June ao, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



971 



terrestrial abode. And the time scale for 

 the varied events which take place in the 

 interaction of these millions of suns is not 

 less imposing when expressed in familiar 

 terms. A million years is the smallest unit 

 suitable for estimating the history of a star, 

 although the record of that history is trans- 

 mitted to us through the interstellar medi- 

 um by vibrations whose period is so brief 

 as to almost escape detection. 



Measurements and calculations have thus 

 made known to us a range of phenomena 

 which is limited only by our sense percep- 

 tions, sharpened and supplemented by the 

 refinements of mathematical analysis. In 

 space and mass relations these phenomena 

 exhibit all gradations from the indefinitely 

 small to the indefinitely large ; and in 

 time they point backward to no epoch 

 which may be called a beginning and for- 

 ward to no epoch which may be called an 

 end. Dealing chiefly with those aspects 

 of phenomena which possess permanence 

 and continuity, or at least a permanence 

 and a continuity compared with which all 

 human affairs appear ephemeral ajid 

 fleeting, measurement and calculation tend 

 to raise man above the level of his environ- 

 ment. They bid him look forward as well 

 as backward, and they assure him tliat in 

 a larger study of the universe lies bound- 

 less opportunity for his improvement. 



But while that sort of knowledge which 

 has been reduced to quautitative expression 

 has done more, probably, than all else to 

 disclose man's place in and his relations 

 to the rest of the universe, it would ap- 

 pear that mankind makes relatively little 

 use of this knowledge and that we are not 

 yet ready, as a race, to replace the indefi- 

 nite by the definite even wherein such sub- 

 stitution is clearly practicable. It is a 

 curious and a puzzling, though perfectly 

 obviov;s, fact that mankind as a whole 

 lives less in the thought of the present than 

 in the thought of the past, and that as a 



race we have far more respect for the 

 myths of antiquity than we have for the 

 certainties of exact science. Our ships, for 

 example, are navigated with great success 

 by aid of the sextant, the chronometer, 

 and the nautical almanac; but what com- 

 pany would dare set Friday as the day 

 for beginning the transatlantic voyage of 

 a passenger steamer? From time imme- 

 morial tradition has dominated reason in 

 the masses of men. Each age has lived, 

 not in the full possession of the best 

 thought available to it, but, rather, under 

 the sway of the thought of some preceding 

 age. We are assured even now, by some 

 eminent minds, that the highest sources of 

 light for us are nearly all found in the dis- 

 tant past; and a few go so far as to 

 assert that modern science is merely fur- 

 bishing up the half-lost learning of ages 

 long gone by. 



The work of academies and other scien- 

 tific organizations is therefore nowhere 

 near completion. Great strides toward in- 

 tellectual emancipation have been made 

 during recent times, but they have served 

 only to enlarge the field for, and to increase 

 the need of, that sort of knowledge which 

 is pei-manent and verifiable. Measurement 

 and calculation have furnished an inval- 

 uable fund of such knowledge during the 

 two centuries just past, and we have every 

 reason to anticipate that they will furnish 

 a still more valuable contribution to such 

 knowledge in the centuries to come. 



R. S. Woodward. 

 Columbia Ukiveesity. 



'NATURAL HISTORY,' ' CEGOLOGY ' OB 

 ' ETHOLOGY ' ? 



A STUDY of recent literature reveals the 

 fact that zoologists are much in need of a 

 satisfactory technical term for animal be- 

 havior and the related svibjects which go 

 to make up what is variously known as 

 'natural history,' 'cecology' and 'biology' 



