REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1 918 1 25 



human intellect; in either case our articles of faith are of the first 

 order of quality. 



" Very important if true " said the president of the Carnegie 

 Institution some years ago to these intimations put forward as an 

 argument for their encouragement. "Very important and true" 

 is the only dignified retort. I do not wish to say that the devotees 

 of paleontology are creatures of a superior order of intellect but 

 I can not refrain from the expression that while they are dealing 

 neither in cosmic magnitudes nor the sublimated calculus, they 

 have chosen to serve at a high altar. 



We must be prepared now, with armies returning from abroad 

 sharpened to the applications of science and armies at home ever 

 sharpening these applications, for an intense magnification of its 

 industrial and commercial cogency. It seems quite likely that science 

 may be in danger of comprehension only in such terms as are pro- 

 ductive of wealth. And as if this were not enough of a misbranding 

 for science to correct, there lies a reprbach upon science, led like a 

 wanton away from its paths of rectitude into the maddening purlieus 

 of a mischievous war. 



I have recently read a passage from a published Sigma Xi address 

 in which the author introduced his effective arguments and his 

 personal attitude in this phrase : 



" But to an engineer accustomed by training and habit to look 

 on science and scientific laws as valuable only when capable of 

 application," etc. Here we. diverge. Nature's fundamental laws 

 can not be applied. They apply themselves; they govern without 

 consent. If we read them aright then we ensure happiness and 

 progress in adjusting ourselves to them. We are not called on to 

 enforce science and scientific laws ; nor is it competent to declare a 

 law " valuable " in accordance with sftandards we set up. The law 

 is of God, the standard of man. Over against the passage cited let 

 me put one emanating from a practical geologist whose career has 

 been marked by eminent attainment. The comment is on broad 

 lines of gcDlogical science, all the more applicable to us because of 

 this. 



"Applied geology is of such inestimable value to mankind that 

 its study needs no stimulus, but pure geology is often, and now 

 more than ever, forgotten in the wild scramble for material results ; 

 and yet it is the basis on which all benefits to mankind from applied 

 geology have been derived. During the war many geologists have 

 given their services in one way or another entirely to the country 

 and research departments have been largely depleted of workers. 



