THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



Let us give physical science its due. We owe to 

 it all the exact knowledge we have of the physical 

 universe in which we are placed and our physical 

 relations to it. All we know of the heavens above us, 

 with their orbs and the cosmic processes going on 

 there; all we know of the earth beneath our feet, 

 its structure, its composition, its physical history, 

 science has told us. All we know of the mechanism 

 of our own bodies, their laws and functions, the 

 physical relation of oiu" minds to them, science has 

 told us. All we know of our own origin, our animal 

 descent, science has revealed. The whole material 

 fabric of our civilization we owe to science. Our re- 

 lation to the physical side of things concerns us in- 

 timately; it is for our behoof to understand it. Prac- 

 tical or daily experience settles much of it for us, or 

 up to a certain remove; beyond this, physical sci- 

 ence settles it for us — the sources and nature of 

 disease, the remedial forces of nature, the chemical 

 compounds, the laws of hygiene and sanitation, the 

 value of foods, and a thousand other things beyond 

 the reach of our unaided experience, are in the keep- 

 ing of science. We have the gift of life, and life de- 

 mands that we understand things in their relation 

 to our physical well-being. 



Science has made or is making the world over for 



us. It has builded us a new house, — builded it over 



our heads while we were yet living in the old, and 



the confusion and disruption and the wiping-out of 



64 



