128 PROF.: J. ARTHUR THOMSON. 
Long ago Bacon said, “ We should accustom ourselves to 
things themselves”; and this—to distinguish between 
appearance and reality—is what the scientific mood seeks 
after. Its emblem might be the Rontgen rays which 
penetrate superficial obscurities; or Kipling’s mongoose 
hiki-tiki-tavi, whose business in life it was to find out 
precisely about things. 
It was Huxley who spoke of “ that enthusiasm for truth, 
that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession 
than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of in- 
creasing knowledge.” There can be no scientific progress 
worthy of the name without this. 
May I quote further a single sentence from Huxley’s 
charming autobiography: “If [ may speak,” he says, “ of 
the objects I have had in view since I began the ascent of 
my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote the increase 
of natural knowledge, and to forward the application of 
scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life 
to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown 
with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that 
there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except 
veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing 
of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by 
which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped 
off.” 
Every virtue has its vice, as every function its disease ; 
so one cannot conceal that this passion for facts may become 
a mania for information, and an intellectual intemperance. 
Unskilful teaching or careless learning may result in mere 
fat without muscle, or in the matter-of-fact man—one of 
the most unscientific of persons—who ignores one of the 
biggest of all facts—the reality of ideas. 
Any mood may in extreme development become vicious, 
and the passion for facts may imply violence to emotional 
sanity, and disloyalty to the ideal of a full human life. In 
his enthusiasm, in short, the student of science may deny 
his manhood. The great embryologist Von Baer shut him- 
self up when snow was upon the ground, and did not come 
out again until the rye was in harvest. He was filled, he 
says, with uncontrollable pathos at the sight. “The laws of 
