126 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



same kind. Many of the generalizations which the special in- 

 vestigator has reached at the cost of enormous pains are only 

 elementary facts to the encyclopedist. It is easy enough for the 

 map-maker to draw on his map a new river, to discover the true 

 course of which many men have spent their lives; it is not more 

 difficult for the encyclopedist to register new scientific facts and 

 ideas, each of which is the fruit of considerable ingenuity and 

 endless toil. 



Yet most men prefer to stand on the solid ground of immediate 

 experience. Their habits of work increase their timidity, and 

 before long the most circumspect endeavors to organize empirical 

 knowledge seems to them adventurous. It is perhaps chiefly as a 

 contrast to this timidity that undertakings like Spencer's take 

 heroic proportions. 



There is a touch of heroism in them, because there is indeed a 

 touch of adventure. Special research is generally less disappoint- 

 ing, for it brings immediate results and moral comfort. The as- 

 tronomer who sets our clocks right and the chemist who prepares 

 our dyes are just as conscious of their usefulness as the baker is; 

 no doubts will prey on their minds. Again, to put neatly written 

 cards in a drawer, or to classify endless rows of insects or shells, 

 and then to write long memoirs in which every one of them is 

 fastidiously described, will bring peace and happiness to many 

 people. They well know that they are working for eternity, be- 

 cause it is they who bring together the materials of which any 

 scientific synthesis is made. In the course of time many an edifice 

 will be built with these materials; the buildings will pass, the 

 materials will remain. Most scientists do not go beyond this; they 

 prepare and collect material; they do not build. I suppose they 

 obey a true instinct. They are quickly troubled with giddiness. 

 They are right in refusing to go farther; they are wrong when they 

 say that everybody is dizzy when they are. 



The proof that synthetic studies are not necessarily more diffi- 

 cult than others, for one who has the proper constitution, is that 

 Spencer, whose systematic training was so poor and who could 



