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matician, who boasted that none of his work would ever find a practical applica- 

 tion. That this anecdote is quoted so frequently— being connected with different 

 individuals, without substantial evidence for its genuineness — proves that it 

 characterises only an exceptional case. Individual propensities, such as shyness 

 or fear of public criticism, will affect the influence which a person is capable of 

 exerting, but there can only be few men who would not take a pride in finding that 

 the efforts of their brain have proved of value to their country. The incidents in 

 the life of Archimedes which are most frequently mentioned leave us with the 

 impression that he was mainly an intellectual glutton, happy only in working out 

 his mathematical problems, and this, no doubt, was the natural tendency of his 

 mind. His dying remark is quoted in confirmation: "Noli tangere circulos 

 meos" — "Do not touch my circles," he exclaimed when on the point of being 

 transfixed by a Roman sword. We are told that he set no value on his mechanical 

 inventions, considering them beneath the dignity of science. Yet, during the 

 siege of Syracuse, he placed his knowledge freely at the service of his fellow- 

 citizens, and his engines of war delayed the capture of Syracuse for three years. 

 Can such a man be said to have stood aloof from public interests? It is unbeliev- 

 able that he did not find satisfaction in the working of that beautiful spiral tube 

 used for raising water. Archimedes was a man of science, the purest of science, 

 but he was also a man of action, and could be carried away by his imagination, 

 and by the possibilities of his discoveries, as when he exclaimed, " Give me firm 

 ground to stand upon, and I will move the earth ! " 



British science can furnish many examples of great men who served their 

 country not solely in virtue of their scientific achievements. Newton took a lead- 

 ing part in defending the Universities against the interference of the Crown, and, 

 as Master of the Mint, improved the coinage of the country. John Wallis, one of 

 the foremost mathematicians of his time, was frequently mixed up in political 

 affairs, and his facility in deciphering secret codes was made use of by the Puritan 

 party, and brought him into great trouble. Christopher Wren, the great architect, 

 was also distinguished as a pure mathematician, and had, independently of 

 Newton, suggested a universal attraction of matter as the cause of gravitation and 

 the motion of the planets. John Robison accompanied General Wolfe on his 

 expedition to Quebec, and took part in the war. For a time he held a post in a 

 Military Academy at Petrograd, but ultimately settled down as Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh. Even Henry Cavendish, whose chief object 

 in life is said to have been to avoid the attention of his fellow-men, and whose 

 ambitions were confined to the four walls of his laboratory, did not refuse his help, 

 when it was required, to investigate the efficiency of different forms of lightning- 

 conductors. But this is a minor issue, brought forward only to remove the mis- 

 conception that those who devote themselves to academic studies keep aloof from 

 the general interests of their country. Intimate contact with nature should render 

 us, on the contrary, more accessible to human sympathies. 



How did the study of science originate ? It is easy to make a guess. The 

 revolution of the stars in the heavens round an apparently fixed pole assisted the 

 traveller at night to keep his direction, and helped to form an idea of time ; the 

 name "geometry" indicates that it arose out of the measurement and parcelling 

 out of land ; heavy weights had to be lifted, and hence the discovery of the lever ; 

 crops required rain, and the labourer on the land looked anxiously to the clouds 

 for a sign of its arrival. Astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, and meteorology 

 may have begun in this way. This is a plausible but, I believe, insufficient 

 explanation. Men were no doubt forced to observe and invent, but that alone 



