ESSAY-REVIEWS 153 



astuteness than for their virtue." Religion and morality are indeed very different 

 things according to the new definition of the former word ; and frankly we do not 

 at all admire the religious temperament as given in such false terms. Those who 

 adopt the policy of believing where they cannot prove are defaulters before 

 Heaven and will never earn its approval, however vividly they may dream they 

 deserve it. 



Perhaps we like least the two concluding essays. Surely the definition of the 

 man of action is the definition given by the lady novelist— the strong silent man 

 with a square jaw ; but Dr. Mercier appears to accept it as being valid. Now we 

 have seen many such ; but they are rather men of inaction than of action, are 

 scarcely ever to be trusted with any work because they seldom ever possess an 

 idea, and commonly end by becoming what are called on the stage " heavy 

 fathers." Surely the author is scarcely justified in claiming men like Alexander, 

 Cortez, Raleigh, Napoleon, and others to be of this type ; and what about Nelson 

 and Frederick ? Conversely we have seen many men of action, travellers, 

 soldiers, hunters, and they are generally of quite a different type. The nervous 

 temperament does almost everything in the world, and one of the hardest workers 

 and most assiduous explorers we ever met was as frail as a shadow and as 

 sensitive as a case of shell-shock. And, with all due respect to Dr. Mercier, we 

 must protest against his supposition, regarding which he can have no real know- 

 ledge, that Copernicus and Galileo, Clarke Maxwell, Faraday, Mendel, and 

 Pasteur undertook their researches without any forethought of the practical use to 

 which those researches might ultimately be put. We do not believe it for a 

 moment. When these men spent their lives each in finding out the key to 

 a single problem, they did so knowing that when the box was opened its invaluable 

 contents would become accessible to mankind. Was not this matter discussed in 

 the last January number of Science Progress ? "A vivid but rather confused 

 recognition of these truths leads the philosopher to look askance upon researches 

 that have a direct utilitarian object, a feeling that finds expression in the toast 

 reputed to have been proposed at a dinner of the Royal Society : ' Here's to the 

 latest scientific discovery, and may it never be of the slightest use to any one ! ' " 

 We can quite understand that this toast was proposed at a dinner of the Royal 

 Society ; but not that it represents the feeling of genuine investigators. 



Well, we shall all be the better for reading Dr. Mercier's book — it will ferret out 

 our faults and justify our virtues. Perhaps only Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, 

 or Velasquez could have written or painted the absolute books on the theme — and 

 indeed they have done so indirectly. But what they presented in combination, 

 our author has, at least partly, analysed in a fine crucible of observation and 

 humour. 



