July 25, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



103 



we are raised on high and upborne by their 

 gigantic bigness." 



Here it is conceded that men changed, 

 but the change was rather backward and 

 for the worse. 



In harmony with this idea we find three 

 centuries later, when Vesalius was found- 

 ing modern anatomy, that the discrepan- 

 cies between his observations and those of 

 Galen — whose teachings were then domi- 

 nant — were explained by the fact, that 

 since Galen wrote, the human body had de- 

 teriorated. 



It is only since we began to command the 

 forces of nature through the development 

 of chemistry and the power of steam that 

 the modern notion of progress has taken a 

 firm root, because only since then have im- 

 portant discoveries followed one another 

 with sufficient frequency to give the im- 

 pression of a progressive series. 



At present we somewhat readily concede 

 to the past the greater men, but when asked 

 to compare ourselves with our representa- 

 tives of an earlier time there is a strong in- 

 clination to conclude that we ourselves are 

 the better, for we can do so many things 

 which they could not. 



When one looks critically at the matter 

 and endeavors to distinguish between ma- 

 terial advances and biological improve- 

 ment, this illusion disappears. It is evi- 

 dent that despite the external changes, the 

 human being has remained abnost unmodi- 

 fied. Although the average length of life 

 has been increased by conditions which 

 permit a greater number of people to ap- 

 proach old age, yet we see no evidence- that 

 for the individual the normal span of life 

 has been extended. Although we are more 

 guarded from pestilence, famine and war, 

 and relieved from the distractions which 

 they cause, yet equivalent emotional strains 

 have replaced these distractions. Al- 

 though for a number of people the eco- 



nomic situation makes the pursuit of food 

 and shelter a less insistent occupation than 

 before, yet into the vacancy so left there 

 stream at once new obligations and unex- 

 pected interests, while at the same time 

 there is no evidence that our minds have 

 become either more acute or more vigorous. 

 Nevertheless, as heretofore, each of us must 

 live on twenty-four hours a day. 



In brief, then, social development pro- 

 tects us and the preservation of past ac- 

 complishments leaves us free to attempt 

 new ones, but within historic times, man — 

 the dominant power on the earth — has 

 changed but very little, if at all, while here 

 and there the best achievements of his re- 

 moter ancestors still mark the high levels 

 of human thought. 



Nevertheless, in a sense, our opportuni- 

 ties are much increased. The world, at 

 least the active part of it, has been more 

 firmly knit together. We can get our bod- 

 ies, our voices or our writing carried about 

 the earth at marvelous speed and with 

 wonderful safety. 



A few uncommon langaiages still hinder 

 intercourse between the nations, but in the 

 main it is easy to learn precisely what is 

 going on now and what has gone on for 

 the last fifty or a hundred years. Ideas 

 travel with the ease of Aladdin and his 

 friends and everywhere men are testing, 

 trying, proving and attaining new results. 



This opportunity to try rapidly and on 

 a large scale any new ideas that require to 

 be tested yields in return a great mass of 

 conclusions and judgments which must be 

 considered both quickly and seriously — 

 lest confusion follow in their train. 



As a consequence of this condition one 

 has at least the opportunity to think more 

 ofteu and more rapidly than a generation 

 ago — not because the modern mind is nor- 

 mally more active, but because the food for 

 thought is more abundant and more varied. 



