Apart from this, another feature of
the science of our time demands attention. While we cannot hope
that the multiplication of specialties will cease, we find that
upon the process of differentiation and subdivision is now being
superposed a form of evolution, tending towards the general unity
of all the sciences, of which some examples may be pointed out.
Biological science, which a generation ago was supposed to be at
the antipodes of exact science, is becoming more and more exact,
and is cultivated by methods which are developed and taught by
mathematicians. Psychophysics--the study of the operations of the
mind by physical apparatus of the same general nature as that used
by the chemist and physicist--is now an established branch of
research. A natural science which, if any comparisons are
possible, may outweigh all others in importance to the race, is
the rising one of "eugenics,"--the improvement of the human race
by controlling the production of its offspring. No better example
of the drawbacks which our country suffers as a seat of science
can be given than the fact that the beginning of such a science
has been possible only at the seat of a larger body of cultivated
men than our land has yet been able to bring together.
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