OcTOBER 6, 1899.] 
a word. In that broad field of human life 
which we call politics, in the struggle not 
of man with man, but of race with race, 
science works for good. If we look only 
on the surface it may at first sight seem 
otherwise. In no branch of science has 
there during these later years been greater 
activity and more rapid progress than in 
that which furnishes the means by which 
man brings death, suffering and disaster on 
his fellow-men. If the healer can look with 
pride on the increased power which science 
has given him to alleviate human suffering 
and ward off the miseries of disease, the 
destroyer can look with still greater pride 
on the power which science has given him 
to sweep away lives and to work desolation 
and ruin: while the one has slowly been 
learning to save units, the other has quickly 
learnt to slay thousands. But, happily. 
the very greatness of the modern power of 
destruction is already becoming a bar to its 
use, and bids fair—may we hope before 
long ?—wholly to put an end to it; in the 
words of Tacitus, though in another sense, 
the very preparations for war, through the 
character which science gives them, make 
for peace. 
Moreover, not in one branch of science 
only, but in all, there is a deep undercur- 
rent of influence sapping the very founda- 
tions of all war. As I have already urged, 
no feature of scientific inquiry is more 
marked than the dependence of each step 
forward on other steps which have been 
made before. The man of science cannot 
sit by himself in his own cave weaving out 
results by his own efforts, unaided by 
others, heedless of what others have done 
and are doing. He is buta bit of a great 
system, a joint in a great machine, and he 
can only work aright when he is in due 
touch with his fellow-workers. If his labor 
is to be what it onght to be, and is to have 
the weight which it ought to have, he must 
know what is being done, not by himself, 
SCIENCE. 
479 
but by others, and by others not of his own 
land and speaking his tongue only, but also 
of other lands and of other speech. Hence 
it comes about that to the man of science 
the barriers of manners and of speech which 
pen men into nations become more and more 
unreal and indistinct. He recognizes his 
fellow-worker, wherever he may live, and 
whatever tongue he may speak, as one who 
is pushing forward shoulder to shoulder 
with him towards a common goal, as one 
whom he is helping and who is helping him. 
The touch of science makes the whole world 
kin. 
The history of the past gives us many 
examples of this brotherhood of science. 
In the revival of learning throughout the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and 
some way on into the eighteenth century, 
the common use of the Latin tongue made 
intercourse easy. Insome respects in those 
earlier days science was more cosmopolitan 
than it afterwards became. , In spite of the 
difficulties and hardships of travel, the men 
of science of different lands again and again 
met each other face to face, heard with 
their ears, and saw with their eyes 
what their brethren had to say or show. 
The Englishman took the long journey to 
Italy to study there; the Italian, the 
Frenchman and the German wandered from 
one seat of learning to another ; and many 
aman held a chair in a country not his 
own. There was help, too, as well as in- 
tercourse. The Royal Society of London 
took upon itself the task of publishing 
nearly all the works of the great Italian 
Malpighi, and the brilliant Lavoisier, two 
years before his own countrymen in their 
blind fury slew him, received from the same 
body the highest token which it could give 
of its esteem. 
In these closing years of the nineteenth 
century this great need of mutual knowl- 
edge and of common action felt by men of 
science of different lands is being mani- 
