XIV. 

 SCIENCE AND MAN* 



A MAGNET attracts iron; but when we analyse the 

 -L- effect we learn that the metal is not only at- 

 tracted but repelled, the final approach to the magnet 

 being due to the difference of two unequal and opposing 

 forces. Social progress is for the most part typified by 

 this duplex or polar action. As a general rule, every 

 advance is balanced by a partial retreat, every amelio- 

 ration is associated more or less with deterioration. 

 No great mechanical improvement, for example, is in- 

 troduced for the benefit of society at large that does 

 not bear hardly upon individuals. Science, like other 

 things, is subject to the operation of this polar law, 

 what is good for it under one aspect being bad for it 

 under another. 



Science demands above all things personal concen- 

 tration. Its home is the study of the mathematician, 

 the quiet laboratory of the experimenter, and the cabi- 

 net of the meditative observer of nature. Different 

 atmospheres are required by the man of science, as such, 

 and the man of action. Thus the facilities of social and 

 international intercourse, the railway, the telegraph, 

 and the post-office, which are such undoubted boons to 

 the man of action, react to some extent injuriously on 

 the man of science. Their tendency is to break up 

 that concentrativeness which, as I have said, is an abso- 

 lute necessity to the scientific investigator. 



* Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham and 

 Midland Institute, October 1, 1877; with additions. 

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