president's address. 13 



The Relations of Science and Government. 



To prevent misconception we will define our terms. By- 

 Science we mean the systematic study of natural phenomena and 

 of the orderly sequences of natural events, and the classified and 

 co-ordinated knowledge which is the fruit of this study. By 

 Government we shall understand the organisations which have 

 been created by the public will, or by the public acquiescence, 

 for carrying out by exercise of legislative and executive powers 

 those functions of national importance, which the nation decides 

 to be unsafe or undesirable to intrust to individual or private 

 control. 



Since men are units of the order of Nature, subject to her 

 laws and dependent at every turn on the changes which take 

 place in the relations of the other units, it would seem obvious 

 enough that Government in its working should ever have in 

 mind the importance of the conditions imposed upon us by our 

 being and by our environment. If we are to be the lords of 

 creation or Nature, it can only be by mastering Nature. And to 

 master nature we must understand Nature. 



As Sir Ray Lankester* has pointed out, there is greater need 

 now than ever before of this knowledge and understanding. 

 While man was in the savage stage a stable equilibrium had 

 practically obtained among existing organisms. Man, by his 

 interference, has upset this equilibrium. He has aggregated 

 and associated abnormally. His needs have multiplied : the 

 luxuries of yesterday are the commonplace necessities of to-day. 

 To meet his new and wilfully induced conditions, and to supply 

 his new and multiplied requirements, he has at first slowly and 

 and slightly but later, and especially in the last century with 

 its marvellous record of discoveries and inventions, rapidly and 

 comprehensively modified the very face of Nature. He has taken 

 charge of the geographical distribution of plants and animals. 

 He is on the verge of taking charge of the distribution of fresh 



*"The Kingdom of Man." By E. Ray Lankester, LL.D., F.R.S. 

 London, 1907. 



