342 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



Of American scientists Count Rumford and Prof. Willard 

 Gibbs, are the best examples of these two tendencies, and since 

 each was able to make his life the expression of his personality in 

 a very unusual degree, they form as remarkable a contrast in life 

 as in temperament. The former was a man of the court, the latter 

 of the college. The one was a rover, an adventurer, whose changes 

 of fortune would form a theme for a romance; the other lived a 

 cloistered life, absolutely devoid of dramatic incident, the intellec- 

 tual life in its purest form. Rumford took great delight in the 

 honors, decorations and titles heaped upon him as he journeyed 

 from country to country, and the applause of street crowds was 

 sweet to his ears; the influence of women was a potent factor in his 

 life. Gibbs was shy and modest, a celibate, and was little known 

 personally except to some of his colleagues of the faculty. Anyone 

 of ordinary culture can read understandingly all of Rumford's 

 papers. Gibbs' work is a sealed book to all but a few of mathe- 

 matical mind and training. 



Rumford's work had always a practical purpose, even when he 

 was evolving a general law, and he hastened personally to apply 

 the scientific principles he discovered to the conveniences of daily 

 life. Gibbs paid no attention to the invention of useful articles, 

 or to the promotion of manufactures. Rumford used general prin- 

 ciples as guides to his further experimentation; Gibbs left entirely 

 to others the experimental verification of the laws he logically 

 deduced. Rumford carried on researches of the most varied 

 character; Gibbs confined his ' life-work to a few closely allied 

 studies. Rumford's discoveries were the result of his alert observa- 

 tion and shrewd wit; Gibbs made his deductions by slow and sure 

 process of rigid mathematical analysis. 



It would be useless to discuss which type of scientist is the more 

 useful, and it would be unjust as well as futile to blame the one 

 for not being the other. We do not find fault with a great general 

 because he is not also a great poet, and there is need for as wide a 

 diversity of gifts in the advancement of science. The theorist and 

 the utilitarian often fail to understand and to appreciate one 

 another; such narrowness cannot be ascribed to the two men here 



