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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 508. 



of being brought into especial prominence 

 on such an occasion as this. In setting 

 them forth we should avoid laying stress 

 on those visible manifestations which, 

 striking the eye of every beholder, are in 

 no danger of being overlooked, and search 

 rather for those agencies whose activities 

 underlie the whole visible scene, but which 

 are liable to be blotted out of sight by the 

 very brilliancy of the results to which they 

 have given rise. It is easy to draw atten- 

 tion to the wonderful qualities of the oak; 

 but, from that very fact, it may be needful 

 to point out that the real wonder lies con- 

 cealed in the acorn from which it grew. 



Our inquiry into the logical order of the 

 causes which have made our civilization 

 what it is to-day will be facilitated by 

 bringing to mind certain elementary con- 

 siderations — ideas so familiar that setting 

 them forth may seem like citing a body of 

 truisms— and yet so frequently overlooked 

 not only individually, but in their relation 

 to each other, that the conclusion to which 

 they lead may be lost to sight. One of 

 these propositions is that psychical rather 

 than material causes are those which we 

 should regard as fundamental in directing 

 the development of the social organism. 

 The human intellect is the really active 

 agent in every branch of endeavor— the 

 primum motile of civilization— and all 

 those material manifestations to which our 

 attention is so often directed are to be 

 regarded as secondary to this first agency. 

 If it be true that 'in the world is nothing 

 great but man; in man is nothing great 

 but mind,' then should the keynote of our 

 discourse be the recognition at every step 

 of this first and greatest of powers. 



Another well-known fact is that those 

 applications of the forces of nature to the 

 promotion of human welfare which have 

 made our age what it is are of such com- 

 paratively recent origin that we need go 

 back only a single century to antedate 



their most important features, and scarcely 

 more than four centuries to find their be- 

 ginning. It follows that the subject of 

 our inquiry should be the commencement, 

 not many centuries ago, of a certain new 

 form of intellectual activity. 



Having gained this point of view our 

 next inquiry will be into the nature of that 

 activity, and its relation to the stages of 

 progress which preceded and followed its 

 beginning. The superficial observer, who 

 sees the oak but forgets the acorn, might 

 tell us that the special qualities which have 

 produced such great results are expert sci- 

 entific knowledge and rare ingenuity, di- 

 rected to the application of the powers of 

 steam and electricity. From this point of 

 view the great inventors and the great cap- 

 tains of industry were the first agents in 

 bringing about the modern era. But the 

 more careful inquirer will see that the 

 work of these men was possible only 

 through a knowledge of laws of nature 

 which had been gained by men whose work 

 took precedence of theirs in logical order, 

 and that success in invention has been 

 measured by completeness in such knowl- 

 edge. While giving all due honor to the 

 great inventors, let us remember that the 

 first place is that of the great investigators 

 whose forceful intellects opened the way 

 to secrets previously hidden from men. 

 Let it be an honor and not a reproach to 

 these men that they were not actuated by 

 the love of gain, and did not keep utili- 

 tarian ends in view in the pursuit of their 

 researches. If it seems that in neglecting 

 such ends they were leaving undone the 

 most important part of their work, let us 

 remember that nature turns a forbidding 

 face to those who pay her court with the 

 hope of gain, and is responsive only to 

 those suitors whose love for her is pure and 

 undefiled. Not only is the special genius 

 required in the investigator not that gen- 

 erally best adapted to applying the diseov- 



