878 BIOLOGICAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 



itself not bein^, Von Baer says, German either. I am happy not 

 to be able to find an exact equivalent for this word in any single 

 English vocable ; the opposite quality shows itself in facing 

 conscientiously ' the drudgery of details, without which drudgery,' 

 Dr. Temple tells us (* Nine Schools Commission Report,' vol. ii. 

 p. 311), 'nothing worth doing was ever yet done.' Mr. Mill, I 

 would add, speaks to the same effect, and even more appositely, as 

 far as our purpose and our vocations are concerned, in his wise 

 ' Inaugural Address at St. Andrews,' p. 50. For the utter incom- 

 patibility of an aTaAaiTTCdpoj f^rj^o-t? (these two words give a Thucy- 

 didean rendering of ' Ungenirtheit ') with the successful investigation 

 of natural problems, I would refer any man of thought, even though 

 he be not a biologist, to a consideration of the way in which 

 problems as simple at first sight as the question of the feeding or 

 non-feeding of the salmon in fresh water (see Dr. Mcintosh, ' Linn. 

 Soc. Proc' vii. p. 148), or that of the agencies whereby certain 

 molluscs and annelids bore their way into wood, clay, or rocks, 

 must be investigated. It is easy to gather from such a considera- 

 tion how severe are the requirements made by natural science 

 investigations upon the liveliness and continuousness with which 

 we must keep our faculty of attention at work. 



I shall speak of but one of the many purely moral benefits which 

 may be reasonably regarded either as the fruit of a devotion to or 

 as a preliminary to success in natural science. Of this I will speak 

 in the words of Helm hoi tz, taking those words from a report of 

 them as spoken at the meeting of the German Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, which was held last year at Innsbruck. 

 There Professor Helmholtz, in speaking of the distinctive charac- 

 teristics of German scientific men, and of their truthfulness in 

 particular, is reported to have used the following words : — 



* Es hat diesen Vorzug auch wesentlich zu verdanken der Sittenstrenge und der 

 uneigennutzige Begeisierung welche die Manner der Wissenschaft beherrscht und 

 beseelt hat, und welche sie nicht gekehrt hat an aussere Vortheile und gesellschaft- 

 liche Meinungen.' 



These words are, I think, to the effect that the characteristics in 

 question are in reality to be ascribed to the severe simplicity of 

 manners and to the absence of a spirit of self-seeking which form the 

 guiding and inspiring principles of their men of science, and 

 prevent them from giving themselves up to the pursuit of mere 



