Science and Citizenship 



like the Secular orders, have their main interest in 

 the application of doctrine to the needs of daily 

 life. 



XXV 



Amongst existing groups of scientists which are 

 the Seculars, which the Regulars ? In the Physical 

 Sciences it is easy to recognise actual or incipient 

 Regular orders, in mathematicians, in students of 

 heat, light, electricity, chemistry, &c. On the 

 practical side there is the great body of engineers, 

 with its numerous subdivisions, there are manufac- 

 turing chemists, the brewers, the opticians, &c. 

 are these the Secular orders in the physical group ? 

 Before answering that question we must discrimi- 

 nate. The differences of type are very great. It 

 is, for instance, a far cry from the stoker, or even 

 the driver, of a coal engine at the one end of the 

 scale, to, at the other, the active partner in the firm 

 of Messrs. White & Co., electricians and instru- 

 ment makers ; for the active partner in that firm 

 is, or was, Lord Kelvin. It will be urged that Lord 

 Kelvin as instrument maker and electrical engineer 

 is merged and sunk in Lord Kelvin the professor, 

 the investigator, the theorist. But the opposite 

 interpretation would be equally true and equally 

 false. The essential point is to see that it is the 

 very coincidence and alternation of theory and prac- 

 tice, of science and art, of thought and action, that 

 above all, differentiate and mark off the Seculars of 

 science from those of other varieties of Spiritual 

 Power. And applying this distinction, we readily 



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