The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-08-25
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Mr. Arthur j. BaIfour COnfesses His
Tastes to University Extension.

personality. Neither can we, by paral-
lei process, Justify our sentiments about
a century, yet most of US have them
''The reason why we cannot tell, but
only this we know full wholesome ce n
turies please US and some do not. 1t so
happens, for example, that I dislike the
seventeenth century and like the eigh-
tenth. l do not pretend to Justify my
taste. Perhaps it is that there is kind
OF unity and finish about the eighteenth
century wanting in it's predecessor. Per
haps l am prejudice1 against the latter
by my dislike of It's religious wars, which
were more than half political, and it's
political wars, which were more than
half religious. In any case the matter Is
quite unimpOrtant.
What is more to our present purpose is
to ask whether the nineteenth century
yet presents itself to any of us sufficient
~ as whole to suggest any sentiment Of
the kind l have just illustrated. l con-
TESS that, for my part, 1t does not. OF
that portion of it with which most of us
are alone Immediately acquainted, say the
last third, [ feel can in this connection
say nothing. We are too much of 1t to
judge it. The two remaining thirds, on
the other hand, seem to me SO different
that l cannot cr1ticise them together,
and, If l am to criticise them separately
1 acknowlege at once that it Is the first
third and not the second that engages my
sympathies.
There are those, ( am aware, who think
that the great Reform Ebill was the be-
ginning of wisdom. Very likely they are
right. But this is not question of
right but question of personal predllec-
ton, and from that point of view the
middle third of the nineteenth century
does not, acknowledge, appeal to me.
1t is probably due to the natural ingrati-
tude which we are apt to feel toward our
immediate predecessors. But L Justify it
to myself by saying that 1t reminds me
too much of Landseer's pictures and the
revival of Gothic art, that L feel no senti-
ment OF allegiance toward any of the
intellectual dynas5ies which then held
sway, that neither the thin Iucidity OF
Mil nor the turbid prophesyings OF Car
lyle, neither COmte nor yet Ne wman
were ever able to arouse in me the en-
thusiasm of a disciple, and that I turn
with pleasure from the Corn laws to the
great war, from Thackeray a nd Die kens
to Scott and Miss Austen, even from
TennysOn and Browning to Keats, Coler-
idge. Wordsworth and Shelley. Obser-
vatiOns like these, however, are rather in
the nature of Individual faneies than
impersonal criticisms; and hasten to
consider whether, a part altogether from
likes and diSlikpS tharp 10 anV chara 0tanr-
1stlc note which distinguishes this cen
tury from any that has gone before it.
On this point range myself with those
who find this characteristic note in the
growth OF science. In the last hundred
years the : world has seen great wars,
great national and social upheavals, great
religious movements, great economic
changes Literature and art have had
their trtumphs and have permanently en-
riched the intellectual inheritance of our
race. Yet, large as is the space which
subjects like these legitimately fill in our
tho lights, much as they viii occupy the
future historian, it is not among these
that l seek for the most important and
the most fundamental differences which
separate the present from preceding ages.
Rather is this 20 be found in the cumu-
lative PRODUCTS of scientific research, to
which rs other period offeis a precedent
or a parallel. No single discovery, it
may be, can be compared in It's results to
/ O2tbD VI OOD6IulCu0t no blu2lC ulStONcIbI
can be compared in genius to Newton ;
but, in their total effects, the advances
made by the nineteenth century are not
to be matched. Not only is the surpris-
ing in crease of knowledge new, but the
use to which 1t has been put rs new also.
The growth of Industrial invention is not
a fact we are permitted to forget. We
/ do, however, sometimes forget how much
OF it is due to a close connection between
theoretic knowledge and it's utiIitarian
application, which, in its degree, is al
together unexampled in the history OF
mankind,
After all, however, it is not necessarily
! the material and Obvious results OF scien-
titc discoveries which are rOf the deepest
| interest. They have effected changes
more subtle and perhaps less obvious
Which are at least as unique In the his
tory OF the civilized world. No century
has been so great a change in our intel
lectual apprehension of the world IL
Which we live. Our whole point of view
has changed. The mental framework
in which we arrange the separata facts in
the world of men and things is quite q
new framework,
The spectacle Of the universe presents
itself IN a wholly changed perspective
| We not only see more, but we see differ
entity The discoveries in physics and in
chemistry, which have borne their shar
In thus recreat1ng for us the evolution OF
the past, are in process of giving us Quit,
new ideas as to the inner nature Of tina
material whole of which the WOrldi
traversing space is but an insignifican
part. differences of quality ones though
ultimate are constantly being resolved
into differences Of motion or configura
6lon. What were once regarded as thing
are now known to be movement. Pie
nomena apparently so wide apart as light
radiant hsat, and electricity, are, as It is
unnecessary to remind you, now recog
nlzed as substantially identical.
From the arrangement of atoms in tn,
molecule, not less than their intrinsi
nature, flow the characteristic attributes
of the compound. The atom itself hs
been pulverized, and speculation is forces
to admit as POSSIBLE that even tn
chemical elements themselves may be nt
more than varieties OF a single substance
Plausible attempts have been made to re
duoe The physical universe, with its inf.