THE MAN OF SCIENCE IN PRACTICAL AFFAIRS. 487 

 THE MAN OF SCIENCE IN PKACTICAL AFFAIRS. 



By F. W. CLARKE. 



THE human mind is addicted to the creation of types, a process 

 which implies classification and generalization of a somewhat 

 low order. Some prominent feature of the thing classified is se- 

 lected for emphasis, and there is often a degree of exaggeration 

 which leads, in the end, to caricature. John Bull, Brother Jona- 

 than, the Jew of the comic papers, and the stage Irishman are exam- 

 ples of this tendency. So, too, a profession or occupation is summed 

 up in one conventional character, with a little truth distorted as if 

 seen reflected from the surface of a curved mirror. The likeness 

 is there, but unlike the reality. The individual embodiment of the 

 type is rarely, if ever, encountered. 



The man of science deals with questions which commonly lie 

 outside of the range of ordinary experience, which often have no 

 immediately discernible relation to the affairs of everyday life, and 

 which concentrate the mind upon apparent abstractions to an ex- 

 traordinary degree. Accordingly, the scholar, the scientific inves- 

 tigator, is typified as an elderly dreamer in spectacles, who is so 

 uncouth, so self-forgetful, so absent-minded, and so ignorant of 

 practical matters as to be hardly more than a child. He is one to 

 be cared for and humored, like an imbecile — treated with some con- 

 sideration, perhaps, on account of his learning, but never to be 

 trusted in the transaction of business nor in the administration of 

 public affairs. With him, as an antithesis, is contrasted the prac- 

 tical man, who knows whither his steps are tending, who has learned 

 to control others, and who never dreams of abstractions during office 

 hours, if indeed he troubles himself about them at all. The one 

 is thought to be vague, visionary, and unpractical; the other is 

 deemed efficient, precise, prompt, and clear. Has this distinction 

 any basis in reality? Do scientific pursuits disqualify a man for 

 administrative responsibility? 



These questions, like all other legitimate questions, are to be 

 answered by evidence, and the popular impression is entitled to no 

 weight whatever. This evidence is to be found by a study of the 

 thing itself, the man of science as he actually is; by an examina- 

 tion of the training which he receives, the character of the work 

 which he does, and the results which he accomplishes. By this 

 method it will be found that the supposed type is purely imaginary, 

 that the workers in science exhibit all the variations which are found 

 in any other group of occupations,* that the human race as a whole 

 is their only symbol or representative. The man of science may 



