Septembek 30, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



4-25 



not inimical, forty years ago, seems strange 

 enough now even to those of us who have 

 witnessed in part the scientific progTCSs 

 subsequent to that epoch. But this was a 

 memorable epoch, marked by the advent of 

 the great intellectual awakening ushered in 

 by the generalizations of Dar^vin, Wallace, 

 Spencer and their coadjutors. And the 

 quarter of a century which immediately fol- 

 lowed this epoch appears, as we look back 

 upon it, like an heroic age of scientific 

 achievement. It was an age during which 

 some men of science, and more men not of 

 science, lost their heads temporarily, if not 

 permanently ; but it was also an age during 

 which most men of science, and thinking 

 people in general, moved forward at a rate 

 quite without precedent in the history of 

 human advancement. A new, and a greatly 

 enlarged, view of the universe was intro- 

 duced in the doctrine of evolution, ad- 

 vanced and opposed alike, vigorously, 

 ehiefiy by reason of its biological applica- 

 tions and implications. Galileo, Newton 

 and Laplace had given us a system of the 

 inorganic world; Darwin, Spencer and 

 their followers have foreshadowed a sys- 

 tem which includes the organic world as 

 well. 



The astonishing progress of biology in 

 recent times furnishes the most convincing 

 evidence of the unity and the efficiency of 

 the methods of physical science in the in- 

 terpretation of natural phenomena. For 

 the biologist has followed the same methods, 

 with changes appropriate to his sub.ject- 

 matter, only, as those found fruitful in 

 astronomy, chemistry and all the rest. 

 And whatever may be the increased com- 

 plexity of the organic over the inorganic 

 world, or however high the factor of life 

 maj^ seem to raise the problems of biology 

 above the plane of the other physical sci- 

 ences, there has appeared no sufiieient rea- 

 son, as yet, to doubt either the validity or 

 the adequacy of those methods. 



Moreover, the interrelations of biology 

 with chemistry and physics especially, are 

 yearly growing more and more extended 

 and intimate through the rapidly expand- 

 ing researches of bacteriology, physiology 

 and physiological chemistry, plant and 

 animal pathology, and so on, up through 

 cytology to the embryology of the higher 

 forms of life. Through the problems of 

 these researches also we are again brought 

 face to face, sooner or later, with the prob- 

 lems of molecular science. 



And finally, what may be said of anthro- 

 pology, which is at once the most interest- 

 ing and the most novel of the physical sci- 

 ences, interesting by reason of its subject 

 matter, novel by reason of its applications ? 

 Some of us, perhaps, might be inclined to 

 demur from a classification Avhieh makes 

 man, along with matter, a fit object of in- 

 vestigation in physical science. Granted 

 even that he is usually a not altogether 

 efiicient thermodynamic engine, it may yet 

 appear that he is worthy of a separate cate- 

 gory. Fortunately, however, it is not a 

 rule of physical science to demand im- 

 mediate answers to such ulterior questions. 

 It is enough for the present to know that 

 man furnishes no exception, save in point 

 of complexity, to the manifestations of 

 physical phenomena so widely exhibited in 

 the animal kingdom. 



But whatever may be our inherited prej- 

 udices, or our philosophic judg-ments, we 

 are confronted by the fact that the study 

 of man in all his attributes is now an es- 

 tablished domain of science. And herein 

 we rise to a table-land of transcendent 

 fascination ; for, to adapt a phrase of an 

 eminent master in physical science, the in- 

 struments of investigation are the objects 

 of research. Herein also we find the cul- 

 minating unity, not only of the physical 

 sciences, but of all of the sciences ; and it is 

 chiefly for the promotion of these higher 

 interests of anthropology that we are as- 



