Maech 11, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



367 



tury there were many who believed that, 

 if the theories of Darwin were allowed to 

 prevail, we should see religion and morality 

 involved in one common ruin. But we all 

 know now that this has not happened ; that, 

 on the contrary, the doctrine of evolution 

 has furnished us with new and valuable 

 criteria for judging conduct; that it has 

 given us additional reasons for hating sin 

 and a rational basis for charity toward the 

 sinner. And as a comment on the fears of 

 those who in those times of storm and stress 

 thought that science was the enemy of re- 

 ligion I may quote the concluding sentence 

 of the address of the president of the 

 British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, at the meeting in Winnipeg last 

 summer, just fifty years after the publica- 

 tion of Darwin's great work: 



As we conquer peak after peak we see in front 

 of us regions full of interest and beauty but we 

 do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; 

 in the distance tower still higher peaks which will 

 yield to those who ascend them still wider pros- 

 pects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which 

 is emphasized by every advance in science, that 

 "great are the works of the Lord." 



We may, I am sure, dismiss from our 

 minds the last lingering fear that the pur- 

 suit of science tends toward irreligion or 

 immorality. We may go still further and 

 with confidence deny the more common be- 

 lief that physical science is unmoral, that it 

 has no concern with ethical questions. On 

 the contrary, its whole attitude and most 

 fundamental enthusiasms are thoroiighly 

 permeated by the great ethical principles. 

 No one who studies science aright can fail 

 to recognize this fact; and no one who has 

 taught the principles of any science to 

 young men, and who has watched their 

 after development, can doubt the strong, 

 if indirect, effect which such studies have 

 had upon them in the direction of clearer 

 moral judgments and more unselfish devo- 

 tion to duty. 



I come now to the last of the important 

 functions of a university laboratory which 

 I wish to discuss before you to-day. It is 

 scarcely necessary to say that this is re- 

 search—not simply the attempt to add to 

 man's material comfort by new appliances, 

 not the seeking of useful knowledge in any 

 narrow sense, but the diligent and devoted 

 search after new truth for its own sake, 

 careless of consequences so long as the 

 truth is served. This is a great and lofty 

 ideal and it is followed with all the en- 

 thusiasm and loyalty which a high ideal 

 inspires, and which nothing else in the 

 world can inspire. Now I should not for 

 a moment wish to persuade you that the 

 scientific investigator is actuated only by 

 unselfish motives; he is not quite such a 

 monster of virtue as that. Dr. Jowett once 

 said that we "were all liable to error — even 

 the youngest of us ; and it may be admitted 

 freely also that we are all human — even 

 the most scientific of us. But I am con- 

 vinced from considerable observation of 

 men of science that by far the strongest 

 selfish motive which actuates them, es- 

 pecially those in the higher ranks of abil- 

 ity, is the great pleasure which they take 

 in the work itself. That this pleasure is 

 so keen and satisfying is a consequence of 

 the ideal character of the work; it is the 

 sort of pleasure which the artist finds in 

 his real pictures— and does not find in his 

 pot-boilers. It is true also that scientific 

 men are very glad when they can obtain the 

 commendation and respect of their profes- 

 sional brethren; but what soldier, what 

 statesman, what minister of the gospel does 

 not share in the desire for such intelligent 

 approbation. It is a confirmation of his 

 hopes that his strenuous labors are not in 

 vain; and it adds a human element to his 

 reward, the desire for which, if it is a 

 weakness, is certainly an amiable one. The 

 true man of science, the true scholar in 



