Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/717

Rh human knowledge, that we can begin to understand the import of the epoch upon which we have entered, and appreciate the full meaning of these demonstrations of enlarged operation in the scientific agencies of the period. It was inevitable, from the very nature of things, that science should overleap its past limitations and pass to the stage of international comprehensiveness; but, fully to comprehend this, we must remember that it represents a new epoch of thought, and promises a new education for mankind. The dominant ideas of the past have been confining and restrictive. National feelings are diverse and antagonizing; religions are hostile, and politics local and exclusive; but science is as universal as Nature, its devotees are one in spirit and in purpose, and it is undoubtedly the supreme unifying element of the modern social state. It studies phenomena of every kind, and is equally at home in every place. Its perpetual aim is the dispassionate consideration of facts, and the generalization of wider and more comprehensive truths. Eschewing all narrowness and prejudice, by the very nature of its discipline it tends to break down factitious limitations, it cultivates the spirit of large-mindedness, and is the great teacher of toleration, liberality, and catholicity. By leading to profounder agreements, by awakening broader sympathies, and making possible more harmonious co-operations in the further progress of civilization, the extension of science is full of hopeful encouragement for the best interests of mankind. Under its influence men emerge into the light of new intellectual relations, new opportunities, and new responsibilities. The elevated sentiments by which men of science are more and more animated were thus eloquently expressed by one of the distinguished presidents of the British Association, Sir John Herschel. He said: "Let selfish interests divide the worldly, let jealousies torment the envious; we breathe a purer empyrean. The common pursuit of truth is of itself a brotherhood. In these meetings we have a source of delight which draws us together, and inspires us with a sense of unity. That astronomers should congregate to talk of stars and planets; chemists, of atoms; geologists, of strata, is natural enough; but what is there, equally pervading all, which causes their hearts to burn within them for mutual unbosoming? Surely the answer of each and all—the chemist, the astronomer, the physiologist, the electrician, the biologist, the geologist—all with one accord, and each in the language of his own science, would answer, not only the wonderful works of God, and the delight their disclosure affords, but the privilege he feels to have aided in the disclosure. We are further led to look onward through the vista of time with chastened assurance that Science has still other and nobler work to do than any she has yet attempted."

annual season of college commencements and commemorations is past, and it brought with it the customary laudations of classical study in unusual profusion. The stir of the subject by last year's discussions aroused the friends of Latin and Greek, and they seized the favorable opportunities to expatiate with renewed unction upon the unrivaled educational value and importance of these immortal languages. Professor Jebb, the accomplished Greek scholar, formerly of Cambridge, but now of Glasgow University, was brought over to address the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, in the hope, no doubt, that he would contribute something to undo the mischievous last year's work of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his address before the same body. Professor Jebb, however, gave rise to some disappointment by not taking the rôle of a champion of the study of Greek,