236 



Physical Sciences. 



conditions of progress to the world. That it promises stability to civ- 

 ilization we gladly admit. That it promises accelerated progress we 

 joyfully hope. That it increJases man's power we know, but that power 

 needs control and direction, or it may prove a curse or be totally lost. 



The world is now wild on the question of physical science. Like the 

 achievements of a hero that has done much, its results are exaggerated; 

 or like the riches of a rich man, the sum increases with every repeti- 

 tion. The very wonders of science are the basis of wild speculations 

 impossible to be realized. There are wild dreamers who know some- 

 thing of what has been accomplished, and little of the time and labor 

 required for securing the results already reached. Science is extolled 

 for what it has done, and sneered at with the same breath because it 

 cannot do more. But still the cry is, More practical science." More 

 production." ^^In that is our hope." ^'^All else is * heavy guessing/ 

 or a remnant of the past to be buried out of sight." 



Amid all this clamor and din and glare in which the multitude seem 

 confused with the sounds and bewildered by the cross-lights, until they 

 rush with the crowd and shout the cry that seems to be in the ascend- 

 ant, let us listen to the voice of reason. Let us appeal to experience, 

 the history of the past. Let us scan physical science with that keen 

 searching method by which it has been built up. Let us turn clear, 

 scientific light in upon science itself. Let its triumphs be revealed. 

 Let us comprehend all its capabilities that we may know what it can 

 possibly accomplisli. And where, I ask, in the past results or in its 

 present capabilities are found the power of controlling man, the power 

 of bringing the individual or the race on to that high plane where true 

 manhood reigns — the plane of righty of justice, of purity, of truth 

 and of good will to man which leads to labor and to the sacrifice of self 

 for the advancement of all mankind to this higher plane ? 



We look in vain to physical science for such a result. It may give 

 light, but it never gives strength of purpose; and its light is that w^hich 

 comes to show the extent of the disaster that has befallen us, rather 

 than a light ever shining upon a path that leads away from all danger. 

 For guidance and self-control we are to look within man to those 

 powers by which he comprehends moral relations — to that moral 

 nature for the approval of which a good man will lay down his life — 

 under the guidance of which physical science and its j)roducts are 

 means to be used or rejected as they hasten or retard the progress of 

 the man toward that true position of moral dignity where manhood in 

 its perfection becomes more noble and more glorious than all of the 

 visible universe besides. Under this guidance he is self-poised and 

 stable, because it leads him and links him to Grod Himself. Along the 

 pathway where the moral nature leads there is an illimitable road of 



