196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ity in physics who can not speak the truth ? a leader in natural history 

 who is given over to the torments of envy ? a god in chemical research 

 sick of some false quotation ? a youthful prodigy of mathematical sci- 

 ence tottering with unelastic steps and outstretched arms to grasp his 

 future fame ? Yet no one will deny that the intemperate pursuit of 

 any branch of science has a tendency to produce such characters, by 

 elevating to undue importance the individual accumulation of scien- 

 tific facts and scientific theories, to the neglect and depreciation of 

 that spirit of truth which alone can inspire and justify an earnest study 

 of the material universe. I beg you to reflect that it is as true of sci- 

 ence as of religion, that the mere letter of its code threatens its devo- 

 tee with intellectual death, and that only by breathing its purest spirit 

 can the man of science keep his better character alive — that indefin- 

 able spirit which, in its intimate and essential nature, has little to do 

 with the number of facts discovered or theories accepted ; a spirit 

 which merely exercises itself in research, and accepts discoveries as 

 delightful accidents ; a spirit which walks the paths of science, not as 

 if they were turnpikes converging upon some smoky and squalid focus 

 of toil-wearied population, but as if they had been graveled and flower- 

 bordered for it through some princely park ; a spirit of natural and 

 cultivated nobleness, sweetened by boundless friendship for the world 

 and all that lives therein ; just and true to all men worthy or un- 

 worthy, proud without vanity, industrious without haste, stating its 

 own griefs as lightly as an angel might, and generously bringing help 

 to the discouraged and forlorn. In every one of us there is this genius, 

 if we did but know it ; and, as Emerson well says, the moral is the 

 measure of its health. 



I have been saying, then, that we should pursue science, like any 

 other business of this life, with a distinct and unwavering intention to 

 ennoble our own characters. It were a trite addition to propose that 

 the pursuit be made ancillary to the public good. " The love of sci- 

 ence " is a phrase which has been gi'eatly glorified in popular discourse ; 

 and if the phrase be confined to its true meaning — a zealous admira- 

 tion for all that is beautifully true and useful in Nature — ^it can not 

 harm us in the practice of our profession. But when the imagination 

 has exhausted itself in transcendental ecstasies over an ethereal senti- 

 ment so named, but undescribed except in poetry, what wiser or better 

 thing can we say of any branch of physical or natural science, cultivated 

 by our association, than that its votaries are knowingly or unknowingly 

 bettering the condition and character of mankind ? Every advance- 

 ment in science is, of its own nature, an improvement of the common- 

 wealth. Every successful study of the laws of the world we inhabit 

 inevitably brings about a more intelligent and victorious conflict with 

 the material evils of life, encouraging thoughtfulness, discouraging 

 superstition, exposing the folly of vice, and putting the multitudes of 

 human society on a fairer and friendlier footing with one another. 



