XIV 



SCIENCE AND MAN * 



A MAGNET attracts iron; but when we analyze the 

 effect we learn that the metal is not only attracted, 

 but repelled, the final approach to the magnet be- 

 ing 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 ad- 

 vance is balanced by a partial retreat, every amelioration 

 is associated more or less with deterioration. No great 

 mechanical improvement, for example, is introduced 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 concentra- 

 tion. Its home is the study of the mathematician, the 

 quiet laboratory of the experimenter, and the cabinet 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, re- 

 act to some extent injuriously on the man of science. 



* Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham and Midland InstS* 

 tute, October 1, 1877, with additions. 



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