38 



NATURE 



[September 9, 1915 



finally moral courage. Yet after enumerating these 

 qualities, he arrives at the same result which I have 

 tried to place before you, that there are no special 

 peculiarities inherent in the scientific mind, and he 

 expresses this conclusion in the following words : — 



"But, I hear someone say^ these qualities are not 

 the peculiar attributes of the man of science, they may 

 be recognised as belonging to almost everyone who 

 has commanded or deserved success, whatever may 

 have been his walk in life. That is so. That is 

 exactly what I would desire to insist, that the men 

 of science have no peculiar virtues, no special 

 powers. They are ordinary men, their characters are 

 common, even commonplace. Science, as Huxley 

 said, is organised common-sense, and men of science 

 are common men drilled in the ways of common- 

 sense." 



This saying of Huxley's has been repeated so often 

 that one almost wishes it were true, but unfortunately 

 I cannot find a definition of common-sense that fits 

 the phrase. Sometimes the word is used as if it were 

 identical with uncommon sense, sometimes as if it 

 were the same thing as common nonsense. Often it 

 means untrained intelligence, and in its best aspect it 

 is, I think, that faculty which recognises that the 

 obvious solution of a problem is frequently the right 

 one. When, for instance, I see, during a total solar 

 eclipse, red flames shooting out from the edge of the 

 sun, the obvious explanation is that these are real 

 phenomena caused by masses of glowing vapours 

 ejected from the sun ; and when a learned friend tells 

 me that all this is an optical illusion due to anomalous 

 refraction, I object on the ground that the explanation 

 violates my common-sense. He replies by giving me 

 the reasons which have led him to his conclusions, 

 and, though I still believe that I am right, I have 

 to rrieet him with a more substantial reply than an 

 appeal to my own convictions. Against a solid argu- 

 ment common-sense has no power and must remain 

 a useful but fallible guide which both leads and mis- 

 leads all classes of the community alike. ^ 



If we must avoid assuming special intellectual 

 qualities when we speak of groups of men within 

 one country, we ought to be doubly careful not to do 

 so without good reason in comparing different 

 nations. So-called national characteristics are in 

 many cases matters of education and training; and, 

 if I select one as an example, it is because it figures 

 so largely in public discussions at the present moment. 

 I refer to that expedient for combining individual 

 efforts which goes by the name of organisation. An 

 efficient organisation requires a head that directs and 

 a body that obeys ; it works mainly through discipline, 

 which Is its most essential attribute. Every institu- 

 tion, every factory, every business establishment Is 

 a complicated organism, and no country ever came to 

 prominence In any walk of life unless it possessed 

 the ability to provide for the efficient working of such 

 organisms. To say that a nation which has acquired 

 and maintained an empire, and which conducts a large 

 trade in every part of the world, is deficient in 

 organising power- Is therefore an absurdity. Much of 

 the current self-depreciation in this respect is due to 

 the confusion of what constitutes a true organisation 

 with that modification of it which to a great extent 

 casts aside discipline and substitutes co-operation. 

 Though much may be accomplished by co-operation, 

 it is full of danger In an emergency, for it can only 

 work if It be loyally adhered to ; otherwise it resembles 

 a six-cylinder motor in which ^very sparking-plug 

 is allowed to fix its own time of firing. Things go 



<> Since writing the above, I find on reading Prof. J. A. Thomson's 

 "Introduction to Science" a similar criticism of Huxley's dictum. Prof. 

 Thomson's general conclusions are not, however, in agreement with those 

 here advocated. 



NO. 2393, VOL. 96] 



well so long as the plugs agree; but there is nearly 

 always one among them that persists in taking an 

 independent course and, when the machine stops, 

 complains that the driver is inefficient. The cry for 

 organisation, justifiable as it no doubt often is, re- 

 solves itself, therefore, into a cry for increased dis- 

 cipline, by which I do not mean the discipline enforced 

 at the point of the bayonet, but that voluntarily 

 accepted by the individual who subordinates his own 

 convictions to the will of a properly constituted 

 authority. 



This discipline is not an inborn quality which 

 belongs more to one nation than to another; it is 

 acquired by education and training. In an emergency, 

 it is essential to success, but if it be made the guiding 

 principle of a nation's activity, it carries dangers 

 with it which are greater than the benefits conferred 

 by the increased facility for advance in some direc- 

 tions. 



If there be no fundamental difference in the mental 

 qualifications which lead to success in our different 

 occupations, there is also none in the ideals which 

 move us in childhood, maintain us through the diffi- 

 culties of our manhood, and give us peace in old age. 

 I am not speaking now of those Ideals which may 

 simultaneously Incite a whole nation to combined 

 action through religious fervour or ambition of power, 

 but I am speaking of those more individual ideals 

 which make us choose our professions and give us 

 pleasure In the performance of our duties. 



Why does a scientific man find satisfaction in study- 

 ing Nature? 



Let me once more quote Poincar^ '' : — 



"The student does not study Nature because that 

 study is useful, but because it gives him pleasure, 

 and it gives him pleasure because Nature Is beautiful ; 

 if it were not beautiful it vi^ould not be worth knowing 

 and life would not be worth living. I am not speak- 

 ing, be it understood, of the beauty of its outward 

 appearance — not that I despise it, far from it, but 

 it has nothing to do with science : I mean that more 

 intimate beauty which depends on the harmony in 

 the order of the component parts of Nature. This 

 is the beauty which a pure intelligence can appreciate 

 and which gives substance and form to the scintillat- 

 ing impressions that charm our senses. Without this 

 intellectual support the beauty of the fugitive dreams 

 inspired by sensual impressions could only be im- 

 perfect, because it would be indecisive and always 

 vanishing. It is this intellectual and self-sufficing 

 beauty, perhaps more than the future welfare of 

 humanity, that Impels the scientific man to condemn 

 himself to long and tedious studies. And the same 

 search for the sense of harmony in the world leads 

 us to select the facts in Nature which can most suit- 

 ably enhance it, just as the artist chooses among 

 the features of his model those that make the portrait 

 and give it character and life. There need be no fear 

 that this instinctive and unconscious motive should 

 tempt the man of science away from the truth, for the 

 real world is far inore beautiful than any vision of 

 his dreams. The greatest artists that ever lived — the 

 Greeks — constructed a heaven, yet how paltry that 

 heaven is compared to ours ! And it is because sim- 

 plicity and grandeur are beautiful that we select by 

 preference the simplest and grandest facts, and find 

 our highest pleasure, sometimes in following the 

 gigantic orbits of the stars, sometimes in the micro- 

 scopic study of that minuteness which also is a 

 grandeur, and sometimes in piercing the secrets of 

 geological times which attract us because they are 

 remote. And we see that the cult of the beautiful guides 

 us to the same goal as the study of the useful." 

 ?■ Lcc. cit., p. 15. 



