COMRADES IN ZEAL. 313 



something in the market, something to serve at the show-down to show 

 to the advantage of the writer or of his university. 



On the other hand, the pressure of university duties often gradually 

 extinguishes the investigator in developing the teacher. The college 

 professor has many students to look after, many committee meetings 

 to attend, many papers to read, many lectures to give, many whist 

 parties to go through — many mouths to feed, while the apparatus rusts, 

 the specimens gather mold or go to feed the Dermestes, while the half- 

 begun manuscript is laid away for the season which never comes. Too 

 often the young investigator, transplanted from the German hot-bed, 

 with the easy success of the easy thesis, finds no adequate impulse to 

 continue his work. Nobody cares for his conclusions, nothing depends 

 on them. His place is secure and becomes more so from year to year, 

 and at last instead of fanaticism for veracity, we find a mild form of 

 approval of truth. 



Besides all this there are many counterfeit presentments of investi- 

 gation. Some years ago I had occasion to say : 



" I am well aware that there is a cant of investigation, as of religion 

 and all other good things. Germany, for example, is full of young 

 men who set forth to investigate, not because they 'are called to ex- 

 plore truth,' but because research is the popular fad, and inroads into 

 new fields the prerequisite to promotion. And so they burrow into 

 every corner in science, philology, philosophy and history, and produce 

 their petty results in as automatic a fashion as if they were so many 

 excavating machines. Eeal investigators are born, not made, and this 

 uninspired digging into old roots and 'Urquellen' bears the same 

 relation to the work of the real investigators that the Latin verses of 

 Kugby and Eton bear to Virgil and Horace. Nevertheless, it is true 

 that no second-hand man was ever a great teacher. I very much doubt 

 if any really great investigator was ever a poor teacher. How could 

 he be ? The very presence of Asa Gray was an inspiration to students 

 of botany for years after he had left the class-room. Such a man 

 leaves the stamp of his greatness on every student who comes within 

 the range of his influence." 



Besides all this, the work of research itself has its difficulties and 

 its limitations. Too often fanaticism for veracity is subtly trans- 

 formed into fanaticism for an idea — just plain fanaticism — the farthest 

 removed from the open-mindedness which is the sole condition of 

 knowing the proclaiming truth. To proclaim an error in good faith 

 and then to discard it when the real truth appears, is a great strain 

 on human nature. Hence research gives place to partisanship, and 

 there are not many times when a man of science should be a partisan. 

 When such times come, when we have the whole truth lined against 

 all error, there is not much question as to the outcome of the struggle, 

 and the investigator is not needed in the fight. He can afford to let 



