SCIENCE AND MAN 358 



Their tendency is to break up that concentrativeness 

 which, as I have said, is an absolute necessity to the 

 scientific investigator. 



The men who have most profoundly influenced the 

 world from the scientific side have habitually sought iso- 

 lation. Faraday, at a certain period of his career, for- 

 mally renounced dining out. Darwin lives apart from the 

 bustle of the world in his quiet home in Kent. Mayer 

 and Joule dealt with the weightiest scientific questions in 

 unobtrusive retirement. There is, however, one motive 

 power in the world which no man, be he a scientific stu- 

 dent or otherwise, can afford to treat with indifference; 

 and that is the cultivation of right relations with his fel- 

 low-men — the performance of his duty, not as an isolated 

 individual, but as a member of society. It is duty in this 

 aspect, overcoming alike the sense of possible danger and 

 the desire for repose, that has placed me in your presence 

 here to-night. 



To look at his picture as a whole, a painter requires 

 distance; and to judge of the total scientific achievement 

 of any age, the standpoint of a succeeding age is desir- 

 able. We may, however, transport ourselves in idea into 

 the future, and thus survey with more or less complete- 

 ness the science of our time. We sometimes hear it de- 

 cried, and contrasted to its disadvantage with the science 

 of other times. I do not think that this will be the ver- 

 dict of posterity. I think, on the contrary, that posterity 

 will acknowledge that in the history of science no higher 

 samples of intellectual conquest are recorded than those 

 which this age has made its own. One of the most salient 

 of these I propose, with your permission, to make the sub- 

 ject of our consideration during the coming hour. 



