July 19, 1901.] 



SCIENCE 



91 



nor motion can be originated by man, but, 

 by a careful studj^ of the sequence of events, 

 control can be acquired of their modes of 

 interaction, and natural phenomena can be 

 artificially reproduced and other phenomena 

 be produced. The intelligent application 

 and direction of such means of control is 

 the function of the civil engineer. 



With the advance of science, the scope of 

 civil engineering widened and advanced. 

 The study of the action of forces induced 

 analytical investigation of the means by 

 which forces could be resisted and the best 

 results obtained from proper distribution 

 and arrangement of materials of different 

 kinds. Steamships and locomotive engines 

 were constructed by whic]i the products of 

 the earth and the manufactures of man, by 

 machines and methods not before con- 

 ceived, could be transported across the seas 

 and overland by artificial highways and 

 across bridges of previously unimagined 

 span ; and light and heat and electricity 

 and water could be delivered in the apart- 

 ment of every person to be used at will. 



It was in the carrying out of the delivery 

 of pure and wholesome water and the re- 

 moval of its unused surplus that the civil 

 engineer first was called on to deal with or- 

 ganic life. That minute organisms affected 

 the comfort and the health of man had been 

 recognized for hundreds of years. In the 

 middle of the seventeenth century Leeu- 

 wenhoek, a Dutch maker of microscopes, 

 discovered and described bacteria, and 

 Nicholas Andry, a pathologist, ascribed to 

 them the causation of disease. But later 

 scientists discarded the idea, and it was not 

 until 1831 that any real advances were 

 made in the study of these microorganisms, 

 and it is only within the last twelve years 

 that it has become thoroughly recognized 

 that the regulation of the growth of living 

 organisms in air and water and sewage is 

 necessary and practicable, and comes within 

 the domain of civil engineering. 



Indirectly, however, biological research 

 has been one of the most important factors 

 in the progress of engineering science, by 

 calling the attention of students of physics 

 to the fact that advance and not retrogres- 

 sion is one of the fundamental laws of 

 nature. For the first half of the century, 

 the old ideas of cosmogony, based on an 

 hypothesis unsupported by proof, were prev- 

 alent everywhere. It was assumed that 

 the world, in all its details, had been created 

 perfect and had since been simply deterio- 

 rating and tending to a final dissolution. 

 ' Change and decay, in all around I see,' 

 was the dogma of the theologian, the phi- 

 losopher and the scientist alike. While it 

 had come to be recognized that the forms of 

 inorganic matter could be changed by man, 

 and that by the exercise of man's intelli- 

 gence, certain characteristics of organic 

 matter and the vital forces with which it 

 was imbued could be modified and perpet- 

 uated, it was not considered possible that 

 the superior intelligence which controlled 

 everything could modify or transform such 

 characteristics in any special form of matter. 



But in 1859, Charles Darwin, after twenty 

 years of study of the sequence of events in 

 biological phenomena, demonstrated that 

 there was an intelligence beyond that of 

 man, which was constantly acting to change 

 and modify the forms, the habits and the 

 mode of life of animals and plants, and 

 that such action resulted in the perpetua- 

 tion of the fittest type of organism. The 

 proof was irrefragable, and the effect of his 

 wonderfully clear exposition of the proc- 

 esses by which his conclusions had been 

 reached was marvelous in inducing a co- 

 ordination of thought and a cooperation 

 in methods of procedure in intelligent re- 

 search in the investigation of all natural 

 phenomena, whether relating to organic or 

 inorganic matter. 



In considering the means of directing the 

 great sources of power, the psychological 



