Till: DISCOVERY OF LAWS ::* 



conform ; the}- do not discover laws, or the laws that 

 they discover predict falsely. It is" only the great leaders 

 of science who see the right order. They, and the}* only, 

 can establish an order which satisfies their intellectual 

 desires and yet find that it is valid for the future as will 

 as for the past. They, and they only, are in such har- 

 mony with the universe that it obeys the dictates of 

 their minds. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GENIUS 



I fear this point of view will seem to some readers too 



tical for their tastes. Nevertheless I would press it 



strongly on their attention. Of course I do not claim in 



the least that it explains why laws, devised even by the 



greatest of men, do predict, but it is necessary for the 



understanding of science, as much as for the understand- 



of art, to recognize that there are great men who 



surpass their fellows in some scarcely comprehensible 



manner. Science would not be what it is if there had 



not been a Galileo, a Newton or a Lavoisier, any more 



music would be what it is if Bach, Beethoven and 



Wagner had never lived. The world as we know it is 



product of its geniuses and there may be evil as well 



irent genius and to deny that fact, is to stultify 



all history, whether it be that of the intellectual or the 



economic world. 



But in one, as in the other, geniu- it^-lf is too rare and 



hort-lived to achieve much by its unaided efforts. 



it men and tin K ularly true of the greatest 



achieve more by their influence than by their direct action. 



v change the world by enabling others to comi 



y have tin -m-< Ives begun. And in tion 



part of scin n done, and by far tin 



greater number of laws discovered, by those of us who 



not the re- :} \ u * or any but the 



