Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/531

Rh the elevated aspirations and the noble efforts of the evangelists and the humanists who seek to raise the lower to the plane of the higher elements of our race; but it is now plain as a matter of fact, however repulsive it may seem to some of our inherited opinions, that the railway the steamship, the telegraph and the daily press will do more to illumine the dark places of the earth than all the apostles of creeds and all the messengers of the gospel of 'sweetness and light.'

A question of profound significance growing out of the extension of commercial relations in our time is what may be called the question of international health. An outbreak of cholera in Hamburg, the prevalence of yellow fever in Havana or an epidemic of bubonic plague in India is no longer a matter of local import, as nations with which we are well acquainted have learned recently in an expensive manner. The management of this great international question calls for the application of the most advanced scientific knowledge and for the most intricate scientific investigation. Large sums of money must be devoted to this work, and many heroic lives will be lost, doubtless, in its execution; but it is now evident, as a mere matter of international political economy, that the cost of sound sanitation will be trifling in comparison with the cost of no sanitation; while further careful study of the natural history of diseases promises practical immunity from many of them at no distant day. International associations of all kinds must aid greatly also in the promotion of progress. Many such organizations have, indeed, already undertaken scientific projects with the highest success. Comparison and criticism of methods and results not only lead rapidly and effectively to improvements and advances, but they lead also to a whole-hearted recognition of good work which puts the fraternalism of men of science on a plane far above the level of the amenities of merely diplomatic life.

When we turn to the general status of science itself, there is seen to be equal justification for hopefulness founded on an abundance of favorable conditions. The methods of science may be said to have gained a footing of respectability in almost every department of thought, where, a half-century ago, or even twenty years ago, their entry was either barred out or stoutly opposed. The 'Conflict between Religion and Science'—more precisely called the conflict between theology and science—which disturbed so many eminent though timid minds, including not a few men of science a quarter of a century ago, has now been transferred almost wholly to the field of the theological contestants; and science may safely leave them to determine the issue, since it is evidently coming by means of scientific methods. The grave fears entertained a few decades ago by distinguished theologians and publicists as to the stability of the social fabric under the stress put upon it by the rising tide of scientific ideas, have not been realized.