Science and Nationality. Presidential Address delivered at the Inaugural Meeting of the Yorkshire Science Association

Summary

The position of science in its relation to the conduct and policy of nations is a theme which has been in the thoughts of most of us during these sad years. The end of the first act has come but the tragedy may soon begin again. We claim the proud title of scientific men, Makers, that is to say, of knowledge. In old times mankind was wont to turn to priests and lawgivers for counsel. We are witnessing the ruin to which a world professing the ideals of religion and law may come. Those ideals claim to have made the world we see. The counsels of science are as yet untried. Can the makers of natural knowledge help where the rest have failed? That is a question we may well consider in this partial respite from horror which may perhaps be brief.

A great cry has gone up in all the land; and not in our land alone, but through all the earth, for is there a house where there is not one dead? Caught in the wheels of a hideous destiny the young men of the nations and the innocent boys have been torn to pieces. The shattered victims from whom kindly death has turned aside wring our hearts in every public place. They went at the high call of Duty. The altar upon which they bled bears the glorious names of Patriotism and Duty.