October 23, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



579 



lous public? That such subjects can be 

 sensibly and accurately reported in the 

 daily press is proved by the splendid record 

 of the London Times, as shown, for in- 

 stance, in its admirable reports of the last 

 International Medical Congress. These re- 

 ports have almost the accuracy that one 

 would expect to find in official proceedings 

 of the meetings. It is clear that the meet- 

 ings were reported by experts, not only 

 possessed of requisite knowledge, but also 

 highly skilled in the art of writing. Here 

 is an example worthy of emulation, and a 

 splendid opportunity for some of our best 

 papers to serve the public interest. 



We read the newspapers and further- 

 more we believe what we read more than 

 we are willing to admit, though we damn 

 them and sneer at them at the same time. 

 But it is wrong to say that conditions are 

 hopeless and incapable of betterment. Im- 

 provement in the relations between science 

 and the press can be effected through closer 

 contact and understanding. Scientific men 

 must emerge occasionally from the sanctum 

 and endeavor to make their aims and their 

 work understood. The press for its part 

 must in reporting science give up catering 

 to the public demand for the sensational, 

 and allow itself to be inoculated by the 

 germs of accuracy and honesty that give 

 life to the scientific spirit. The scientific 

 man must not be pictured as an alchemist 

 in medieval surroundings, searching for 

 the elixir of life or the philosopher's stone. 

 He is both human and modern, and the 

 public wiU learn to appreciate him sooner 

 as a man than as a magician. The habit 

 set by reporting science in the spirit of sci- 

 ence would ultimately spread to the more 

 usual fields of newspaper activity and lead 

 to more accuracy and less desire simply to 

 make a good story in reporting news. This 

 and a more rational conception of what 

 science stands for and what its methods 



are will give to the average man the power 

 to view his own problems with sanity and 

 clearness and discredit a large measure of 

 the cant that now gains many followers. 



In giving expression to belief in the 

 signal importance of the scientific spirit for 

 practical life we come inevitably to those 

 questions which every one has asked and 

 no one has answered. Whither is it all 

 leading, and how is it going to satisfy our 

 human yearnings? It has been often said, 

 and correctly, that we, the philosopher- 

 scientists of to-day, have but traveled as 

 did the poet-astronomer eight hundred 

 years ago. 



And many a Knot unravell'd by the road; 

 But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate. 



But need this observation in its modern 

 application be interpreted as a wail of 

 pessimism? I think not. Though modern 

 science has not pretended and does not now 

 pretend to have unraveled the master-knot, 

 though its philosophy even shows that we 

 can not hope to attain that goal, the un- 

 raveling of knots by the road has shown no 

 tendency to stop and new ones are ever ap- 

 pearing, no matter how far we go. Every 

 knot unraveled effects some change in the 

 relation of man to his environment, and 

 sooner or later calls for some act of re-ad- 

 justment on his part. In this respect the 

 modern relation of science to practise seems 

 to differ fundamentally from that which 

 obtained during the period of Hindu and 

 of Greek ascendency, and this circum- 

 stance leaves ground for hope that the civ- 

 ilization based upon it may long endure 

 and escape the fate of its forerunners so 

 well described in Huxley 's words :' 



The Vedas and the Homeric epos set before us 

 a world of rich and vigorous life, full of joyous 

 fighting men 



"That ever -with a frolic welcome took 

 The thunder and the sunshine. ..." 

 '"Evolution and Ethics." 



