August 4, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



155 



^•oodly constituency. They are glad to teach 

 what they have learned by research to any one 

 who cares to learn. They are preserving 

 archeological sites, specimens and records for 

 future research and for educational purposes. 

 Practically all this result has been secured in 

 a period of less than five years. 



Harlan I. Smith. 

 American Museum of Natural History. 



NATURE AND MAN.\ 

 Professor Lankester in his Romanes lec- 

 ture began by a statement of the theory of 

 ■evolution, directing attention to unwarranted 

 inferences commonly drawn by clever writers 

 unacquainted with the study of nature. He 

 -described how the change in the character of 

 the struggle for existence, possibly in the 

 Lower Miocene period, which favored an in- 

 crease in the size of the brain in the great 

 mammals and the horse, probably became most 

 important in the development of man. The 

 progress of man cut him off from the general 

 operation of the law of natural selection as it 

 had worked until he appeared, and he acquired 

 knowledge, reason, self -consciousness and will, 

 so that ' survival of the fittest,' when applied 

 to man, came to have a raeaning quite differ- 

 ent from what it had when applied to other 

 creatures. Thus man can control nature, and 

 the ' nature searchers,' the founders of the 

 Royal Society and their followers, have placed 

 boundless power in the hands of mankind, and 

 enabled man to arrive at spiritual emancipa- 

 tion and freedom of thought. But the leaders 

 of human activity at present still attach little 

 or no importance to the study of nature. 

 They ignore the penalties that rebellious man 

 must pay if he fails to continue his study and 

 acquire greater and greater control of nature. 

 Professor Lankester did not dwell upon the 

 possible material loss to our empire which may 

 result from neglect of natural science; he 

 looks at the matter as a citizen of the world, 

 as a man who sees that within some time, it 

 may be only 100 years, it may be 500 years, 

 man must solve many new problems if he is 

 to continue his progress and avert a return 

 to nature's terrible method of selecting the 

 ^ From Nature. ~ 



fittest. It seems to us that this aspect of the 

 question has never been fully dealt with be- 

 fore. Throughout Huxley's later writings the 

 certainty of a return to nature's method is 

 always to be felt. Professor Lankester has 

 faith in man's power to solve those problems. 

 The dangerous delay now so evident is due 

 to the want of nature knowledge in the gen- 

 eral population, so that the responsible admin- 

 istrators of government are suffered to remain 

 ignorant of their duties. Professor Lankester 

 shows that it is peculiarly in the power of 

 such universities as Oxford and Cambridge, 

 which are greatly free from government con- 

 trol, to establish a quite different state of 

 things from that which now obtains in Eng- 

 land. He says: 



The world has seen with admiration and as- 

 tonishment the entire people oi Japan follow the 

 example of its governing class in the almost sud- 

 den adoption of the knowledge and control of 

 nature as the purpose of national education and 

 the guide of state administration. It is possible 

 that in a less rapid and startling manner our 

 old universities may, at no distant date, influence 

 the intellectual life of the more fortunate of our 

 fellow citizens, and consequently of the entire com- 

 munity. 



Considering Oxford more particularly, and 

 speaking for others as well as himself, he says : 



The University of Oxford by its present action 

 in regard to the choice and direction of subjects of 

 study is exercising an injurious influence upon the 

 education of the country, and especially upon the 

 education of those who will' hereafter occupy posi- 

 tions of influence, and will largely determine both 

 the action of the state and the education and opin- 

 ions of those Avho will in turn succeed them. 



As to Greek and Latin studies, he says : 

 We have come to the conclusion that this form 

 of education is a mistaken and injurious one. We 

 desire to make the chief subject of education both 

 in school and in college a knowledge of nature 

 as set forth in the sciences which are spoken of as 

 physics, chemistry, geology and biology. We 

 think that all education should consist in the 

 first place of this kind of knowledge, on account of 

 its commanding importance both to the individual 

 and to the community. We think that every man 

 of even a moderate amount of education should 

 have acquired a sufficient knowledge of these sub- 



