The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1907

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1974, 9 January 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1907

Remarkable though the latter half of the nineteenth century has been for the many astounding discoveries made in all branches of science, it was the opinion of many that we'wcro only on the threshold of knowledge, and that far more startling and im portant discoveries still wore near at hand. That view seemed feasible until death began to work its havoc amongst the loading thinkers and investigators, and in a remarkably short space of time such great minds as Herbert Spencer (who though not strictly a scientiest, hbeen unequalled as a philosophy.: since the days of Aristotle), Darwin, Tyndal, Huxley, Romanes, Robertson, Pasteur, and others passed over to the great majority in quick succession, .and left > the world much the poorer for their absence. They had done their noble work 'and left the world the richer for it by a very great deal. They had lived the lives of true scientists ; that is to say, they plodded along diligently in search of truth and knowledge, and gave the results to the world without fee or reward, feeling fully compensated for their enormous labors by the thought that they had advanced the cause of human knowledge and pushed back the horizon of ignorance to a more distant zone. They looked for no other I rewards, though some of them, like I many of their predecessors of more ancient times, did not escape calumny for daring to question certain fixed opinions that are now proved to have been quite erroneous. But opposing opinions have no terrors for the true scientist whose one consolation always lies in the verity of the old adage, “Truth is mighty and will prevail,” and so they adhered to thendiscoveries confident in the thought

that Truth was their foundation and that the calumny heaped upon them was but the outcome of misconception, and woidd vanish when the wider knowledge of creation shod its light

in the hearts of men. And the' results have proved the correctness of that view, for there is scarcely a man to-day who would disregard the lessons of nineteenth century scientific discovery, or allege that science opposes the true conception of the works of the Great Architect of the Universe. But many of those great men who have made inroads- into the dark recesses of ignorance and opened up new creations to the astonished gaze of the wondering and ofttimes incredulous people, have ended their brilliant labors in death, and left people to wonder who coidd be found

to supply their places. So many brilliant men having lived contemporan-

eously, it was but logical to assume

that their places would nob*'readily ho supplied ; hut .Pasteur hasjolt his successor in his brilliant pupil Koch, and his special branch .of biology claims so many other clover disciples that Pasteur, though dead, may ho

saitl to still live in the great work he has started, and which is being carried on from one success to an-

other by those who have received their light from him and who are

mi-suing the same unerring course

investigation. Darwin is dead, but ho left nothing unfinished in his special department, and it. only remained for the world to understand his subtle conceptions and accurate generalisations to grasp the truth of

his magnificent collation of scientific facts in order that the truth might receive general credence, and that time has arrived. Tyndal, Huxley, Romanos, Robertson, Curie, and others are dead, but they had contemporaries in Lord Kelvin, Sir W. Crookes, Sir Norman Lockyer, Ernst Haeckel, Virchow, Sir Robert Rail, and a host, of others with whom, indeed, we might include our New Zealand Professor A. W. Bickorton, in

wliose hands the cause of scicr

progress has not waned, nor the limits of human knowledge been al-

lowed to rust on the same line, remarkable as the nineteenth

tui'.y has been in that respect, there appears to bo more than a reasonable hope that the succeeding generation of scientific investigators will maintain an equal reputation, and that thought is supported by the fact that as the older discoverers are nearing their allotted span of usefulness, we have such men as Prolessor J. J. Thompson, of Cambridge, and Professor Rutherford and others al-

ready occupying a front rank amongst the world’s groat men with splendid achievements to tlioir credit, and fully

competent to carry on the important work of scientific discovery. It is a matter for congratulation, too, that our own little colony can claim its share of the credit in producing its quota of names upon the illustrious list, for it has produced and edu-

cated Professor Rutherford, whose discovery of the continuous process of disintegration of the radio- active

elements of radium is one of the finest achievements of modern times, and it can claim as its own his tutor, Professor A. \Y. Bickerton, whose magnificent generalisation of cosmic regeneration is second to none in faithfulness of detail and extensiveness of conception, and in point of ethical importance, it lias no compeer among the achievements of the world’s greatest men. To-day we are told that Professor Rutherford vacates his professional chair at McGill University for the Chair of Physics of Manchester University-, and by that move the scholastic life of this colony is inseparably linked with the front rank of the world’s scientific thought— an honor which the colonyshould not be slow to appreciate.