is science alive in every fibre of the niau's being. Our 

 question is: Does such science, eitlier in its pursuit or in its 

 achievement, help or hurt' life— individual and social? 



We do not need to bo reminded of the conveniences, 

 comforts and enlargements with which science has enriched 

 us on the material side of life. Time, there is a contra ac- 

 count. Its street cars are noisy, and grate on t<lie ear; its 

 telephones disturb the evening or alter dinner nap, of the 

 overworked merchant; its instruments of vocal and 

 olfactcry tort'Ure, do not induce plea/sing sensations; and its 

 startling horn at the street crossing strikes terror. This 

 is no exaggeration. I was told the other day, by an artist 

 whoi has a true eye for the expression of faces, that he has 

 obsened on the face of eveiy chauffer, when ruiming on 

 high gear, the stamp of etemity. Be that as it may: 

 despite these and all other ills of life which have come in 

 tha wake of science, we love it still, and count it one of the 

 gi'eat factors in the material development of modem civil- 

 ization. In view of this any panegyric of its mat-erial value 

 wotdd be a work of supererogation. 



But what of its impress on the higher things of life? 

 Is there not a feeling in some quarters that modem scien- 

 tific studies and pursuits, fruit-bearing though they be in 

 the material side, have a tendency to breed a sort of moral 

 tussock moth which feeds on the leaves and fruit of the 

 tree of life. Few, indeed, would say, with the monk of the 

 middle ages, that "knowledge is the mother of daaima- 

 tion." Most of us would give a, hearty amen to the retort 

 of one of tlie Apostles of the renaissance: "Ignorance is the 

 mother of damnation." But while no one in these days 

 would ban knowledge of the world in which we live, and 

 which lives in us, m'o hear warnings of "secular educa- 

 tion," and "Godless science." And it is beyond question 

 that since knowledge is powei', it may like any other poM'er, 



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