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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
or what not, are not especially friendly to the scientific move- 
ment, such an argument will appear conclusive, demolishing 
in a sentence all that fifty years of science has built up. 
Whether such argument takes with it electric lights and cars, 
bacteriology, modern surgery and photography, is not so clear. 
But perhaps the most curious index of the present ebb is 
scientific interest and enthusiasm comes from a quarter where 
we should least expect it, from philanthropy or altruism, as in 
these days we are taught to say. The eccentric Russian noble- 
man, Tolstoi, regarded in many quarters as the modern oracle 
of all efforts for social amelioration, he, too, has a griev- 
ance against science. His is the most marvellous complaint of 
all. I quote from the Popular Science Monthly, July, 1898: 
“The strong, sensible laborer supposes that men who study 
and are supported by his labor, shall be able to tell him where 
to find happiness. Science should teach him how to live, how 
to act towards friends and relatives, and how to control 
instincts and desires that arise within him, how and what to 
believe. Instead of telling him these things, science talks 
about distances in the heavens, microbes, vibrations of ether 
and X-rays. The laborer is dissatisfied. He insists on know- 
ing how to live. The essential thing is the total view of life, 
its meanings and aims. Science cannot rise to that view, reli- 
gion alone can do so. ” 
I consider this a most remarkable utterance, but it simply 
shows how very far off an intelligent man may be in this year 
1898 from a true appreciation of the method, the work and the 
mission of natural science. To declare that science has not 
been a blessing to earth’s toiling millions can be possible only 
to a man who, chooses to hide himself amid the serfs of 
benighted Russia, where aristocracy of church and state still 
holds millions in the superstitious degradation of medieval 
ages. Surely everywhere west of Russia, there is not a work- 
ingman who does not by virtue of the progress of science find 
himself to-day better housed, better warmed, better fed, better 
taught in health and better nursed in sickness than ever before 
in the whole history of the race. The light of science converts 
night into day before his footsteps; for a mere pittance, a 
small fraction of his daily wage, he journeys to and from his 
work in style befitting a prince; if he be sober, his home is the 
abode of comfort, the best knowledge of the world is spread 
before his children, gifted men taught in the ways of science 
