16 SEPTEMBER 1922, Page 3

In reading all the intensely interesting addresses upon a great

variety of subjects, what seems to us the most significant feature of the British Association this year is the way in which the many divisions of Science, which were once watertight compartments, tend increasingly not only to overlap but to work in co-operation. It seems that sufficient data has been acquired and enough progress has been made in generalities so that the inter-relation of the parts is becoming more obvious. Sections are no longer factions. Each separate science realizes its dependence upon all the others. Together they are gradually constructing a synthesis of knowledge whose full value we cannot yet in any measure foresee. This synthesis, at the present, appears to be greatest in the group of sciences which have more particularly to deal with man's estate. The benefits which are accruing to him daily in the amelioration of his con- dition through the disinterested efforts of these men of incredible patience and imagination are already astounding.