126 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



With the termination of the war some of these research workers 

 may return to their old pursuits, but many have been permanently 

 weaned away by mere worldly ambitions in applied geology. The 

 limit of elasticity has been strained; the rebound will not be com- 

 plete. These ambitions, however, can not be* realized unless the 

 trend of discoveries of new truths in the Earth's secrets can be 

 maintained. A house can not be built to a height greater than the 

 foundation will support. I believe now, more than ever, the world 

 is in need of work in pure geologic research." 



Our contention that the principles which it rests with our science 

 to enunciate afford the key to many sociological enigmas, is not a 

 phantasy; and their application to the personal conduct of our own 

 lives must of necessity be productive of correct physical and spiritual 

 adjustments. And as I am fortifying my plea with the wisdom of 

 other men, I here quote the expression of one to whose words all 

 geologists attend with deference and whose vision has all the initiative 

 of a spiral nebula. 



" Nothing could be more grateful to me than your strong advo- 

 cacy of the study of the life record as a source of guidance in socio- 

 logical, political and other problems of the human race. I have 

 been trying to urge this for years." 



In an address which I had the honor to give before the Geological 

 Society two years ago I laid much weight upon the eventual control 

 of the minority whenever that minority was strong at the head; so 

 much emphasis indeed, that when the address was printed at the 

 expense of the taxpayers of New York it was gravely questioned 

 in public whether this was a proper argument to promulgate at a 

 time when we had just been assured that 'our principal present 

 business was to make the world safe for democracy. But our 

 reasoning in this matter is nDt dependent on analogy; out of our 

 own demonstrations we can cite the proof in its fulness and its 

 constant reiteration in the history of the earth. Today one-half 

 the world has broken loose into a mad and disordered surge.' 

 An undisciplined and untaught horde have got the bit in 

 their teeth and are running wild. Is this the thing we started 

 out to accomplish, this the kind of democracy we went out to make 

 the world safe for? Were not the law, which we have brought out, 

 of proven effectiveness through all things ; had it not its foundations 

 in the eternal purposes of Nature, we might look with extreme 

 apprehension upon the tempestuous and uncomprehending outbursts 

 of the world's new so-called democracies, where malignity, ignorance 

 and ambition conspire to unhorse responsible authority. The 



