A PLEA FOR PURE SCIENCE. 185 



mediocre, when third-class men are held up as examples, and when 

 trifling inventions are magnified into scientific discoveries, then the 

 influence of such societies is prejudicial. A young scientist attending 

 the meetings of such a society soon gets perverted ideas. To his mind, 

 a molehill is a mountain, and the mountain a molehill. The small 

 inventor or the local celehrity rises to a greater height, in his mind, 

 tliau the great leader of science in some foreign land. lie gauges 

 himself by the molehill, and is satisfied with his stature; not knowing 

 that he is but an atom in comparison with the mountain, until, perhaps, 

 in old age, when it is too late. But, if the size of the mountain had 

 been seen at first, the young scientist would at least haA''e been stimu- 

 lated in his endeavor to grow. 



We cannot all be men of genius; but we can, at least, point them out 

 to tliose around us. We may not be able to benefit science much our- 

 selves; but we can have high ideals on the subject, and instil them into 

 those with whom we come in contact. For the good of ourselves, for 

 the good of our country, for the good to the world, it is incumbent on 

 us to form a true estimate of the worth and standing of persons and 

 things, and to set before our own minds all that is great and good and 

 noble, all that is most important for scientific advance, above the 

 mean and low and unimportant. 



Tt is very often said that a man has a right to his opinion. This 

 might be true for a man on a desert island, wdiose error would influence 

 only himself. J^ut when he opens his lips to instruct others, or even 

 when he signifies his opinions by his daily life, then he is directly 

 responsible for all his errors of judgment or fact. He has no right 

 to think a molehill as big as a mountain, nor to teach it, any more 

 than he has to think the world flat, and teach that it is so. The facts 

 and laws of our science have not equal importance, neither have the 

 men who cultivate the science achieved equal results. One thing is 

 greater than another, and we have no right to neglect the order. Thus 

 shall our minds be guided aright, and our efforts be toward that which 

 is the highest. 



Then shall we see that no physicist of the first class has ever existed 

 in this country, that we must look to other coimtries for our leaders in 

 that subject, and that the few excellent workers in our country must 

 receive many accessions from w'ithout before they can constitute an 

 American science, or do their share in the world's work. 



But let me return to the subject of scientific societies. Plere Ameri- 

 can science has its hardest problem to contend with. There are very 

 many local societies dignified by high-sounding names, each having its 

 local celebrity, to whom the privilege of describing some crab with an 

 extra claw, which he found in his morning ramble, is inestimable. 

 And there are some academies of science, situated at our seats of learn- 



