832 
laws of falling bodies and the chances of 
their being correct. Both fall to the bot- 
tom and in their fall obey the gravitational 
laws of inorganic matter, slightly modified 
by the muscular contortions of the falling 
object but not in any degree changed by the 
previous belief of the person. Natural laws 
there probably are, rigid and unchanging 
ones at that. Understand them and they 
are beneficent: we can use them for our 
purposes and make them the slaves of our 
desires. Misunderstand them and they are 
monsters who may grind us to powder or 
crush us in the dust. Nothing is asked o; 
us as to our belief: they act unswervingly 
and we must understand them or suffer the 
consequences. Our only course, then, is to 
act according to the chances of our know_ 
ing the right laws. If we act correctly, 
right; if we act incorrectly, we suffer. If 
we are ignorant we die. What greater 
fool, then, than he who states that belief ig 
of no consequence provided it is sincere. 
An only child, a beloved wife, lies on a bed 
of illness. The physician says that the dis- 
ease is mortal ; a minute plant called a mi- 
crobe has obtained entrance into the body 
and is growing at the expense of its tissues, 
forming deadly poisons in the blood or de- 
stroying some vital organ. The physician 
looks on without being able to do anything. 
Daily he comes and notes the failing 
strength of his patient and daily the patient 
goes downward until he rests in his grave. 
But why has the physician allowed this? 
Can we doubt that there is a remedy which 
shall kill the microbe or neutralize its 
poison? . Why, then, has he not used it? 
He is employed to cure but has failed. His 
bill we cheerfully pay because he has done 
his best and given a chance of cure. The 
answer is ignorance. The remedy is yet un- 
known. The physician is waiting for oth- 
ers to discover it or perhaps is experiment- 
ing in a crude and unscientific manner to 
find it. Is not the inference correct, then, 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. X. No. 258. 
that the world has been paying the wrong 
class of men? Would not this ignorance - 
have been dispelled had the proper money 
been used in the past to dispel it? Such 
deaths some people consider an act of God. 
What blasphemy to attribute to God that 
which is due to our own and our ancestors’ 
selfishness in not founding institutions for 
medical research in sufficient number and 
with sufficient means to discover the truth. 
Such deaths are murder. Thus the present 
generation suffers for the sins of the past 
and we die because our ancestors dissipated 
their wealth in armies and navies, in the 
foolish pomp and circumstance of society, 
and neglected to provide us with a knowl- 
edge of natural laws. In this sense they 
were the murderers and robbers of future 
generations of unborn millions and have 
made the world a charnel house and place 
of mourning where peace and happiness 
might have been. Only their ignorance of 
what they were doing can be their excuse, 
but this excuse puts them in the class of 
boors and savages who act according to self- 
ish desire and not to reason and to the 
calls of duty. Let the present generation 
take warning that this reproach be not cast | 
on it, for it cannot plead ignorance in this 
respect. 
This illustration from the department of 
medicine I have given because it appeals to 
all. Butall the sciences are linked together 
and must advance in concert.. The human 
body is a chemical and physical problem, 
and these sciences must advance before we 
can conquer disease. 
But the true lover of physics needs no 
such spur to his actions. The cure of dis- 
ease is a very important object and nothing 
can be nobler than a life devoted to its cure. 
The aims of the physicist, however, are 
in part purely intellectual; he strives to 
understand the Universe on account of the 
intellectual pleasure derived from the pur- 
suit, but he is upheld in it by the knowl- 
