842 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



corded in the history of our race sink to 

 nothingness if compared to what human ac- 

 tivity is accomplishing every day since 

 ignorant, arrogant, emotional, spasmodic 

 efforts are slowly but surely giving place 

 to methodical and persistent work based 

 on exact scientific knowledge. 



Whether the human race has been made 

 happier by all this, I shall not here try to 

 decide. Happiness is a very subjective 

 condition of mind, very difficult, if not 

 impossible to measure or to compare: the 

 happiness of the child or the savage and 

 the happiness of the intellectually devel- 

 oped .adult are two entirely different prop- 

 ositions. I believe, however, that even case- 

 hardened pessimists ought to admit that 

 our opportunities for happiness have con- 

 siderably increased, even if so many peo- 

 ple, not knowing better, continue to 

 trample upon these very opportunities, 

 blinded as they are by false ideals, or by 

 misdirected aspirations. 



True, the pessimist may point to the 

 slums of large cities, to poverty, to vice, to 

 unsatisfactory labor conditions, to high 

 cost of living. But, what is all that com- 

 pared with conditions in bygone ages? 

 Where are the famines, the plagues, which 

 not so long ago periodically devastated 

 Europe, and which are still the scourge of 

 some backward countries like India, 

 China and Russia? 



Political corruption, dishonesty and 

 greed are still too much in evidence, and 

 there is much room for higher ethics; on 

 the other hand, anybody who wants to give 

 himself the trouble to investigate real his- 

 tory will have to admit that the morals 

 and conduct of life of many of the most ex- 

 alted personages of the past, would fall 

 far below the test of the plain average 

 decent citizen of our republic to-day. 



Most certainly, there is still abundant 

 necessity for improvement; and our race 



will improve as long as we put more pride 

 in raising better children than in finding 

 an excuse for our littleness or a consola- 

 tion for our failures, by bragging about 

 the supposed importance of our ancestors. 

 Nowhere have the changes of this cen- 

 tury been so accentuated as in our indus- 

 trial enterprises. We know, furthermore, 

 that just such industries, where the devel- 

 opments have been most staggering, are ex- 

 actly those which have utilized scientific 

 knowledge to the largest extent. Where- 

 ever the engineer has been able to put into 

 practise the secrets which the scientist has 

 wrung from nature's laws, there also do 

 we see results so far in advance, as com- 

 pared with what existed formerly, that 

 only a man with a dead soul faik to be 

 stirred up to admiration and enthusiasm. 

 The modern engineer, in intellectual 

 partnership with the scientist, is asserting 

 the possibilities of our race to a degree 

 never dreamt of before : instead of cowing 

 in wonder or fear like a savage before the 

 forces of nature, instead of finding in these 

 forces an object of superstition or terror, 

 instead of perceiving in them merely an 

 inspiration for literary or artistic effort, 

 he learns the language of nature, listens 

 to her laws, and then strengthened by her 

 revelations, he fulfills the mission of the 

 elect and sets himself to the task of apply- 

 ing his knowledge for the benefit of the 

 whole race. 



Let me assert it emphatically; the two 

 most powerful men of our generation are 

 the scientist and the engineer. 



Society at large is far from realizing 

 this fact, simply for the reason that the 

 scientist and the engineer manifest their 

 power not as despots, not as cruel tyrants. 

 Their might is not put in evidence by the 

 amount of chattel-slaves they hold in bond- 

 age, nor by the barbaric splendor of their 

 lives; it is not marked by the devastation 



