The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1886-02-18
me cha OF Science.

The first rsilway for locomotives
which was constructed between Stock.
ton -and Darlington, was opened in
| September, 1925, SO that / have the
| doubtful advantage of about fouI
months seniority over the ancestral
/ representative Of the vast re4icuiated
fetching and carrying organism which
now extends its meshes over the civilized
world. confess it fills me with aston.
islment to think that the time when no
man could travel faster than horses
could transport him, when our means Of
locomotion were no better than those OF
Achilles or of Ramses Nahum, lies
within my memory. The electric tele-
graph, as thing for practical use, 10
far my junior. So are arms of precision.
unless the old rifle be regarded as such.
Again, the application TO hygiene. and
10 the medical and surgical treatment Of
men and animals. of our knowledge Of
the phenomena of parasitism, and the
very discovery of the true order of these
phenomena. is long way within the
compass Of my personal knowledge.
II IS unnecessary for me to enumerate
more than these four Of the many rich
gifts made by science to mankind DURING
the last sixty years. ArrestiRg the sur
yey here, ] would ask II there is anv
corresponding period in previous history
which can take credit for so MANY mo-
mentcus applications of scientific knoWl.
edge to the wants of mankind? Depre-
clatorS OF the value of natural knowl-
edge are wont to speak somewhat scorn-
fully of these and such like benefactions
as mere additions to material welfare.
must own to the weakness of believing
that material welfare is highly desirable
in itself, and have yet to meet with the
man who prefers material i'll fare. But
even If this should be, as some may say,
painful evidence of the materialistic
tendencies incidental to scientific Dur.
suits, 1t is surely possible, without much
Ingenuity or other view of the mutual
relations OF material and spiritual phe-
nomena, to show that each of these four
applications of science has exerted a
prodigious influence on the moral, social
and political relations of mankind. and
that such influence can only increase as
time goes on. If the senseless antipa-
thles, born Of isolation, which formerly
converted neighbors, whether they be-
longed to adjacent families or to ad-
lacent nations, into natural enemies, are
dying away, improved means of COM
munIcation deserve the chief credit of
the change; if war becomes less fire.
quent it will be chiefly because its hor.
rors are being intensified beyond bear
ing by the close interdependence and
community of interest thus established
between nations no less than by the i'm.
provement of the means of destruction
by scientific invention. Arms of pre-
cision have taken the mastery of the
world out Of the hands of brute force
and given it to those of industry and in
telligence. If railways and electric
telegraphs have rendered it unnecessary
that modern empires should fall to
pieces by their own weight as ancient
empires did, arms Of precision have pro-
vided against the possibility of their be- |
ing swept away by barbarous invasions.
Health means not merely wealth, not
merely bodily welfare, but intellectual |
and moral sOundness; and I doubt If, |
since the time Of the father of medicine.
any discovery has contributed so much |
to the promotion of health and the cure |
Of disease as that of the part played by |
fungoid parasites in the animal econo- /
my, and that of the means of checking
them, even though, as yet, unfortunately /
It be only in a few cases.-Frons Pro /
lessor HuTLey's ADDRESS to the ROYAL /
Society, tn Nature