774 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 542. 



and unified the knowledge of the nations. 



The next act attested the blending of the 

 ancient and the modern, of Athenian and 

 Anglican, of Aristotelian and Baconian, of 

 the southern and the northern, and the 

 scene was the middle ground of France. 

 There Lavoisier (1743-1794) applied mod- 

 ern practicalness to chemistry, and discov- 

 ered the indestructibility of matter; La- 

 marck (1744r-1829) sought to amend the 

 Linnean system, yet pushed too far in ad- 

 vance of observation (and his times) for 

 full following; and the brothers Cuvier 

 (1769-1838) so improved on Linne as to 

 give form and substance to zoology, and 

 incidentally to presage anthropology. These 

 movements led up to the distinctively nine- 

 teenth-century stage, and a renewed pulse 

 of British activity; Joule and others meas- 

 ured the mechanical equivalent of heat and 

 experimentally demonstrated the persist- 

 ence of motion, and so founded physics; 

 by masterly observation and comparison, 

 Darwin defined the development of species 

 (including man), thus infusing the blood 

 of life into the Linnean system ; Huxley 

 and Tyndall simplified all science by estab- 

 lishing the uniformity of nature ; and at 

 last American scions of Anglican sires in- 

 dependently discovered through anthropol- 

 ogic observation that the minds of all men 

 of corresponding culture-grade respond 

 similarly to similar stimuli, thereby prov- 

 ing the soundness and completeness of the 

 Baconian foundation of knowledge. The 

 four laws of nature established in western 

 Europe — the indestructibility of matter, 

 the persistence of motion, the development 

 of species and the uniformity of nature- 

 are, in fact, complementary to the law fore- 

 cast by Bacon and applied in America three 

 centuries later as the responsivity of mind ; 

 and the five laws are the cardinal principles 

 of .science. It is curious that while Bacon's 

 view of the mind as a faithful reflex of 

 other nature colored and shnped the prog- 



ress of science through the centuries (for 

 how could Lavosier, or Joule, or Darwin, 

 or Huxley repose confidence in their ob- 

 servations without resting even greater con- 

 fidence on the accuracy of the observing 

 mechanism?), the Baconian law lay in the 

 background of thought without conscious 

 expression (despite daily subconscious use) 

 from the dawn of the seventeenth century 

 down to the last quarter of the nineteenth. 

 How the law was neglected is the history 

 of modern science read between-lines ; why 

 it was neglected until the science of sentient 

 man arose to rediscover it is a present prob- 

 lem for those anthropologists whose sym- 

 pathies and interests cover the full field of 

 human knowledge. 



Howsoever the three-century eclipse of 

 Bacon's fundamental law be interpreted, 

 the history of science stands out sharp and 

 clear when viewed in the light of anthro- 

 pology: There were two great movements, 

 the naissance in the east Mediterranean 

 region, and the renaissance commonly 

 credited to the Mediterranean countries but 

 really made in the North Sea region; each 

 comprised a long interval of accumulation 

 of experience and a briefer time of formula- 

 tion of knowledge ; in each the formulated 

 knowledge faithfully expressed the habits 

 and characters of leading thinkers of the 

 times; and the modern movement reached 

 the commonplace thing of every-day life 

 in such wise as to render science a devoted 

 handmaid rather than a remoter deess, a 

 means of welfare rather than an end of as- 

 piration. The anthropologist feels that 

 the comprehensiveness of the ancient and 

 the practicalness of the modern unite in 

 his science, which (de'spite the narrow 

 definitions of earlier decades) is that of 

 mind-controlled man, the dominant power 

 of the visible world, the science-maker as 

 well as the subject of science. 



Such are a few of the relations of an- 

 thropology to the sister sciences, a few of 



