 An answer to the question, What is Enlightenment? by Emanuel Kant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Canexburg in Prussia, 30 September 1784. Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding but lack of resolution encouraged to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of Enlightenment is therefore, Saperra Auda, have courage to use your own understanding. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance, that thorough la lipa del mayorenes, nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature. If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual advisor to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think so long as I can pay. Others will soon take the tiresome job over for me. The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind, including the entire Fair Sax, should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous. Having first infatuated their domesticated animals, and carefully prevented the docile creatures from daring to take a single step without the leading strings to which they are tied, they next show them the danger which threatens them if they try to walk unaided. Now this danger is not in fact so very great, for they would certainly learn to walk eventually after a few falls, but an example of this kind is intimidating and usually frightens them off from further attempts. Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it, and is really incapable, for the time being, of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity, and if anyone did throw them off he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity, and in continuing boldly on their way. There is more chance of an entire public enlightening itself. This is indeed almost inevitable, if only the public concerned is left in freedom. For there will always be a few who think for themselves, even among those appointed as guardians of the common mass. Most guardians, once they have themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will disseminate the spirit of rational respect for personal value, and for the duty of all men to think for themselves. The remarkable thing about this is that if the public, which was previously put under this yoke by the guardians, is suitably stirred up by some of the latter who are incapable of enlightenment, it may subsequently compel the guardians themselves to remain under the yoke. For it is very harmful to propagate prejudices, because they finally avenged themselves on the very people who first encouraged them, or whose predecessors did so. Thus a public can only achieve enlightenment slowly. A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism, and to rapacious or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a lease to control the great unthinking mass. For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all. The freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry, Don't argue. The officer says, Don't argue, get on parade. The tax-official, Don't argue, pay. The clergymen, Don't argue, believe. Only one ruler in the world says, Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey. All this means restrictions on freedom everywhere, but which sort of restriction prevents enlightenment, and which instead of hindering it can actually promote it. I reply, The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted, however, without undue hindrance to the progress of enlightenment. But by the public use of one's own reason, I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public. What I term the private use of reason is that which a person may make of it in a particular civil post or office with which he is entrusted. Now in some affairs which affect the interests of the Commonwealth, we require a certain mechanism whereby some members of the Commonwealth must behave purely passively so that they may, by an artificial common agreement, be employed by the government for public ends, or at least deterred from vitiating them. It is, of course, impermissible to argue in such cases. Obedience is imperative. But insofar as this or that individual, who acts as part of the machine, also considers himself as a member of a complete Commonwealth or even of cosmopolitan society, and thence as a man of learning who may, through his writings, address a public in the truest sense of the word, he may indeed argue without harming the affairs in which he is employed for some of the time in a passive capacity. Thus it would be very harmful if an officer receiving an order from his superiors were to quibble openly, while on duty, about the appropriateness or usefulness of the order in question, he must simply obey. But he cannot reasonably be banned from making observations as a man of learning on the errors in the military service and from submitting these to his public for judgment. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed upon him, presumptuous criticisms of such taxes where someone is called upon to pay them, may be punished as an outrage which could lead to general insubordination. Nonetheless, the same citizen does not contravene his civil obligations if, as a learned individual, he publicly voices his thoughts on the impropriety or even injustice of such fiscal measures. In the same way, a clergyman is bound to instruct his pupils and his congregation in accordance with the doctrines of the church he serves, for he was employed by it on that condition. But as a scholar, he is completely free, as well as obliged, to impart to the public all his carefully considered well-intentioned thoughts on the mistaken aspects of those doctrines, and to offer suggestions for a better arrangement of religious and ecclesiastical affairs. And there is nothing in this which need trouble the conscience. What he teaches in pursuit of his duties as an active servant of the church is presented by him as something which he is not empowered to teach at his own discretion, or which he is employed to expound in a prescribed manner and in someone else's name. He will say, Our church teaches this or that, and these are the arguments it uses. He then extracts as much practical value as possible for his congregation, from precepts to which he will not himself subscribe with full conviction, but which he can nevertheless undertake to expound, since it is not in fact wholly impossible that they may contain truth. At all events, nothing opposed to the essence of religion is present in such doctrines. For if the clergymen thought he could find anything of this sort in them, he would not be able to carry out his official duties in good conscience, and would have to resign. Thus, the use which someone employed as a teacher makes of his reason in the presence of his congregation is purely private, since a congregation, however large it is, is never any more than a domestic gathering. In view of this, he is not and cannot be free as a priest, since he is acting on a commission imposed from outside. Conversely, as a scholar addressing the real public, i.e. the world at large, through his writings, the clergymen making public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak in his own person. For to maintain that the guardians of the people in spiritual matters, should themselves be immature, is an absurdity which amounts to making absurdities permanent. But should not a society of clergymen, for example an ecclesiastical senate, or a venerable presbytery, as the Dutch call it, be entitled to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable set of doctrines in order to secure for all time a constant guardianship over each of its members, and through them over the people? I reply that this is quite impossible. A contract of this kind, concluded with a view to preventing all further enlightenment of mankind forever, is absolutely null and void, even if it is ratified with a supreme power by imperial diets in the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot enter into an alliance on oath to put the next age in a position where it would be impossible for it to extend and correct its knowledge, particularly on such important matters, or to make any progress whatsoever in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature, whose original destiny lies precisely in such progress. Later generations are thus perfectly entitled to dismiss these agreements as unauthorized and criminal. To test whether any particular measure can be agreed upon as a law for a people, we need only ask whether a people could well impose such a law upon itself. This might well be possible for a specified short period as a means of introducing a certain order, pending, as it were, a better solution. This would also mean that each citizen, particularly the clergymen, would be given a free hand as a scholar to comment publicly, i.e. in his writings, on the inadequacies of current institutions. Meanwhile, the newly established order would continue to exist until public insight into the nature of such matters had progressed and proved itself to the point where, by general consent, if not unanimously, a proposal could be submitted to the crown. This would seek to protect the congregations who had, for instance, agreed to alter their religious establishment in accordance with their own notions of what higher insight is, but they would not try to obstruct those who wanted to let things remain as before. But it is absolutely impermissible to agree, even for a single lifetime, to a permanent religious constitution which no one might publicly question. For this would virtually nullify a phase in man's upward progress, thus making it fruitless and even detrimental to subsequent generations. A man may, for his own person, and even then for only a limited period, postpone enlightening himself in matters he ought to know about. But to renounce such enlightenment completely, whether for his own person, or even more so for later generations, means violating and trampling underfoot the sacred rights of mankind. But something which a people may not even impose upon itself can still less be imposed upon it by a monarch. For his legislative authority depends precisely upon his uniting the collective will of the people in his own. So long as he sees to it that all true or imagined improvements are compatible with the civil order, he can otherwise leave his subjects to do whatever they find necessary for their salvation, which is none of his business. But it is his business to stop anyone forcibly hindering others from working as best they can to define and promote their salvation. It indeed detracts from his majesty, if he interferes in these affairs, by subjecting the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their religious ideas to governmental supervision. This applies, if he does so, acting upon his own exalted opinions, in which case he exposes himself to the reproach, Caesarnon es suplagromaticos. But much more so if he demeans his high authority so far as to support the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants within his state against the rest of his subjects. If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the answer is no, but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As things are at present, we still have a long way to go before men as a whole can be in a position, or can ever be put into a position, of using their own understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without outside guidance. But we do have distinct indications that the way is now being cleared for them to work freely in this direction, and that the obstacles to universal enlightenment to man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity are gradually becoming fewer. In this respect our age is the age of enlightenment, the century of Frederick. A prince who does not regard it as beneath him to say that he considers it his duty in religious matters not to prescribe anything to his people, but to allow them complete freedom, a prince who thus even declines to accept the presumptuous title of tolerant, is himself enlightened. He deserves to be praised by a grateful present and posterity as the man who first liberated mankind from immaturity, as far as government is concerned, and who left all men free to use their own reason in all matters of conscience. Under his rule, ecclesiastical dignitaries, not with standing their official duties, may in their capacity as scholars freely and publicly submit to the judgment of the world their verdicts and opinions, even if these deviate here and there from orthodox doctrine. This applies even more to all others who are not restricted by any official duties. This spirit of freedom is also spreading abroad, even where it has to struggle with outward obstacles imposed by governments which misunderstand their own function. For such governments now witness a shining example of how freedom may exist without in the least jeopardizing public concord and the unity of the commonwealth. Men will, of their own accord, gradually work their way out of barbarism so long as artificial measures are not deliberately adopted to keep them in it. I have portrayed matters of religion as the focal point of enlightenment, i.e. of man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. This is firstly because our rulers have no interest in assuming the role of guardians over their subjects so far as the arts and sciences are concerned, and secondly because religious immaturity is the most pernicious and dishonorable variety of all. But the attitude of mind of a head of state, who favors freedom in the arts and sciences, extends even further, for he realizes that there is no danger even to his legislation if he allows his subjects to make public use of their own reason, and to put before the public their thoughts on better ways of drawing up laws, even if this entails forthright criticism of the current legislation. We have before us a brilliant example of this kind, in which no monarch has yet surpassed the one to whom we now pay tribute. But only a ruler who is himself enlightened, and has no fear of phantoms, yet who likewise has at hand a well-disciplined and numerous army to guarantee public security, may say what no republic would dare to say, argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey. This reveals to us a strange and unexpected pattern in human affairs, such as we shall always find if we consider them in the widest sense, in which nearly everything is paradoxical. A high degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's intellectual freedom, yet it also sets up insuperable barriers to it. Conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom gives intellectual freedom enough room to expand to its fullest extent. Thus, once the germ on which nature has lavished most care, man's inclination and vocation to think freely, has developed within this hard shell, it gradually reacts upon the mentality of the people, who thus gradually become increasingly able to act freely. Eventually, it even influences the principles of governments, which find that they can themselves profit by treating man, who is more than a machine, in a manner appropriate to his dignity. End of an answer to the question, What is Enlightenment? by Emanuel Kant. Deity and Design by Chapman Cohen This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Deity and Design The Pioneer Press The one certain thing about the history of the human intellect is that it runs from ignorance to knowledge. Man begins knowing nothing of his own nature or of the nature of the world in which he is living. He continues acquiring a little knowledge here and there, with his vision broadening and his understanding deepening as his knowledge increases. Instead man commenced with but a very small fraction of the knowledge he now possesses, the present state of the human mind would be very different from what it is. But the method by which knowledge is acquired is of the slowest. It is by way of what is called trial and error. Blunders are made rapidly, to be corrected slowly. Some of the most primitive errors are not on a general scale corrected even today. Man begins by believing on what appears to be sound evidence that the earth is flat, only to discover later that it is a sphere. He believes the sky to be a solid something, and the heavenly bodies but a short distance away. His conclusions about himself are as fantastically wrong as those he makes about the world at large. He mistakes the nature of the diseases from which he suffers and the causes of the things in which he delights. He is as ignorant of the nature of birth as he is of the cause of death. Thousands of generations pass before he takes the first faltering steps along the road of verifiable knowledge, and hundreds of thousands of generations have not sufficed to wipe out from the human intellect the influence of man's primitive blunders. Prominent among these primitive misunderstandings is the belief that man is surrounded by hosts of mysterious ghostly agencies that are afterwards given human form. These ghostly beings form the raw material from which gods of the various religions are made, and they flourish best where knowledge is leased. Of this there can be no question. Atheism, the absence of belief in gods, is a comparatively late phenomenon in history. It is the belief in gods that begins by being universal. And even among civilized peoples it is the least enlightened who are the most certain about the existence of the gods. The religious scientist or philosopher says, I believe. The ignorant believer says, I know. Now it would indeed be strange if primitive man was right on the one thing concerning which exact knowledge is not to be gained, and wrong about all other things on which knowledge has either been, or it's fair to be, one. All civilized peoples reject the world theories that the savage first formulates. Is it credible that with regard to gods he was at once and unmistakably correct? It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods of the primitive world. In form no, in essence yes. The fact before us is that all ideas of gods can be traced to the earliest stages of human history. We have changed the names of the gods and their characteristics. We even worship them in a way that is often different from the primitive way. But there is an unbroken line of dissent linking the gods of the most primitive peoples to those of modern man. We reject the world of the savage, but we still, in our churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, perpetuate the theories he built upon that world. In this pamphlet I am not concerned with all the so-called evidences that are put forward to prove the existence of a god. I say so-called evidences, because they are not grounds upon which the belief in god rests. They are mere excuses why that belief should be retained. Ninety percent of believers in god would not understand these proofs. Roman Catholic propagandists lately, as one of the advertisements of the church, have been booming the arguments in favor of a god as stated by Thomas Aquinas. But they usually preface their exposition, which is very often questionable, by the warning that the subject is difficult to understand. In the case of Roman Catholics, I think we might well raise the percentage of those who do not understand the arguments to 95 percent. In any case, these metaphysical, mathematical, and philosophic arguments do not furnish the grounds upon which anyone believes in god. They are, as I have just said, nothing more than excuses framed for the purpose of hanging on to it. The belief in god is here because it is part of our social inheritance. We are born into an environment in which each newcomer finds the belief in god established, backed up by powerful institutions, with an army of trained advocates committed to its defense and to the destruction of everything that tends to weaken the belief. The kind all are the countless generations during which the belief in god lived on man's ignorance and fear. In spite of the alleged proofs of the existence of god, belief in him, or it, does not grow in strength or certainty. These proofs do not prevent the number of avowed disbelievers increasing to such an extent that, whereas after Christians proclaiming for several generations that atheism, real atheism, does not exist, the defenders of godism are now shrieking against the growing numbers of atheists, and there is a call to the religious world to enter upon a crusade against atheism. The stage in which heresy meant little more than all exchange of one god for another has passed. It has become a case of acceptance or rejection of the idea of god, and the growth is with those who reject. This is not the way in which proofs, real proofs, operate. A theory may have to battle long for general or growing acceptance, but it grows provided it can produce evidence in its support. A hypothesis is stated, challenged, discussed, and finally rejected or accepted. On the question of the hypothesis of god, the longer it is discussed the less it is believed. No wonder that the ideal attitude of the completely religious should be on the knee, with eyes closed and mouths full of nothing but petitions and grossly fulsome praise. That is also the reason why every religious organization in the world is so keen upon capturing the child. The cry is, if we lose the child we lose everything, which is another way of saying that if we cannot implant a belief in god before the child is old enough to understand something of what it is being told, the belief may have to be given up altogether. Keep the idea of god away from the child and it will grow up an atheist. If there is a god, the evidence for his existence must be found in this world. We cannot start with another world and work back to this one. That is why the argument from design and nature is really fundamental to the belief in a deity. It is implied in every argument in favor of theism, although nowadays in its simplest and most honest form, it is not so popular as it was. But to ordinary men and women it is still the decisive piece of evidence in favor of the existence of a god. And when ordinary men and women cease to believe in god, the class of religious philosophers who spend their time seeing by what subtleties of thought and tricks of language that can make the belief in a deity appear intellectually respectable will cease to function. But let it be observed that we are concerned with the existence of god only. We are not concerned with whether he is good or bad, whether his alleged designs are commendable or not. One often finds people saying they cannot believe there is a god because the works of nature are not cast in a benevolent mold. That has nothing to do with the essential issue, and proves only that theists cannot claim a monopoly of defective logic. We are concerned with whether nature, in whole or in part, shows any evidence of design. My case is, first, the argument is fallacious in its structure, second, it assumes all that it sets out to prove, and begs the whole question by the language employed, and third, the case against design and nature is not merely that the evidence is inadequate, but that the evidence produced is completely irrelevant. If the same kind of evidence were produced in the court of law, there is not a judge in the country who would not dismiss it as having nothing whatever to do with the question at issue. I do not say that the argument from design, as stated, fails to convince. I say that it is impossible to produce any kind of evidence that could persuade an impartial mind to believe in it. The argument from design professes to be one from analogy. John Stuart Mill, himself without a belief in God, thought the argument to be of a genuinely scientific character. The present dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Matthews, says that the argument from design employs ideas which everyone possesses and thinks he understands, and, moreover, it seems evident to the simplest intelligence that if God exists he must be doing something, and therefore must be pursuing some ends and carrying out some purpose. The Purpose of God, page 13. And Immanuel Kant said that the argument from design was the oldest, the clearest, and the best adapted to ordinary human reason. What is Kant proceeded to smash the argument into smithereens, it is evident that he had not very flattering an opinion of the quality of the reason displayed by the ordinary man. But what is professedly an argument from analogy turns out to offer no analogy at all. A popular nonconformist preacher, Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, whose book Why Do Men Suffer Might Be Taken as a Fine Textbook of Religious Foolishness, repeats the old argument that if we were to find a number of letters so arranged that they formed words we should infer design in the arrangement. Agreed, but that is obviously because we know that letters and words and the arrangement of words are due to the design of man. The argument here is from experience. We infer that a certain conjunction of signs are designed because we know beforehand that such things are designed. But in the case of nature we have no such experience in which to build. We do not know the natural objects are made, we know of no one who makes natural objects. More, the very division of objects into natural and artificial is all admission that natural objects are not prima facie products of design at all. To constitute an analogy we need to have the same knowledge that natural objects are manufactured as we have that man's works are manufactured. Design is not found in nature, it is assumed. As Kant says, reason admires a wonder created by itself. The theist cannot move a step in his endeavor to prove design in nature without being guilty of the plainness of logical blunders. It is illustrated in the very language employed. Thus Dr. Matthew cites a Roman Catholic priest as saying, the adaptation of means to ends is an evident sign of intelligent cause. Now nature offers on every side instances of adaptations of means to ends, hence it follows that nature is the work of an intelligent cause. Dr. Matthews does not like this way of putting the case, but his own reasoning shows that he is objecting more to the argument being stated plainly and concisely rather than to its substance. Nowadays it is dangerous to make one's religious reasoning so plain that everyone can understand the language used. Consider, nature, we are told, shows endless adaptations of means to ends. But nature shows nothing of the kind, or at least that is the point to be proved and it must not be taken for granted. If nature is full of adaptation of means to ends, then there is nothing further about which to dispute. For adaptation means the conscious adjustment of things or conditions to desired consummation. To adapt a thing is to make it fit to do this or that, to serve this or that purpose. We adapt our conduct to the occasion, our language to the person we are addressing, planks of wood to the purpose we have in mind, and so forth. So, of course, if nature displays an adaptation of means to ends, then the case for an adapter is established. But nature shows nothing of the kind. What nature provides is processes and results, that and nothing more. The structure of an animal and its relation to its environment, the outcome of a chemical combination, the following of rain, the elevation of a mountain, these things, with all other natural phenomena, do not show an adaptation of means to ends. They show simply a process and its result. Nature exhibits the universal phenomenon of causation, and that is all. Processes and results looked like adaptations of means to ends, so long as the movements of nature were believed to be the expression of the will of the gods. But when natural phenomena are regarded as the inevitable product of the properties of existence, such terms as means and ends are best misleading, and in actual practice often deliberately dishonest. The situation was well expressed by the late W. H. Malick. When we consider the movement of the starry heavens today, instead of feeling it to be wonderful that these are absolutely regular, we should feel it to be wonderful if they were ever anything else. We realize that the stars are not bodies which, unless they are made to move uniformly, would be floating in space motionless, or moving across it in random courses. We realize that they are bodies which, unless they moved uniformly, would not be bodies at all, and would exist neither in movement nor in rest. We realize that order, instead of being the marvel of the universe, is the indispensable condition of its existence, that it is a physical platitude, not a divine paradox." But there are still many who continue to marvel at the wisdom of God and so planning the universe that big rivers run by great towns, and that death comes at the end of life instead of in the middle of it. Divest the pleas of such men as the Reverend Dr. Matthews of their semi-philosophic jargon, reduce his illustrations to homely similes, and he is marveling at the wisdom of God who so planned things that the two extremities of a piece of wood should come at the ends instead of in the middle. The trick is, after all, obvious. The theist takes terms that can apply to sentient life alone, and applies them to the universe at large. He talks about means, that is, the deliberate planning to achieve certain ends, and then says that as there are means there must be ends. Having unperceived place the rabbit in the hat, he is able to bring it forward to the admiration of his audience. The so-called adaptation of means to ends, properly the relation of processes to results, is not something that can be picked out from phenomena as a whole as an illustration of divine wisdom. It is an expression of a universal truism. The product implies the process because it is the sum of the power of the factors expressed by it. It is a physical, a chemical, a biological platitude. I have hitherto followed the lines marked out by the theist in his attempt to prove that there exists a mind behind natural phenomena, and that the universe as we have it is, at least generally, an evidence of a plan designed by this mind. I have also pointed out that the only datum for such a conclusion is the universe we know. We must take that as a starting point. We can get neither behind it nor beyond it. We cannot start with God and deduce the universe from his existence. We must start with the world as we know it, and deduce God from the world. And we can only do this by likening the universe as a product that has come into existence, as part of the design of God, much as a table or wireless set comes into existence as part of the planning of a human mind. But the conditions for doing this do not exist, and it is remarkable that in many cases critics of the design argument should so often have criticized it as though it were inconclusive. But the true line of criticism, the criticism that is absolutely fatal to the design argument, is that there is no logical possibility of deducing design from a study of natural phenomena, and there is no other direction in which we can look for proof. The theist has never yet managed to produce a case for design which, upon examination, might not rightly be dismissed as irrelevant to the pointed issue. In what way can we set about proving that a thing is a product of design? We cannot do this by showing that a process ends in a result, because every process ends in a result, and in every case the result is an expression of the process. If I throw a brick, it matters not whether the brick hits a man on the head and kills him, or if it breaks a window, or merely falls to the ground without hurting anyone or anything. In each case, the distance the brick travels, the force of the impact on the head, the window, or on the ground, remains the same, and not the most exact knowledge of these factors would enable anyone to say whether the result following the throwing of the brick was designed or not. Shakespeare is credited with having written a play called King Lear, but whether Shakespeare sat down with a deliberate intention of writing Lear, or whether the astral body of Bacon, or someone else, took possession of the body of Shakespeare during the writing of Lear, makes no difference whatever to the result. Again, an attendant on a sick man is handling a number of bottles, some of which contain medicine, others a deadly poison. Instead of giving his patient the medicine, the poison is administered, and the patient dies. An inquest is held, and whether the poison was given deliberately, or as we say by accident, there is the same sequence of cause and effect, of process and result. So one might multiply the illustrations indefinitely. No one observing the sequences could possibly say whether any of these unmistakable results were designed or not. One cannot, in any of these cases, logically infer design. The material for such a decision is not present. Yet in each of these cases named, we could prove design by producing evidence of intention. If, when throwing the brick, I intended to kill the man, I am guilty of murder. If I intend to poison, I am also guilty of murder. If there existed in the mind of Shakespeare a conception of the plane of Lear, before writing, and if the plan carried out that intention, then the play was designed. In every case, the essential fact, without a knowledge of which it is impossible logically to assume design, is a knowledge of intention. We must know what was intended, and we must then compare the result with the intention, and note the measure of agreement that exists between the two. It is not enough to say that one man threw the brick, and that if it had not been thrown, the other would not have been killed. It is not enough to say that if the poison had not been given, the patient would not have died. And it certainly is not enough to argue that the course of events can be traced from the time the brick left the hands of the first man until it struck the second one. That, as I have said, remains true in any case. The law is insistent that in such cases the intent must be established, and in this matter, the law acts of scientific and philosophic wisdom. Now, in all the cases mentioned, and they are of course merely samples from bulk, we look for design because we know that men do right plays, men do poison other men, and men do throw things at each other with the purpose of inflicting bodily injury. We are using what is known as a means of tackling, for the time being, the unknown. But our knowledge of world builders, or universe designers, is not on all fours with the cases named. We know nothing whatever about them, and therefore cannot reason from what is known to what is unknown in the hopes of including the unknown in the category of the known. Second, assuming there to be a God, we have no means of knowing what his intentions were when he made the world, assuming that also. We cannot know what his intention was, and contrast that intention with the result. On the known facts, assuming God to exist, we have no means of deciding whether the world we have is part of his design or not. He might have said about creating and intended something different. You cannot, in short, start with a physical, with a natural fact, and reach intention. Yet if we are to prove purpose, we must begin with intention, and, having a knowledge of that, see how far the product agrees with the design. It is the marriage of a psychical fact with a physical one that alone can demonstrate intention or design. Mere agreement of the end with the means proves nothing at all. The end is the means brought to fruition. The fundamental objection to the argument from design is that it is completely irrelevant. The belief in God is not, therefore, based on the perception of design and nature. Belief in design and nature is based upon the belief in God. Things are as they are, whether there is a God or not. Logically, to believe in design, one must start with God. He, or it, is not a conclusion, but a datum. You may begin by assuming a creator and then say he did this or that, but you cannot logically say that because certain things exist, therefore there is a God who made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion. And it is assumption that explains nothing. If I may quote from my book, Theism or Atheism, To warrant a logical belief in design and nature, three things are essential. First, one must assume that God exists. Second, one must take it for granted that one has a knowledge of the intention in the mind of the deity before the alleged design is brought into existence. Finally, one must be able to compare the result with the intention and demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of knowing the first two is apparent, and without the first two the third is of no value whatever. For we have no means of reaching the first except through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination of nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary starting point. All the volumes that have been written and all the sermons that have been preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so much waste of time and breath. They prove nothing and can prove nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require at the end. Their God is not something reached by way of inference it is something assumed at the very outset." Finally, if there be a designing mind behind or in nature then we have a right to expect unity. The products of the design should, so to speak, dovetail into each other. A plan implies this. A gun so designed as to kill the one who fired it and the one at whom it was aimed would be evidence only of the action of a lunatic or a criminal. When we say we find evidence of a design we at least imply the presence of an element of unity. What do we find? Taking the animal world as a whole what strikes the observer even the religious observer is the fact of the antagonisms existing in nature. These are so obvious that religious opinion invented a devil in order to account for them. And one of the arguments used by religious people to justify the belief in a future life is that God has created another world in which the injustices and blunders of this life may be corrected. For his case the theist requires cooperative action in nature. That does exist among the social animals but only as regards the individuals within the group and even there in a very imperfect form. But taking animal life I do not know of any instance where can truthfully be said that different species of animals are designed so as to help each other. It is probable that some exceptions to this might be found in the relations between insects and flowers but the animal world certainly provides none. The carnivores not only live on the herbivores but they live when and where they can on each other. And God if we may use theistic language prepares for this by on the one hand so equipping the one that it may often seize its prey and the other that it may often escape. And when we speak of a creation that brings an animal into greater harmony with its environment it must not be forgotten that the greater harmony the perfection of the adaptation at which the theist is lost in admiration is often the condition of the destruction of other animals. If each were equally well adapted one of the competing species would die out. If therefore we are to look for design in nature we can at most see only the manifestations of a mind that takes a delight in destroying on the one hand what has been built upon the other. There is also the myriads of parasites as clear evidence of design as anything that live by the infection and the destruction of forms of life higher than their own. Of the number of animals born only a very small proportion can ever hope to reach maturity. If we reckon the number of spermatozoa that are created then the number of those that live are ridiculously small. The number would be one in millions. Is there any difference when we come to man? With profound egotism the theist argues that the process of evolution is justified because it is produced him. But with both structure and feeling there is the same suicidal fact before us. Of the human structure it would seem that for every step man is taken away from mere animal nature God has laid a trap and provided a penalty. If man will walk upright then he must be prepared for a greater liability to hernia. If he will live in cities he must pay the price in a greater liability to tuberculosis. If he will leave his animal brothers behind him he must bear reminders of them in the shape of a useless coating of hair that helps to contract various diseases a rudimentary second stomach that provides the occasion for appendicitis rudimentary wisdom teeth that give a chance for mental disease. It has been calculated that man carries about with him over 100 rudimentary structures each absorbing energy and giving nothing in return. So one might go on. Nature taken from the point of view most favorable to the theist gives us no picture of unified design. Put aside the impossibility of providing a logical case for the inferring of design in nature it remains that the only conception we can have of a designer is as W. H. Malek a staunch Roman Catholic has said that of a scatterbrained semi-powerful semi-impetent monster kicking his heels in the sky not perhaps bent on mischief but indifferent to the fact that he is causing it. End of Deity and Design by Chapman Cohen For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Brian Ness Escape by Arthur Christopher Benson All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality the story of an escape It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times how to escape the stories of Joseph of Odysseus of the prodigal son of the pilgrims' progress, of the ugly duckling, of syndrome, to name only a few out of a great number, they are all stories of escapes. It is the same with all love stories. The course of true love never can run smooth, says the old proverb, and love stories are but tales of a man or a woman's escape from the desert of loveliness into the citadel of love. Even tragedies like those of Oedipus and Hamlet have the same thought in the background. In the tale of Oedipus the old blind king in his tattered robe, who had committed in ignorance such nameless crimes, leaves his two daughters and the attendants standing below the old pear tree and the marble tomb by the sacred fountain. He says the last faint words of love till the voice of the god comes thrilling upon the air. Oedipus, why delayest thou? Then he walks away at once in silence, leaning on the arm of Thessias, and when at last the watchers dare to look, they see Thessias afar off, alone, screening his eyes with his hand, as if some sight too dreadful for mortal eyes had passed before him. But Oedipus is gone, and not with lamentation, but in hope and wonder. Even when Hamlet dies and the peel of ordnance is shot off, it is to congratulate him upon his escape from unbearable woe. And that is the same in life. If our eye falls on the sad stories of men and women who have died by their own hand, how seldom do they speak in the scrawled messages they leave behind them, as though they were going to silence and nothingness. It is just the other way. The unhappy fathers and mothers who, maddened by disaster, kill their children are hoping to escape with those they love best, out of miseries they cannot bear. They mean to fly together, as Lot fled with his daughters from the city of the plain. The man who slays himself is not the man who hates life. He only hates the sorrow and the shame, which make unbearable that life which he loves only too well. He is trying to migrate to other conditions. He desires to live, but he cannot live so. It is the imagination of man that makes him seek death. Only the animal endures, but man hurries away in the hope of finding something better. It is, however, strange to reflect how weak man's imagination is when it comes to deal with what is beyond him, how little able he is to devise anything that he desires to do when he has escaped from life. The unsubstantial heaven of a Buddhist, with its unthinkable nirvana, is merely the depriving life of all its attributes. The dull sensuality of the Mohammedan paradise, with its ugly multiplication of gross delights, the tedious outcries of the saints in light which make the medieval scheme of heaven into one protracted These are all deeply unattractive and have no power at all over the vigorous spirit. Even the vision of Socrates, the hope of unrestricted converse with great minds, is a very unsatisfying thought, because it yields so little material to work upon. The fact, of course, is that it is just the variety of experience which makes life interesting. Toil and rest, pain and relief, hope and satisfaction, danger and security. And if we once remove the idea of vicissitude from life, it all becomes an indolent and uninspiring affair. It is the process of change which is delightful, the finding out what we can do and what we cannot, going from ignorance to knowledge, from clumsiness to skill. Even our relations with those whom we love are all bound up with the discoveries we make about them, and the degree in which we can help them and affect them. What the mind instinctively dislikes is stationariness, and an existence in which there was nothing to escape from, nothing more to hope for, to learn, to desire, would be frankly unendurable. The reason why we dread death is because it seems to be a suspension of all our familiar activities. It would be terrible to have nothing but memory to depend upon. The only use of memory is that it distracts us a little from present conditions if they are dull, and it is only too true that the recollection and sorrow of happy things is torture of the worst kind. Once when Tennyson was suffering from a dangerous illness, his friend Jowett wrote to Lady Tennyson to suggest that the poet might find comfort in thinking of all the good he had done. But that is not the kind of comfort that a sufferer desires. We may envy a good man his retrospective activity, but we cannot really suppose that to meditate complacently upon what one has been unable to do is the final thought that a good man is likely to indulge. He is far more likely to torment himself over all that he might have done. It is true, I think, that old and tired people pass into a quiet serenity, but it is the serenity of the old dog who sleeps in the sun, wags his tail if he is invited to besture himself, but does not leave his place, and if one reaches that condition it is but a dumb gratitude at the thought that nothing more is expected of the worn-out frame and fatigued mind. But no one, I should imagine, really hopes to step into immortality so tired and worn out that the highest hope that he can frame is that he will be let alone forever. We must not trust the drowsiness of the outworn spirit to frame the real hopes of humanity. If we believe that the next experience ahead of us is like that of the mariners, in the afternoon they came unto a land in which it seemed always afternoon, then we acquiesce in a dreamless sort of sleep as the best hope of man. No, we must rather trust the desires of the spirit at its healthiest and most vigorous, and these are all knit up with the adventure of escape, as I have said. There is something hostile on our track, the cops that closes in upon the road as thick with spears, presences that do not wish us well move darkly in the wood and keep pace with us, and the only explanation we can give is that we need to be spurred on by fear if we are not drawn forward by desire or hope. We have to keep moving, and if we will not run to the goal we must at least flee with backward glances at something which threatens us. There is an old and strange eastern allegory of a man wandering in the desert. He draws near to a grove of trees when he suddenly becomes aware that there is a lion on his track, hurrying and bounding along on the scent of his steps. The man flees for safety into the grove. He sees there a roughly built water tank of stone excavated in the ground and built up of masonry much fringed with plants. He climbs swiftly down to where he sees a ledge close on the water. As he does this he sees that in the water lies a great lizard with open jaws watching him with wicked eyes. He stops short and he can just support himself among the stones by holding on to the branches of a plant which grows from a ledge above him. While he thus holds on with death behind him and before he feels the branches quivering and sees above out of reach two mice, one black and one white, which are nibbling at the stems he holds and will soon sever them. He waits despairingly and while he does so he sees that there are drops of honey on the leaves which he holds. He puts his lips to them, licks them off, and finds them very sweet. The mice stand no doubt for night and day and the honey is the sweetness of life which it is possible to taste and relish even when death is before and behind. And it is true that the utter precariousness of life does not as a matter of fact distract us from the pleasure of it even though the strands to which we hold are slowly parting. It is all then an adventure and an escape, but even in the worst insecurity we may often be surprised to find that it is somehow sweet. It is not in the least a question of the apparent and outward adventurousness of one's life. Foolish people sometimes write and think as though one could not have had adventures unless one has hung about at bar room doors and in billiard saloons, worked one's passage before the mast and sailing ship, dug for gold among the mountains, explored savage lands, shot strange animals, fared hardly among deep drinking and loud swearing men. It is possible, of course, to have adventures of this kind and indeed I had a near relative whose life was fuller of vicissitudes than any life I've ever known. He was a sailor, a clerk, a policeman, a soldier, a clergyman, a farmer, a verger, but the mere unsettledness of it suited him. He was an easy comrade, brave, reckless, restless. He did not mind roughness, and the one thing he could not do was to settle down to anything regular and quiet. He did not dislike life at all, even when he stood half naked as he once told me he did on a board slung from the side of a ship and dipped up pales of water to swab it, the water freezing as he flung it on the timbers, but with all this variety of life he did not learn anything particular from it all. He was much the same always, good-natured, talkative, childishly absorbed, not looking backward or forward, and fondest of telling stories with sailors in an inn. He learned to be content in most companies and to fare roughly, but he gained neither wisdom nor humor, and he was not either happy or independent, though he despised with all his heart to stay at home, sticking the mud life. But we are not all made like this, and it is only possible for a few people to live so by the fact that most people prefer to stay at home and do the work of the world. My cousin was not a worker, and indeed did not work except under compulsion and in order to live, but such people seem to belong to an older order and are more like children playing about, and at leisure to play because others work to feed and clothe them. The world would be a wretched and miserable place if all tried to live life on those lines. It would be impossible to me to live so, though I dare say I should be a better man if I had had a little more hardship of that kind, but I have worked hard in my own way, and though I have had few hair-breath escapes, yet I have had sharp troubles and slow anxieties. I have been like the man in the story between the lion and the lizard for many months together, and I have had more to bear by temperament and fortune than my roving cousin ever had to endure, so that because a life seems both sheltered and prosperous, it need not therefore have been without its adventures and escapes and its haunting fears. The more one examines into life and the motives of it, the more does one perceive that the imagination concerning itself with hopes of escape from any condition which hamper and confines is the dynamic force that is transmuting the world. The child is forever planning what it will do when it is older and dreams of an irresponsible choice of food and an unrestrained use of money. The girl schemes to escape from the constraints of home by independence or marriage. The professional man plans to make a fortune and retire. The mother dreams ambitious dreams for her children. The politician craves for power. The writer hopes to gain the ear of the world. These are only a few casual instances of the desire that is always at work within us, projecting us into a larger and freer future out of the limited and restricted present. That is the real current of the world, and though there are sedate people who are contented with life as they see it, yet in most minds there is a fluttering of little tremulous hopes forecasting ease and freedom, and there are also many tired and dispirited people who are not content with life as they have it, but acquiesce in its dreariness, yet all who have any part in the world's development are full of schemes for themselves and others by which the clogging and detaining elements are somehow to be improved away. Sensitive people want to find life more harmonious and beautiful. Healthy people desire a more continuous sort of holiday than they can attain. Religious people long for a secret ecstasy of peace. There is, in fact, a constant desire at work to realize perfection, and yet despite it all there is a vast preponderance of evidence which shows us that the attainment of our little dreams is not a thing to be desired and that satisfied desire is the least contented of moods. If we realize our program, if we succeed, marry the woman we love, make a fortune, win leisure, gain power, a whole host of further desires instantly come in sight, I once congratulated a statesman on a triumphant speech. Yes, he said, I do not deny that it is a pleasure to have had, for once, the exact effect that one intended to have, but the shadow of it is the fear that having once reached that standard one may not be able to keep it up. The awful penalty of success is the haunting dread of subsequent failure, and even sadder still as the fact that in striving eagerly to attain an end, we are apt to lose the sense of the purpose which inspired us. This is more drearily true of the pursuit of money than of anything else. I could name several friends of my own who started in business with the perfectly definite and avowed intention of making a competence in order that they might live as they desired to live, that they might travel, read, write, enjoy a secure leisure. But when they had done exactly what they meant to do, the desires were all atrophied. They could not give up their work, they felt it would be safer to have a larger margin. They feared that they might be bored. They had made friends and did not wish to sever the connection. They must provide a little more for their families. The whole program had insensibly altered, even so they were still planning to escape from something, from some boredom or anxiety or dread. And yet it seems very difficult for any person to realize what is the philosophical conclusion, namely that the work of each of us matters very little to the world, but that it matters very much to ourselves that we should have some work to do. We seem to be a very feeble-minded race in this respect, that we require to be constantly bribed and tempted by illusions. I have known men of force and vigor, both in youth and middle life, who had a strong sense of the value and significance of their work. As age came upon them, the value of their work gradually disappeared. They were deferred to, consulted, outwardly reverenced, and perhaps all the more scrupulously and compassionately in order that they might not guess the lamentable fact that their work was done, and that the forces and influences were in younger hands. But the men themselves never lost the sense of their importance. I knew an octogenarian clergyman who declared once in my presence that it was ridiculous to say that old men lost their faculty of dealing with affairs. Why, he said, it is only quite in the last few years that I feel I have really mastered my work. It takes me far less time than it used to do. It is just promptly and methodically executed. The old man obviously did not know that his impression that his work consumed less time was only too correct, because it was, as a matter of fact, almost wholly performed by his colleagues, and nothing was referred to him except purely formal business. It seems rather pitiful that we should not be able to face the truth and that we cannot be content with discerning the principle of it all, which is that our work is given to us to do not for its intrinsic value, but because it is good for us to do it. The secret government of the world seems, indeed, to be penetrated by a good-natured irony. It is as if the power controlling us saw that, like children, we must be tenderly wooed into doing things which we should otherwise neglect by a sense of high importance, as a kindly father who is doing accounts keeps his children quiet by letting one hold the blotting paper and another the ink, so that they believe that they are helping when they are merely being kept from hindering. And this strange sense of escape, which drives us into activity and energy, seems given us not that we may realize our aims, which turn out hollow and vapid enough when they are realized, but that we may drink deep of experience for the sake of its beneficent effect upon us. The failure of almost all utopias and ideal states, designed and planned by writers and artists, lies in the absence of all power to suggest how the happy folk who have conquered the ills and difficulties of life are to employ themselves reasonably and eagerly when there is nothing left to improve. William Morris, indeed, in his news from nowhere confessed through the mouth of one of his characters that there would be hardly enough pleasant work, like hay-making and bridge-building and carpentering and paving, left to go around, and the picture of life which he draws with its total lack of privacy, the shops where you may ask for anything that you want without having to pay, the guest houses with their straw-colored wine and quaint carafes, the rich stews served in gray earthenware dishes streaked with blue, the dancing, the caressing, the singular absence of all elderly women, strikes on the mind with a quite peculiar sense of boredom and vacuity, because Morris seems to have eliminated so many sources of human interest. And to have conformed everyone to a type which is refreshing enough as a contrast, but very tiresome in the mass. It will not be enough to have got rid of the combative and sordid and vulgar elements of the world, unless a very active spirit of some kind has taken its place. Morris himself intended that art should supply the missing force, but art is not a sociable thing. It is apt to be a lonely affair, and few artists have either leisure or inclination to admire one another's work. Still more dreary was the dream of the philosopher J. S. Mill, who was asked upon one occasion what would be left for men to do when they had been perfected on the lines which he desired. He replied after a long and painful hesitation that they might find satisfaction in reading the poems of Wordsworth. But Wordsworth's poems are useful in the fact that they supply a refreshing contrast to the normal thought of the world, and nothing but the fact that many took a different view of life was potent enough to produce them. So for the present at all events we must be content to feel that our imagination provides us with a motive rather than with a goal. And though it is very important that we should strive with all our might to eliminate the baser elements of life, yet we must be brave and wise enough to confess how much of our best happiness is born of the fact that we have these elements to contend with. Edward Fitzgerald once said that a fault of modern writing was that it tried to compress too many good things into a page, and aimed too much at emitting the homelier interspaces. We must not try to make our lives into a perpetual feast. At least we must try to do so, but it must be by conquest rather than by inglorious flight. We must face the fact that the stuff of life is both homely and indeed amiss, and realize, if we can, that our happiness is bound up with energetically trying to escape from conditions which we cannot avoid. When we are young and fiery-hearted we think that a tame counsel, but like all great truths it dawns on us slowly. Not until we begin to ascend the hill do we grasp how huge, how complicated, how intricate the plain with all its fields, woods, hamlets, and streams is. We are happy men and women if in middle age we even faintly grasp that the actual truth about life is vastly larger and finer than any impatient youthful fancies about it are, though it is good to have indulged our splendid fancies in youth if only for the delight of learning how much more magnificent is the real design. In the pilgrim's progress at the very outset of the journey evangelist asks Christian why he is standing still. He replies, because I know not wither to go. Evangelist with a certain grimness of humor there upon hands in the parchment roll, one supposes that it will be a map or a paper of directions, but all that it has written in it is, fly from the wrath to come. Well, it is no longer that of which we are afraid, a rain of fire and brimstone, storm and tempest. The power behind the world has better gifts than these, but we still have to fly where we can and as fast as we can, and when we have traversed the dim leagues and have seen things wonderful at every turn, and have passed through the bitter flood, we shall find, at least this is my hope, no guarded city of God from which we shall go no more out, but another road passing into wider fields and dimmer uplands and to things more and more wonderful and strange and unknown. End of Escape by Arthur Christopher Benson recorded by Brian Ness. by Meredith Hughes, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Future of Astronomy by Professor Edward C. Pickering, Harvard College Observatory, reprinted from the popular science monthly, August 1909. Commencement address at K. School of Applied Science, Cleveland, May 27th, 1909. It is claimed by astronomers that their science is not only the oldest, but that it is the most highly developed of the sciences. Indeed it should be so, since no other science has ever received such support from royalty, from the state, and from the private individual. However this may be, there is no doubt that in recent years astronomers have had granted to them greater opportunities for carrying on large pieces of work than have been entrusted to men in any other department of pure science. One might expect that the practical results of a science like physics would appeal to the man who has made a vast fortune through some of its applications. The telephone, the electric transmission of power, wireless telegraphy, and the submarine cable are instances of immense financial returns derived from the most abstruse principles of physics. Yet there are scarcely any physical laboratories devoted to research or endowed with independent funds for this object, except those supported by the government. The endowment of astronomical observatories devoted to research and not including that given for teaching is estimated to amount to half a million dollars annually. Several of the larger observatories have an annual income of $50,000. I once asked the wisest man I know what was the reason for this difference. He said that it was probably because astronomy appealed to the imagination. A practical man who has spent all his life in his counting room or mill is sometimes deeply impressed with the vast distances in grandeur of the problems of astronomy and the very remoteness and difficulty of studying the stars attract him. My object in calling your attention to this matter is the hope that what I have to say of the organization of astronomy may prove of use to those interested in other branches of science and that it may lead to placing them on the footing they should hold. My arguments apply with almost equal force to physics, to chemistry, and in fact to almost every branch of physical or natural science in which knowledge may be advanced by observation or experiment. The practical value of astronomy in the past is easily established. Without it international commerce on a large scale would have been impossible. Without the aid of astronomy accurate boundaries of large tracts of land could not have been defined and standard time would have been impossible. The work of the early astronomers was eminently practical and appealed at once to everyone. This work has now been finished. We can compute the positions of the stars for years almost for centuries with all the accuracy needed for navigation for determining time or for approximate boundaries of countries. The investigations now in progress at the greatest observatories have little if any value in dollars and cents. They appeal however to the far higher sense the desire of the intellectual human being to determine the laws of nature the construction of the material universe and the properties of the heavenly bodies of which those known to exist far outnumber those that can be seen. Three great advances have been made in astronomy. First the invention of the telescope with which we commonly associate the name of Galileo from the wonderful results he obtained with it. At that time there was practically no science in America and for more than two centuries we failed to add materially to this invention. Half a century ago the genius of the members of one family Alvin Clark and his two sons placed America in the front rank not only in the construction but in the possession of the largest and most perfect telescopes ever made. It is not easy to secure the world's record in any subject. The Clarks constructed successively the 18 inch lens for Chicago the 26 inch for Washington the 30 inch for Polkawa the 36 inch for Lick and the 40 inch for Yerkes. Each in turn was the largest yet made and each time the Clarks recalled upon to surpass the world's record which they themselves had already established. Have we at length reached the limit in size? If we include reflectors no since we have mirrors of 60 inches aperture at Mount Wilson and Cambridge and a still larger one of 100 inches has been undertaken. It is more than doubtful however whether a further increase in size is a great advantage much more depends on other conditions especially those of climate the kind of work to be done and more than all the man behind the gun. The case is not unlike that of a battleship would a ship a thousand feet long always sink one of 500 feet? It seems as if we had nearly reached the limit of size of telescopes and as if we must hope for the next improvement in some other direction. The second great advance in astronomy originated in America and was in an entirely different direction the application of photography to the study of the stars. The first photographic image of a star was obtained in 1850 by George P. Bond with the assistance of Mr. J. A. Whipple at the Harvard College Observatory. A daguerreotype plate was placed at the focus of the 15 inch equatorial at that time one of the two largest refracting telescopes in the world. An image of Alpha Leary was thus obtained and for this Mr. Bond received a gold medal at the first international exhibition that at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851. In 1857 Mr. Bond, then Professor Bond, director of the Harvard Observatory again took up the matter with collodion wet plates and in three masterly papers showed the advantages of photography in many ways. The lack of sensitiveness of the wet plate was perhaps the only reason why its use progressed but slowly. Quarter of a century later with the introduction of the dry plate and the gelatine film, a new start was made. These photographic plates were very sensitive, were easily handled and indefinitely long exposures could be made with them. As a result photography has superseded visual observations in many departments of astronomy and is now carrying them far beyond the limits that would have been deemed possible a few years ago. The third great advance in astronomy is in photographing the spectra of the stars. The first photograph showing the lines in a stellar spectrum was obtained by Dr. Henry Draper of New York in 1872. Sir William Huggins in 1863 had obtained an image of the spectrum of Sirius on a photographic plate but no lines were visible in it. In 1876 he again took up the subject and by an early publication preceded Dr. Draper. When we consider the attention the photography of stellar spectra is receiving at the present time in nearly all the great observatories in the world it may well be regarded as the third great advance in astronomy. What will be the fourth advance and how will it be brought about? To answer this question we must consider the various ways in which astronomy and for that matter any other science may be advanced. First, by educating astronomers there are many observatories where excellent instruction in astronomy is given either to the general student or to the one who wishes to make it his profession. At almost any active observatory a student would be received as a volunteer assistant. Unfortunately, few young men can afford to accept an unpaid position and the establishment of a number of fellowships each offering a small salary sufficient to support the student would enable him to acquire the necessary knowledge to fill a permanent position. The number of these scholarships should not be large lest more students should undertake the work than would be required to fill the permanent paying positions in astronomy as they become vacant. In Europe a favorite method of aiding science is to offer a prize for the best memoir on a specified subject. On theoretical grounds this is extremely objectionable. Since the papers presented are anonymous and confidential no one but the judges know how great is the effort wasted in duplication. The larger the prize the greater the injury to science since the greater will be the energy diverted from untried fields. It would be much wiser to invite applications select the man most likely to produce a useful memoir and award the prize to him if he achieved success. The award of a medal if of great intrinsic value would be an unwise expenditure. The Victoria Cross is an example of a successful foundation highly prized but of small intrinsic value. If made of gold it would carry no greater honor and would be more liable to be stolen melted down or pond. Honorary membership in a famous society or honorary degrees have great value if wisely awarded. Both are highly prized form an excellent stimulus to continued work and as they are both priceless and without price they in no way diminish the capacity for work. I recently had occasion to compare the progress in various sciences of different countries and found that the number of persons elected as foreign associates of the seven great national societies of the world was an excellent test. 87 persons were members of two or more of these societies. Only six are residents of the United States while an equal number come from Saxony which has only a 20th of the population. Of the six residents here only three were born in the United States. Not a single mathematician or doctor from this country appears on the list. Only in astronomy are we well represented. Out of a total of 10 astronomers four come from England and three from the United States. Comparing the results for the last 150 years we find an extraordinary growth for the German races an equally surprising diminution for the French and other Latin races while the proportion of Englishmen has remained unchanged. A popular method of expending money both by countries and by individuals is in sending expeditions to observe solar eclipses. These appeal both to donors and recipients. The former believe they are making a great contribution to science while the latter enjoy a long voyage to a distant country and in case of clouds they are not expected to make any scientific return. If the sky is clear at the time of the eclipse the newspapers of the next day report that great results have been secured and after that nothing further is ever heard. Exceptions should be made of the English Eclipse Committee and the Lick Observatory which by long continued study and observation are gradually solving the difficult problems which can be reached in this way only. The gift of a large telescope to a university is a very doubtful value unless it is accompanied first by a sum much greater than its cost necessary to keep it employed in useful work and secondly to require that it shall be erected not on the university grounds but in some region probably mountainous or desert where results of real value can be obtained. Having thus considered among others some of the ways in which astronomy is not likely to be much advanced we proceed to those which will secure the greatest scientific return for the outlay. One of the best of these is to create a fund to be used in advancing research subject only to the condition that results of the greatest possible value to science shall be secured. One advantage of this method is that excellent results may be obtained at once from a sum either large or small. Whatever is at first given may later be increased indefinitely if the results justify it. One of the wisest as well as the greatest of donors had said find the particular man but unfortunately this plan has been actually tried only with some of the smaller funds. Anyone who will read the list of researchers aided by the Rumford fund the Elizabeth Thompson fund or the Bruce fund of 1890 will see that the returns are out of all proportion to the money expended. The trustees of such a fund as is here proposed should not regard themselves as patrons conferring a favor on those to whom grants are made but as men seeking for the means of securing large scientific returns for the money entrusted to them. An astronomer who would aid them in this work by properly expending a grant would confer rather than receive a favor. They should search for astronomical bargains and should try to purchase results where the money could be expended to the best advantage. They should make it their business to learn of the work of every astronomer engaged in original research. A young man who presented a paper of unusual importance at a scientific meeting or published it in an astronomical journal would receive a letter inviting him to submit plans to the trustees if he desired aid in extending his work. In many cases it would be found that after working for years under most unfavorable conditions he had developed a method of great value and had applied it to a few stars but must now stop for want of means. A small appropriation would enable him to employ an assistant who in a short time could do equally good work. The application of this method to a hundred or a thousand stars would then be only a matter of time and money. The American Astronomical Society met last August at a summer resort on Lake Erie. About 30 astronomers read papers and in a large portion of these cases the appropriation of a few hundred dollars would have permitted a great extension in these researches. A sad case is that of a brilliant student who may graduate at a college take a doctor's degree in astronomy and perhaps pass a year or two and study at a foreign observatory. He then returns to this country enthusiastic and full of ideas and considers himself fortunate in securing a position as astronomer in a little country college. He now finds himself overwhelmed with work as a teacher without time or appliances for original work. What is worse no one sympathizes with him in his aspirations and after a few years he abandons hope and settles down to the dull routine of lectures, recitations and examinations. A little encouragement at the right time aid by offering to pay for an assistant for a suitable instrument or for publishing results and perhaps a word to the president of his college if the man showed real genius might make a great astronomer instead of a poor teacher. For several years a small fund yielding a few hundred dollars annually has been dispersed at Harvard in this way with very encouraging results. A second method of aiding astronomy is through the large observatories. These institutions if properly managed have after years of careful study and trial developed elaborate systems of solving the great problems of the celestial universe. They are like great factories which by taking elaborate precautions to save waste at every point and by improving in every detail both processes and products are at length obtaining results on a large scale with perfection and economy far greater than is possible by individuals or smaller institutions. The expenses of such an observatory are very large and it has no pecuniary return since astronomical products are not saleable. A great portion of the original endowment has been spent on the plant expensive buildings and instruments. Current expenditures like library expenses heating lighting etc are independent of the output. It is like a man swimming upstream. He may struggle desperately and yet make no progress. Any gain in power affects a real advance. This is the condition of nearly all the larger observatories. Their income is mainly used for current expenses which would be nearly the same whatever their output. A relatively small increase in income can thus be spent to great advantage. The principal instruments are rarely used to their full capacities and the methods employed could be greatly extended without any addition to the executive or other similar expenses. A man superintending the work of several assistants can often have their number doubled and his output increased in nearly the same proportion with no additional expenses except the moderate one of their salaries. A single observatory could thus easily do double the work that could be accomplished if its resources were divided between two of half the size. A third and perhaps the best method of making a real advance in astronomy is by securing the united work of the leading astronomers of the world. The best example of this is the work undertaken in 1870 by the Astronomische Gesellschaft the great astronomical society of the world. The sky was divided into zones and astronomers were invited to measure the positions of all the stars in those zones. The observation of two of the northern and two of the southern zones were undertaken by American observatories. The zone from plus one degrees to plus five degrees was undertaken by the Chicago Observatory but was abandoned owing to the great fire of 1871 and the work was assumed and carried to completion by the Dudley Observatory at Albany. The zone from plus 50 to plus 55 degrees was undertaken by Harvard. An observer in core of assistance worked on this problem for a quarter of a century. The completed results now fill seven quarto volumes of our annals. Of the southern zones that from minus 14 degrees to minus 18 degrees was undertaken by the Naval Observatory at Washington and is now finished. The zone from minus 10 degrees to minus 14 degrees was undertaken at Harvard and a second observer in core of assistance have been working on it for 20 years. It is now nearly completed and we hope to begin its publication this year. The other zones were taken by European astronomers. As a result of the whole we have the precise positions of nearly 150,000 stars which serve as a basis for the places of all the objects in the sky. Another example of cooperative work is a plan proposed by the writer in 1906 at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franklin. It was proposed first to find the best place in the world for an astronomical observatory which would probably be in South Africa. To erect there a telescope of the largest size a reflector of seven feet aperture. This instrument should be kept at work throughout every clear night taking photographs according to a plan recommended by an international committee of astronomers. The resulting plates should not be regarded as belonging to a single institution but should be at the service of whoever could make the best use of them. Copies of any or all would be furnished at cost to anyone who wished for them. As an example of their use suppose that an astronomer at a little German university should discover a law regulating the stars and clusters. Perhaps he has only a small telescope near the smoke and haze of a large city and has no means of securing the photographs he needs. He would apply to the committee and they would vote that 10 photographs of 20 clusters each with an exposure of an hour should be taken with a large telescope. This would occupy about a tenth part of the time of the telescope for a year. After making copies the photographs would be sent to the astronomer who would perhaps spend 10 years in studying and measuring them. The committee would have funds at their disposal to furnish him if necessary with suitable measuring instruments assistance for reducing the results and means for publication. They would thus obtain the services of the most skillful living astronomers each in his own special line of work and the latter would obtain in their own homes material for study the best that the world could supply. Undoubtedly by such a combination if properly organized results could be obtained far better than is now possible by the best individual work and at a relatively small expense. Many years of preparation will evidently be needed to carry out such a plan and to save time we have taken the first step and have sent a skillful and experienced observer to South Africa to study its climate and compare it with the experience he has gained during the last 20 years from a similar study of the climate of South America and the western portion of the United States. The next question to be considered is in what direction we may expect the greatest advances in astronomy will be made. Fortunately indeed would be the astronomer who could answer this question correctly. When Ptolemy made the first catalog of the stars he little expected that his observations would have any value nearly 2,000 years later. The alchemists had no reason to doubt that their results were as important as those of the chemists. The astrologers were respected as much as the astronomers. Although there is a certain amount of fashion in astronomy yet perhaps the best test is the judgment of those who have devoted their lives to that science. Thirty years ago the field was narrow. It was the era of big telescopes. Every astronomer wanted a larger telescope than his neighbors with which to measure double stars. If he could not get such an instrument he measured the positions of the stars with a transit circle. Then came astrophysics including photography, spectroscopy, and photometry. The study of the motion of the stars along the line of sight by means of photographs of their spectra is now the favorite investigation at nearly all the great observatories of the world. The study of the surfaces of the planets while the favorite subject with the public next to the destruction of the earth by a comet does not seem to appeal to astronomers. Undoubtedly the only way to advance our knowledge in this direction is by the most powerful instruments mounted in the best possible locations. Great astronomers are very conservative and any sensational story in the newspapers is likely to have but little support from them. Instead of aiding it greatly injures real progress in science. There is no doubt that during the next half century much time and energy will be devoted to the study of the fixed stars. The study of their motions as indicated by their change in position was pursued with great care by the older astronomers. The apparent motions were so small that a long series of years was required and in general for want of early observations of the precise positions of the faint stars this work was confined mainly to the bright stars. Photography is yearly adding a vast amount of material available for this study but the minuteness of the quantities to be measured renders an accurate determination of their laws very difficult. Moreover we can thus only determine the motions at right angles to the line of sight. The motion towards us or from us being entirely insensible in this way. Then came the discovery of the change in the spectrum when a body was in motion but still this change was so small that visual observations of it proved of but little value. Attaching a carefully constructed spectroscope to one of the great telescopes of the world photographing the spectrum of a star and measuring it with the greatest care provided a tool of wonderful efficiency. The motion which sometimes amounts to several hundreds of miles a second could thus be measured to within a fraction of a mile. The discovery that the motion was variable owing to the stars revolving around a great dark planet sometimes larger than the star added greatly not only to the interest of these researchers but also to the labor involved. Instead of a single measure for each star in the case of these so-called spectroscopic binaries we must make enough measures to determine the dimensions of the orbit its form and the period of revolution. What has been said of the motions of the stars applies also in general to the determination of their distances. A vast amount of labor has been expended on this problem. When at length the distance of a single star was finally determined the quantity to be measured was so small as to be nearly concealed by the unavoidable errors of measurement. The parallax or one half of the change in the apparent position of the stars as the earth moves around the sun has its largest value for the nearest stars. No case has yet been found in which this quantity is as large as a foot rule seen at a distance of 50 miles and for comparatively few stars is it certainly appreciable. An extraordinary degree of precision has been attained in recent measures of this quantity but for a really satisfactory solution of this problem we must probably devise some new method like the use of the spectroscope for determining motions. Two or three illustrations of the kind of methods which might be used to solve this problem may be of interest. There are certain indications of the presence of a selective absorbing medium in space that is a medium like red glass for instance which would cut off the blue light more than the red light. Such a medium would render the blue end of the spectrum of a distance star much fainter as compared with the red end than in the case of a near star. A measure of the relative intensity of the two rays would serve to measure the distance or the thickness of the absorbing medium. The effect would be the same for all stars of the same class of spectrum. It could be tested by the stars forming a cluster like the Pleiades which are doubtless all at nearly the same distance from us. The spectra of stars of the tenth magnitude or fainter can't be photographed well enough to be measured in this way so that the relative distances of nearly a million stars could thus be determined. Another method which would have a more limited application would depend on the velocity of light. It has been maintained that the velocity of light in space is not the same for different colors. Certain stars called algal stars vary in light at regular intervals when partially eclipsed by the interposition of a large dark satellite. Recent observations of these eclipses through glass of different colors show variations in the time of obscuration. Apparently some of the rays reach the earth sooner than others though all leave the star at the same time. As the entire time may amount to several centuries an excessively small difference in velocity would be recognizable. A more delicate test would be to measure the intensity of different portions of the spectrum at a time when the light is changing most rapidly. The effect should be opposite according as the light is increasing or diminishing. It should also show itself in the measures of all spectroscopic binaries. A third method of great promise depends on a remarkable investigation carried on in the physical laboratory of the Case School of Applied Science. According to the undulatory theory of light all space is filled with a medium called ether like air but as much more tenuous than air as air is more tenuous than the densest metals. As the earth is moving through space at a rate of several miles a second we should expect to feel a breeze as we rush through the ether like that of the air when in an automobile we are moving with but one thousandth part of this velocity. The problem is one of the greatest delicacy but a former officer of the Case School one of the most eminent of living physicists devised a method of solving it. The extraordinary result was reached that no breeze was perceptible. This result appeared to be so improbable that it has been tested again and again but every time the more delicate the instrument employed the more certainly is the law established. If we could determine our motion with reference to the ether we should have a fixed line of reference to which all other motions could be referred. This would give us a line of ever increasing length from which to measure stellar distances. Still another method depends on the motion of the sun in space. There is some evidence that this motion is not straight but along a curved line. We see the stars not as they are now but as they were when the light left them. In the case of the distant stars this may have occurred centuries ago. Accordingly if we measure the motion of the sun from them and from your stars a comparison with its actual motion will give us a clue to their distances. Unfortunately all the stars appeared to have large motions whose law we do not know and therefore we have no definite starting point unless we can refer all to the ether which may be assumed to be at rest. If the views expressed to you this morning are correct we may expect that the future of astronomy will take the following form. There will be at least one very large observatory employing one or two hundred assistants and maintaining three stations. Two of these will be observing stations one in the western part of the United States not far from latitude plus 30 the other similarly situated in the southern hemisphere probably in South Africa in latitude minus 30 degrees. The locations will be selected wholly from their climatic conditions. They will be moderately high from 5 to 10,000 feet and in desert regions. The altitude will prevent extreme heat and clouds or rain will be rare. The range of temperature and unsteadiness of the air will be diminished by placing them on hills a few hundred feet above the surrounding country. The equipment and work of the two stations will be substantially the same. Each will have telescopes and other instruments of the largest size which will be kept at work throughout the whole of every clear night. The observers will do but little work in the daytime except perhaps on the sun and will not undertake much of the computation or reductions. This last work will be carried on at a third station which will be near a large city where the cost of living and of intellectual labor is low. The photographs will be measured and stored at this station and all the results will be prepared for publication and printed there. The work of all three stations will be carefully organized so as to obtain the greatest result for a given expenditure. Every inducement will be offered to visiting astronomers who wish to do serious work at either of the stations and also to students who intend to make astronomy their profession. In the case of photographic investigations it will be best to send the photographs so that astronomers desiring them can work at home. The work of the young astronomers throughout the world will be watched carefully and large appropriations made to them if it appears that they can spend them to advantage. Similar aid will be rendered to astronomers engaged in teaching and to anyone professional or amateur capable of doing work of the highest grade. As a fundamental condition for success no restrictions will be made that will interfere with the greatest scientific efficiency and no personal or local prejudices that will restrict the work. These plans may seem to you visionary and to a utopian for the 20th century but they may be nearer fulfillment than we anticipate. The true astronomer of today is eminently a practical man. He does not accept plans of a sensational character. The same qualities are needed in directing a great observatory successfully as in managing a railroad or factory. Anyone can propose a gigantic expenditure but to prove to a shrewd man of affairs that it is feasible and advisable is a very different matter. It is much more difficult to give away money wisely than to earn it. Many men have made great fortunes but few have learned how to expend money wisely in advancing science or to give it away judiciously. Many persons have given large sums to astronomy and someday we shall find the man with broad views who will decide to have the advice and aid of the astronomers of the world in his plans for promoting science and who will thus expend his money as he made it taking the greatest care that not one dollar is wasted. Again let us consider the next great advance which perhaps will be a method of determining the distances of the stars. Many of us are working on this problem the solution of which may come to someone at any day. The present field is a wide one the prospects are now very bright and we may look forward to as great an advance in the 20th century as in the 19th. May a portion of this come to the case school and with your support may its enviable record in the past be surpassed by its future achievements. End of the future of astronomy.