Science and Citizenship 

 III 



What is the relevance of all this for science ? 

 There are two dominant moods or manifestations 

 of science : the cosmic, the naturalistic or geo- 

 graphical mood, on the one hand ; and on the 

 other, the humanist, the historical, the idealist 

 mood. In the former, the cosmic mood, the 

 scientist feels a relatively slight interest in the 

 human race and its doings. There are so many 

 more impressive phenomena in the field of ob- 

 servation ! Are there not one hundred thousand 

 species of beetles compared with a single species 

 of man ? The entomologist bulks larger in science 

 than the sociologist, simply because the boy is 

 father to the man. The scientist in his cosmic 

 mood is a stereotyped, a perpetual boy. The 

 curiosity of the boy about the wonders of nature 

 ceases, from the moment when his collection of 

 curiosities fills the last of his pockets. But the 

 pockets of the scientist take the form of extensible 

 museums ; and hence the temptation to go on 

 collecting, until the habit determines his life, and 

 in course of time he finds himself unable to feel 

 either the cosmic or the human emotion. 



As the boy sometimes grows into the man, the 

 cosmic scientist may grow into the humanist one. 

 He no longer observes the phenomena of nature 

 as a mere series of sequences and co-existences 

 following each other in endless succession ; he 

 looks upon nature as a reservoir of resources for 

 the use of man. He seeks out the potencies of 



225 p 



