December 9, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



785 



when the chief laws of physics, chemistry 

 and experimental biology are generally and 

 adequately taught we may hope to see 

 superstition and all its consequences dis- 

 appear, but not before this. 



As far as the influence of the applied sci- 

 ences on ethics is concerned, I think we may 

 hope that through the natural sciences the 

 ethics of our political and economical life 

 will be altered. In our political as well as 

 our economical life we are still under the 

 influence of the ancients, especially the Ro- 

 mans, who knew only one means of acquir- 

 ing wealth, namely by dispossessing others 

 of it. The natural sciences have shown that 

 there is another and more effective way of 

 acquiring wealth, namely, by creating it. 

 The way of doing this eonsist-s in the inven- 

 tion of means by which the store of energy 

 present in nature can be more fully util- 

 ized. The wealth of modern nations, of 

 Germany and France, is not due to their 

 statesmen or to their wars, but to the ac- 

 complishments of the scientists. It has 

 been calculated that the inventions of Pas- 

 teur alone added a billion francs a year to 

 the wealth of France. In the light of such 

 facts it seems preposterous that statesmen 

 shoi;ld continue to instigate war simply for 

 the conquest of territories. Through mod- 

 ern science the wealth of a nation can be 

 increased much more quickly than through 

 any territorial concpiest. We can not ex- 

 pect any change in the political and eco- 

 nomical ethics of nations imtil it is recog- 

 nized that the lawmakers and statesmen 

 must have a scientific training. If our 

 lawmakers possessed such a training they 

 would certainly not have allowed one gen- 

 eral source of energy after another, such 

 as oil fields, coal fields, water power, etc., 

 to be appropriated by individuals. All 

 these stores of energy belong just as well 

 to the community as the oxygen of the 

 air or the radiating energy of the sun. 

 Our present economical and political ethics 



is still on the whole that of the classical 

 period or the renaissance, because the 

 knowledge of science among the masses 

 and statesmen is still on that level, but 

 the natural sciences will ultimately bring 

 about as thorough a revolution in ethics as 

 they have brought about in our material 

 life. 



IX. 



If we compare the development of biol- 

 ogy with the simultaneous development of 

 physics and chemistry during the last 

 twenty j'ears, we must be impressed by the 

 fact that during that time the great dis- 

 coveries in physics and chemistry have 

 followed each other surprisingly fast. 

 The discovery of the law of osmotic pres- 

 sure, the theory of electrical disassociation, 

 the theory of galvanic batteries, the sys- 

 tematic formulation of physical chemistry, 

 the discovery of electrical waves, the dis- 

 covery of the X-ra5's, the discovery of the 

 new elements in the air, the discovery of 

 radioactivity, the transformation of radium 

 into helium, the theory of radiation pres- 

 sure—what have we in biology that could 

 be compared with such a series of discov- 

 eries? But I believe ' that biology has 

 important discoveries in store and that 

 there is no intrinsic reason why it should 

 be less fertile than physics and chemistry. 

 I think the difference in the fertility of 

 biology and the physical sciences is at least 

 partly due to the present organization of 

 the biological sciences. 



General or experimental biology should 

 be represented in our universities by spe- 

 cial chairs and laboratories. It should be 

 the task of this science to analyze and con- 

 trol those phenomena which are specifically 

 characteristic of living organisms, namely, 

 development, self preservation, and repro- 

 duction. The methods of general biology 

 must be those of chemistry and especially 

 those of physical chemistry. To-day gen- 

 eral or experimental biology is represented 



