596 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Combining duly the two factors, all the previous irregu- 

 larities disappeared, every result obtained receiving the 

 fullest explanation. On studying the account of this 

 masterly investigation, the words wherewith Pasteur him- 

 self feelingly alludes to the difficulties and dangers of the 

 experimenter's art came home to me with especial force: 

 " J'ai tant de fois eprouve que dans cet art difficile de 

 Fexperimentation les plus habiles bronchent a chaque pas, 

 et que ^interpretation des faits n'est pas moins peril- 

 leuse."* 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



SCIENCE AND MAN.f 



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 being 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 advance is balanced 

 by a partial retreat, every amelioration is associated more 

 or less with deterioration. No great mechanical improve- 

 ment, 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 concentration. 

 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, 

 react to some extent injuriously on the man of science. 

 Their tendency is to break up that concentrativeness which, 

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

 investigator. 



* " Comptes-Rendus," Ixxxiii., p. 177. 



f Presidential Address, delivered before tlie Birmingham and Mid- 

 land Institute, October 1, 1877; with additions. 



