ROBERT A. MILLIKAN 31 



by following a more or less systematic, if not always 

 a strictly logical, procedure. But the day has gone 

 by when any physicist thinks he understands the foun- 

 dations of the physical universe, as we thought we 

 understood them in the nineteenth century. The dis- 

 coveries of our generation have taught us a whole- 

 some lesson of humility, wonder and joy in the face 

 of an as yet incomprehensible physical universe. 



We have learned not to take ourselves as seriously 

 as the nineteenth century physicists took themselves. 

 We have learned to work with new satisfaction, new 

 hope and new enthusiasm because there is still so much 

 that we do not understand, and because, instead of 

 having it all pigeon-holed as they thought they had, 

 we have found in our lifetimes more new relations in 

 physics than had come to light in all preceding ages 

 put together, and because the stream of discovery as 

 yet shows no abatement. 



Why Is It that we have never surpassed the sepul- 

 chral decorative art of the Egyptians, nor their sepul- 

 chral architecture, either? Is it not because they, too, 

 at least, in some of the fields In which they worked, 

 discovered eternal truth? Why Is It that In the plastic 

 arts, in aesthetics, in certain forms of the drama, In 

 the exercise of pure reason, we can only imitate the 

 triumphs of the Greeks? Is it not because the Greeks 

 discovered In these fields eternal truth? Why is it that 

 all the world Is still willing to say of Jesus, "Never 

 man spake like this man"? Is it not because he lit- 

 erally spake two thousand years ago the words of 

 everlasting life — the words of rich, full, abundant, 

 satisfying, unselfish living for all times and all places? 



