2o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



particular that its influence will be most pronounced and most bene- 

 ficial in the intellectual life of the world at large. 



This little essay has been intended simply to give some of the 

 most important principles of veracity in a purely abstract statement. 

 Special questions and problems have, therefore, been purposely left 

 untouched. All moralists, it may be assumed, will agree that, in the 

 actual ordering of life, there are occasions when not only are we 

 not called upon to speak the truth, but when even by direct lying we 

 incur no proper reproach. To mislead the would-be robber con- 

 cerning the exact whereabouts of the family plate is clearly justi- 

 fiable; and so, too, is the false statement of his condition by means 

 of which, as every physician knows, a patient is often given a better 

 chance of recovery. ISTumerous cases of these or other kinds will 

 occur in common experience; there is unfortunately no single rule 

 of conduct which can be taken as inflexible and universal in its ap- 

 plicability ; and we must each of us face the individual crisis when it 

 arises as best we can. But meanwhile it may be useful sometimes to 

 consider general and fundamental principles in ethics without relat- 

 ing them to exceptional issues. After indulging in such a discussion 

 as the foregoing we may, it is possible, be inclined to say that, as 

 Rasselas was convinced by Imlac that no human being could ever 

 be a poet, so are we fully convinced that we can never be wholly and 

 consistently truthful. Yet it may help us none the less to have the 

 ideal distinctly set before us, and whatever difliculties may be in the 

 way of our approach to it, it will never cease to be our duty to hold 

 it steadily and bravely in view. 



After Heinrich Hertz had gone to Munich to study enfjineering in 

 1877, he wrote back to his parents that he wanted to change his plans and 

 return to the study of natural science. He felt that the time had come 

 either to devote himself to this entirely or else to say good-by to it; for if 

 he gave up too much time to science in the future it would end in his neg- 

 lecting his professional studies and becoming a second-rate engineer. Hia 

 parents consented to his desire and his course of studies was changed in 

 conformity to it. A year later he wrote from the laboratory that the 

 greater part of the time spent there was devoted to " things which are very 

 useless, or at any rate don't teach one much, such as cutting cork and tiling 

 wires, and the observations themselves are naturally not very delightful. 

 Possibly it may be doubtful whether it is quite right for me to spend so 

 much time at these things when I still have so much to learn. And yet I 

 feel that it is right; to get information for myself and for others dii-ect from 

 Nature gives me so much more satisfaction than to be always learning it 

 from others and for myself alone — so much more that I can hardly express 

 it. When I am only studying books I am never free of the feeling that I 

 am a perfectly useless member of society." 



