574 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1034 



titude a totally unpractical idea. Tet it 

 has done more to stir the foundations of 

 society than the steam-engine or the tele- 

 graph. 



The failure of scientific men to exert their 

 full measure of influence in affairs rests 

 largely upon their guilelessness and naivete 

 in dealing with men as well as upon 

 their natural reluctance to express opin- 

 ions on subjects about which they feel they 

 know but little, especially since the prob- 

 lems involved are usually of far greater 

 complexity than those encountered in their 

 regular work. You will see that I am 

 overcoming that reluctance this evening. 



Society, maintaining itself upon an in- 

 complete knowledge, which is always in 

 process of growing, must necessarily at 

 times receive rude shocks and make new ad- 

 justments. Just at present all its constants 

 seem to have become independent variables. 

 Old traditions have given way and doing is 

 preferred to thinking. To be called a man 

 of action is to receive the highest approba- 

 tion of one's fellow-men. Yet there never 

 was an age when there was greater need for 

 sound thinking. 



The pressing problems all involve in 

 their last analysis the relation of the in- 

 dividual to society. In how far shall lib- 

 erty of the individual be subordinated to 

 that of the community? For better or for 

 worse the doctrine of laissez-faire is in 

 abeyance. It is the abuses of individual 

 liberty that are uppermost in men's 

 minds, and the defense of individual rights 

 is in danger of being left completely in 

 the hands of those who would use them 

 for selfish ends. The spirit of social and 

 moral progress is ground between the 

 upper millstone of doctrinaire reform 

 and the nether millstone of commercial- 

 ism. Many good and wise men find them- 

 selves in a dilemma from which there 

 seems to be no way out. 



The more purely economic and adminis- 

 trative problems need perhaps cause no 

 great misgiving. They are likely to keep 

 themselves adjusted to the requirements of 

 the nation even though sharp clashes of 

 interest do arise, for here there are more 

 exact measures of value and a sort of self- 

 regulating mechanism which, while it may 

 often get out of order, nevertheless will 

 not fail entirely. It is for the social and 

 moral questions that solutions seem most 

 remote and the direction of travel most un- 

 certain. 



In this age of militant reform the list 

 of measures proposed for the regeneration 

 of mankind and for which organized 

 propaganda is made is a very formidable 

 one. Effort is correspondingly scattered 

 and really important movements are be- 

 fogged in a cloud of petty and oft ill-ad- 

 vised attempts at correction. Eeformers 

 are good citizens with the best of inten- 

 tions and are frequently the sole influence 

 for good in a community. The evils which 

 they combat are often very serious, so 

 that one hesitates to do or say anything in 

 opposition to their aims, or even to the 

 means they employ to realize them. Yet 

 there are weighty and by no means selfish 

 considerations that may constrain one at 

 times to raise a dissenting voice and draw 

 attention to some of their misdirected ef- 

 forts. 



The chief characteristic of reform is the 

 dominance of Hebraism over Hellenism — 

 "the preference of doing to thinking." It 

 is always ready to act, and to act with en- 

 thusiasm according to what it supposes to 

 be light, though half the time remaining 

 blind to the need of more knowledge and 

 neglecting the means of obtaining it. 

 There is neither breadth of view nor sense 

 of the proportionate value of things. 



Particularly misguided are those re- 

 forms that seek to enforce by legal enact- 



