Library 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



CHARACTER OF THE EXPERIMENTALIST. 



THERE seems to be a tendency to believe that, in the 

 present age, the importance of individual genius is less 

 than it formerly was. 



'The individual withers, and the world is more and more.' 



Society, it seems to be supposed, has now assumed so 

 highly developed a form, that wiiat was accomplished in 

 past times by the solitary exertions of a single great 

 intellect, may now be gradually worked out by the united 

 labours of an army of investigators. Just as the combi- 

 nation of well-organized power in a modern army entirely 

 supersedes the single-handed bravery of the mediaeval 

 knight, so we are to believe that the combination of intel- 

 lectual labour has superseded the genius of an Archimedes, 

 a Roger Bacon, or a Newton. So-called original research is 

 now regarded almost as a recognised profession, adopted 

 by hundreds of men, and communicated by a regular 

 system of training. All that we need to secure great 

 additions to our knowledge of nature is the erection of 

 great laboratories, museums, and observatories, and the 

 offering of sufficiently great pecuniary rewards to those 

 who can invent new chemical compounds, or detect new 

 species, or discover new comets. Doubtless this is not 

 the real meaning of the eminent men who are now urging 

 upon Government the elaborate endowment of physical 



