September 19, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



453 



sun? Plis little span of life is too short 

 to permit him to follow the evolution of the 

 worlds from their initial nebulce, too brief 

 to give him access to the secrets of their 

 Maker. 



The geologist tells us of the past history 

 of all that lives, and of this spinning globe 

 on which it has found foothold, falling 

 into life from unknown space, and time, and 

 depths; but he cannot tell us whence came 

 all life, whence all spirits, all human and 

 divine souls now constituting its living 

 freight, as it wanders with unguessed des- 

 tiny through an unmeasured universe. He 

 roughly traces its superficial changes from 

 the daj^ of mist, through the ages of crea- 

 tion and growth of all that has come into 

 life; but he and the physicist and the 

 astronomer are alike uncertain whether it 

 shall endure a thousand million of years or 

 a single day. The physicist predicts a limit 

 of a few million years, the geologist be- 

 lieves many millions, but no man knows 

 when life shall perish from the face of the 

 earth. 



The biologist can give microscopic meas- 

 ures and micropliotographic pictures of the 

 tissues, and can trace a nerve to its min- 

 utest ramifications; but we have yet to 

 learn the secrets of the source of life, of 

 method of production and application of 

 energies, of those transformations that 

 give form, structure, life, and power to the 

 organism of monad or of man. He exhibits 

 the mechanism of the fish, but finds not 

 the secret of separation of oxygen from 

 the medium in which he lives, and cannot 

 produce a submarine vessel. He knows the 

 shape and movement of the bird, but flight 

 remains to him a mystery. He measures 

 the heat of the animal body, but biologist, 

 chemist, physicist and engineer, all to- 

 gether, give us no hint of the method of 

 its production. They know, to an ounce, 

 the power per cubic inch or per pound of 

 the muscle, but neither one nor all can 



say how that power is originated, how 

 transferred or how exerted by the trans- 

 mitting threads of working muscle. 



The engineer has, for a century, made 

 steady progress in the adaptation of ma- 

 chinery to every purpose of modern life. 

 He converts the potential energy of the 

 vegetable life of a myriad earlier ages into 

 steam power, and applies it to the im- 

 pulsion of railway carriage, of steamship, 

 and of mill; but, in the process, he wastes 

 four-fifths or nine-tenths of it, and pays 

 out principal where he might, perhaps, pay 

 only interest. He turns the elastic force 

 of expanding steam into an electric cur- 

 rent and sends it out to relieve the bur- 

 den of the overworked horse ; but he allows 

 as much to slip from his grasp, often, as 

 he usefully applies to his proposed work. 

 He diverts the energy of combustion or of 

 falling water into the new form, and the 

 electric light, through his genius, gives 

 illumination to street, and dwelling, and 

 hall; but every light ray goes forth to its 

 task cariying with it a sheaf of heat rays; 

 and the glow-worm shames the man, pro- 

 ducing light without heat, and heat apart 

 from light, and all researches exhibit only 

 our ignorance and comparative inelficieney. 

 He measures the speed and power of the 

 albatross, the eagle, and the swallow; but 

 he only marvels the more at their beautiful 

 movements and rapid flight. He captures 

 the dolphin and overcomes the whale when 

 they traverse the surface of the ocean, but 

 he Imows not how to follow them into the 

 depths of the sea. He crowds his fellows 

 into mills and factories, but sees no way 

 of giving each an individual life and work, 

 comfort and health in equal and fair quan- 

 tity. The man of science, whatever his 

 chosen task, whatever his field of labor, 

 however high his attainments and what- 

 ever the magnitude of his accomplishments, 

 finds that acquisition of learning, gain in 

 knowledge of the ways of nature, increas- 



