952 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 860 



initiation. Certainly the average man is 

 not and never has been of that class. Such 

 men are thinking men. In their younger 

 days most men are disposed to criticize the 

 work of others. Among men of science this 

 is much less common than it was thirty or 

 forty years ago. Every one who has ever 

 accomplished anything will recognize the 

 truth of Goethe 's remark : 



It is easier to recognize error than to find truth. 

 That lies upon the surface so that it is easily dealt 

 with; this rests in the depths, to search for which 

 is not every man's affair. 



As one's powers develop and he begins 

 to attack constructive work, and to make 

 mistakes, he begins to take less interest in 

 searching for errors in the work of others. 

 To search for truth is any man's affair 

 who chooses to do so. And history tells 

 us in no uncertain way that human devel- 

 opment has always resulted from the ef- 

 forts of those who have expended most of 

 their energy in independent thinking. 

 Sometimes the world has followed slowly. 

 Sometimes the results have only become 

 apparent in succeeding generations. Our 

 industrial development has, however, al- 

 ways followed in the pathways marked out 

 by scientific men. Their work has always 

 preceded the work of the engineer and the 

 inventor. And in the words of my text, 

 When any nation has reached such a stage 

 in its existence, that scientific discovery is 

 put into the background as of no practical 

 value, and the entire current of work is 

 expended in engineering and business ac- 

 tivity, that nation is on the way to the 

 civilization of China. 



As a nation we have before us problems 

 that are vastly greater than any which 

 have been solved in the past. We may 

 assume that the future will take care of 

 itself. We may assume that our leaders 

 in thought and in knowledge will always 

 be with us. We should, however, remem- 



ber, that there have been former civiliza- 

 tions in other lands, of which no trace can 

 now be obtained, without digging below 

 the surface of the earth. 



The question which should now interest 

 us is, whether or not our civilization is to 

 have such an ending. 



It is only a century ago since one of my 

 ancestors moved with his family from Ver- 

 mont to the far west. There were few 

 roads amid the immense forests through 

 which they wandered, and in the midst of 

 which the family finally found a home in 

 central New York. I personally knew, 

 and still remember the names of some of 

 the men who developed that country. 

 What they did was to chop down forests 

 and burn them. What they then did 

 should now be called by another name. 



There are now among us men who are 

 ambitious to waste the resources of the 

 country, on the plea that they are develop- 

 ing those resources. They protest strongly 

 against the importation of lumber from 

 Canada, because it would interfere with 

 the chopping down of our own trees. 

 Fifty years ago there was not a locomotive 

 engine in the country which was operated 

 by coal fires. They were all operated by 

 wood fires. The locomotive of to-day 

 could not be operated by wood fires, and 

 the wood is no longer available. Then a 

 100-ton locomotive would have been con- 

 sidered an impossibility. The bridges of 

 that day would not have sustained them. 

 At that time a 30-ton locomotive was in 

 general use. Now we have locomotives 

 which approach 300 tons. Thirty years 

 ago the idea that 1,000 horse-power engines 

 would be used for developing power to be 

 distributed by electrical means was ridi- 

 culed as absurd by electrical authorities. 



Even if we take the most liberal estimate 

 of the amount of available coal yet un- 

 burned, and consider the enormous in- 



