THE SCIENTIST'S VIEW

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2372, 30 January 1915, Page 5

THE SCIENTIST'S VIEW

THE GREAT AND GRIM STRUGGLE.

A brief refercnco to the war was made by the president of the New Zealand Institute (Dr. C. Chilton) yesterday "To-day we aro engaged in a life and death struggle with the German nation," he,said. "International courtesies and schemes of co-operation for scientific work are suspended, and the resources and inventions of science are being used to carry death and destruction to thousands and tens of thousands of the finest individuals of the manhood of tho nations, while as incidents in the struggle—incidents that aro scarcely, apologised for as reRrettable—ancient and famous universities and libraries are destroyed, beautiful and historic cathedrals are laid in ruins, and town halls and other public buildings, the pride and glory of the citizens, are battered to pieces. It is a ghastly and pitiful spectacle, and it is a poor consolation to the evolutionary biologists to bo able to recognise the war as only a part of that great and grim struggle for existence, universal among organisms, _ by -which Nature evolves to higher things. "We can only hope that as the final result nations will arise with loftier ideals, and a higher and nobler appreciation of the claims of humanity, right-, eonsness,' and justice. In the'meantime, we must all sympathise with,ono of our number, Dr. Cockayne,- the result of whoso years of labour spent in f.he preparation of a work on the vegetation of New. Zealaud for the German series 'Die Vegetation der Eide' seems likely to be lost beyond recovery."