applica- 

 tions makes the task easier than in many 

 other cases. But the argument is a thorny 

 one; and that is not the worst of it. The mere 

 necessity of resorting to such a defensive plea, 

 the mere surrender of the proud conviction 

 that the pursuit of truth is in itself a noble 

 end which requires no secondary justification, 

 must immeasurably depress the tone of scien- 

 tific enthusiasm and impair the energy with 

 which its objects are pursued. 



And it has to be confessed that, long before 

 the war began, long before any shadow of its 

 approach had been cast upon the world, an- 

 other factor was working powerfully toward 

 the production of the same effect. For years, 

 and most of all in this country, the idea that 

 " service " is the only justifiable motive of in- 

 tellectual endeavor had been steadily gaining 

 ground. It is true that occasion has shown, 

 again and again, that the intellectual world 

 had not been swept from its moorings ; that, as 

 usual, the latest mode had been taken up by 

 persons whose vocal facility produced a false 

 impression both of their numbers and their 

 weight. ISTevertheless, the trend was marked 

 enough to be important; and, unless checked 

 by staunch self-assertion on the part of those 

 whose convictions were deeper, as well as more 

 informed, it threatened grave injury to one of 

 the highest interests of civilized mankind. 

 With the reinforcement which the develop- 

 ments of the war have from so different a 

 quarter brought to this tendency, it is more 

 than ever necessary for those to assert them- 

 selves who know how precious to the life of 

 us all is that element which is supplied by the 

 devotion of the lives of some to the pursuit 

 of truth for its own sake, or even for the sake 

 of the fame which is the natural reward of 

 signal success. John Milton had perhaps as 

 high an ideal of service as the youngest of 

 our present-day reformers; yet it was not with 

 contempt that he spoke of those who " scorn 

 delights and live laborious days " in the pur- 



