n this huge mass outgrows
the space that can be found for it in the libraries, and what are we to
say of the value of it all? Are all these scientific researches to be
classed as really valuable contributions to knowledge, or have we only
a pile in which nuggets of gold are here and there to be sought for?
One encouraging answer to such a question is that, taking the interests
of the world as a whole, scientific investigation has paid for itself
in benefits to humanity a thousand times over, and that all that is
known to-day is but an insignificant fraction of what Nature has to
show us. 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.
Generations may elapse before the seed sown by Mr. Francis Galton, from
which grew the Eugenic Society, shall bear full fruit in the adoption
of those individual efforts and social regulations necessary to the
propagation of sound and healthy offspring on the part of the human
family. But when this comes about, then indeed will Professor
Lankester's "rebel against Nature" find his independence acknowledged
by the hitherto merciless despot that has decreed punishment for his
treason.

This new branch of science from which so much may be expected is the
offshoot of another, the rapid growth of which illustrates