454 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 403. 



ing appreciation of, and familiarity with, 

 God's ways, only bring to his dazed eyes 

 greater and more novel marvels, grander 

 and wider sweep of opportunity, mightier 

 and mightier mysteries, aU challenging him 

 to nobler aspirations, more earnest labor, 

 higher aims. Every step towards higher, 

 better, brighter life gives him reason for 

 greater humility, larger faith, and stronger 

 sense of the infinitude of duty and oppor- 

 tunity. 



The work of the man of science is present 

 still, and is never-ending. But, glancing 

 at the past, he sees that he has no reason for 

 discouragement, every reason for enthusi- 

 astic ambition. He sees a wonderful, a 

 glorious, a fruitful work just begun, and 

 his the privilege of taking part in it. His 

 work is the basis of present highest human 

 existence, the potential foundation of still 

 nobler life. Great problems have been 

 solved; greater and grander remain, which 

 shall certainly be solved by him. His 

 is the task of showing the way to make all 

 the powers of nature genii aiding man; of 

 giving comforts of every kind to his felloAV, 

 and powers of accomplishment of great 

 work for public good; pointing out the 

 way to give widely distributed enjoyment 

 of life, leisure for moral development, for 

 intellectual growth, opportunity for study 

 of the universes, the attainment of highest 

 physical, intellectual, moral ideals. He will 

 yet penetrate the secrets of the living ma- 

 chine, learn how to evade the law of Car- 

 not, to produce and apply the energies of 

 chemical combination to the generation of 

 heat without light, light without heat, 

 power without waste ; to transform thermal 

 from chemical energy, without combustion 

 at high temperature, as does the meanest 

 animal ; to convert it into mechanical power 

 without the thermodynamic loss inherent 

 in our heat engines, as does beast, bird, and 

 worm ; to obtain its equivalent of electric 

 energy, as does the nervous system of every 



living creature ; to intelligently select and 

 sort out the radiant energies into luminous, 

 thermal, or other etheric forms, at his will, 

 as does the unconscious bit of hardly living 

 jelly floating in the spume of the wave 

 crest of every tropical sea. 



XVI. 



Our anticipations for scientific research, 

 and for the future of its noble band of men 

 of genius, may confidently be affinned to be 

 juistified, however sanguine, by the history 

 of the past and by the reasonable proph- 

 ecy, in the light of the past, of its great- 

 est seers. It may well be doubted if any 

 living soul can realize, in full, the tremen- 

 dous portent of that prophecy, and it is 

 likely that its fulfillment will transcend the 

 most ambitious and vigorous imaginings of 

 our day. As the advances of the nineteenth 

 century have inconceivably, transcended 

 the most enthusiastic prediction of the 

 eighteenth, the revelations of the twentieth 

 century may be expected to still further ex- 

 ceed the anticipations of the most far-see- 

 ing and sanguine prophets among men of 

 science of our own time. 



Genius and learning may be expected to 

 persist in the coming times and courage is 

 never lacking. The later Newtons will ex- 

 hibit as great prescience as the earlier, the 

 coming Davys and Paradays will accrnnu- 

 late no less learning than the great minds 

 of the past, and the nerve of Heilprin,' 

 standing amidst lightnings, fire and smoke, 

 and falling rains, mud, and lava, studying 

 the processes of volcanic action from the 

 edge of the roaring crater of Mt. Pelee, is 

 as characteristic of the modern scientific 

 investigator as was that of a Pliny, in a 

 similar adventure, two thousand years ear- 

 lier. 'With intelligence to guard his life 

 against every needless risk, and yet with 

 constancy and professional zeal to make 

 him face cheerfully all inevitable danger, - 

 such a man will always illustrate the 'un- 



