126 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON. 
world around us; to help one another to a more thorough 
scientific appreciation, first, of the Edinburgh, and then of the 
Scottish life-area ; to work co-operatively towards a more and 
more complete regional survey, and that not only for its own 
sake, but as a means towards the culture of the scientific 
mood. 
In regard to the vexed question of publication of papers, 
I am strongly convinced that what our society should aim 
at is the gradual growth of, first, a portfolio, and then a book 
—a co-operative work—which should be a regional survey 
of the Edinburgh area. 
Tue ScrENTIFIC Moop. 
It is a commonplace that we occupy various attitudes in 
relation to the world around us. There is the practical 
mood concerned with the fundamental problem of multi- 
plying loaves and fishes; the artistic mood which feels the 
beauty of the world; and the scientific mood with its 
incessant questions, “ What is this?” “Whence is this ?” 
“How is this?” These and other moods are natural and 
necessary expressions of the developing human spirit; they 
should never be opposed to one another; they are saved 
from exaggeration and vice when they are seen to be 
complementary,—unified in a whole or healthy life, as 
the different sets of rays in sunlight. 
In thinking of some of the characteristics of the scientific 
mood, we must, first of all, agree that it does not essentially 
imply any particular knowledge of this or that science. 
One of the most scientific men I know is almost quite 
ignorant of all the concrete sciences, yet give him data and 
a problem, and you soon discover that he is scientific in 
every fibre of his mind. 
It is a vulgar error that science is a peculiar kind of 
knowledge. To say, “I am going in for science,” a phrase 
which makes one shiver, is like saying I am going in for 
breathing or for a good digestion. It reminds one of the 
beadle who explained the generally backward state of men 
and morals as due to the insidious spread of what he called 
‘Thought, speaking of it as if it were a microbic disease. 
