Abstract
M. DUMAS in his presidential address made some striking remarks on the important place filled by physical science in modern times as contrasted with its former supposed inferiority to literature, philosophy, and art. “Natural science is no longer content with the contemplative attitude which sufficed for Newton and Laplace. Science is now mixed up with all the personal acts of our existence; she interferes in all measures of public interest; industry owes to her its immense prosperity, agriculture is regenerated under her fostering care; commerce is forced to take her discoveries into account; the art of war has been transformed by her; politics is bound to admit her into its councils for the government of states. How could it be otherwise? Have not mechanics, physics, chemistry, the natural sciences, become intelligent and necessary agents for the creation of wealth by labour? Have they not opened the way to all the institutions by which hygiene watches over the health of workers and the salubrity of cities? If comfort is more universal, the life of man more prolonged, wealth better distributed, houses more commodious, furniture and clothing cheaper, the soldier better armed, the finances of the State more prosperous, is it not to the sciences that all this progress is due? It is they that discover in the ground the first new materials, that show to agriculture the most suitable productions, the most efficacious manures, and the most appropriate implements, they that, inventing new processes for industry, put into its hands untiring machines, sometimes gigantic, rivalling in brute force the giants of fable, sometimes delicate, rivalling in nimbleness the hands of fairies. It is the sciences, in fine, that have given to the world the rapid means of communication by land and sea, by the aid of which man takes possession of the terrestrial globe, creating new peoples and flourishing cities where our fathers knew only of barren deserts and uninhabited regions.... Science follows you everywhere: breathe, there is chemistry; walk, there is mechanics; at every moment, without thinking of it, we cannot help having to do with her. Whether we wish it or not it is necessary to accept science as a companion, to possess her or to be possessed of her; if you are ignorant you are her slave, if you are skilled she obeys you. The future belongs to science; unfortunate are the people who shut their eyes to this truth.”
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French Association for the Advancement of Science . Nature 14, 379–380 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014379a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014379a0