December i, 1898] 



NATURE 



rain, the flow of brook and river, the changes of the seasons, the 

 succession of calm and storm, do not pass before your eyes now 

 as they once did While they minister to the joy of life, they 

 speak to you of that all-embracing system of process and law 

 that governs the world. The wayside flower is no longer to 

 your eyes merely a thing of beauty. Vou have found it to be 

 that ami far inore — an exquisite organism in which the several 

 parts are admirably designed to promote the growth of the 

 plant and to perpetuate the life of the species. Every insect 

 and bird is now to you an embodiment of the mystery of life. 

 The forces of nature, once so dark and so dreaded, are now 

 seen by you to be intelligible, orderly and capable of adaptation 

 to the purposes of man. In the physical and chemical labor- 

 atories you have been brought into personal contact with these 

 forces, and have learnt to direct their operations, as you have 

 watched the manifold efl^ects of energy on the infinite varieties 

 of matter. 



When you have completed your course of study and leave this 

 College, crowned, I hope, with academic distinction, there will 

 be your future career in life to choose and follow. A small 

 number among you may, perhaps, be so circumstanced as to be 

 able to devote yourselves entirely to original scientific research, 

 selecting such branches of inquiry as may have specially 

 interested you here, and giving up your whole time and energy 

 to investigation. A much larger number will, no doubt, enter 

 professions where a scientific training can be turned to practical 

 account, and you may become engineers, chemists, or medical 

 men. But in the struggle for existence, which every year grows 

 keener amongst us, these professions are more and more 

 crowded, so that a large proportion of your ranks may not 

 succeed in finding places there, and may in the end be pushed 

 into walks in life where there may be little or no opportunity 

 for making much practical use of the knowledge in science which 

 you have gained here. To those who may ultimately be thus 

 situated it will always be of advantage to have had the mental 

 training given in this Institution, and it will probably be your own 

 fault if, even under unfavourable conditions, you do not find, 

 from time to time, chances of turning your scientfic acquire- 

 ments to account. Your indebtedness to your professors 

 demands that you shall make the effort, and, for the credit of the 

 College, you are bound to do your best. 



Among the mental habits which your education in science has 

 helped to foster, there are a few which I would specially 

 commend to your attention as worthy of your most sedulous 

 care all through life. 



In the first place, I would put Accuracy. You have learnt in 

 the laboratory how absolutely essential this condition is for scien- 

 tific investigation. We are all supposed to make the ascertain- 

 ment of the truth our chief aim, but we do not all take the same 

 trouble to attain it. Accuracy involves labour, and every man 

 is not gifted with an infinite capacity for taking pains. Inexact- 

 ness of observation is sure sooner or later to be detected, and to 

 be visited on the head of the man who commits it. If his observ- 

 ations are incorrect, the conclusions he has drawn from them may 

 be vitiated. Thus all the toil he has endured in a research may 

 be rendered of no avail, and the reputation he might have 

 gained is not only lost but replaced by discredit. It is quite 

 true that absolute accuracy is often unattainable ; you can only 

 approach it. But the greater the exertion you make to reach it, 

 the greater will be the success of your investigations. The 

 effort after accuracy will be transferred from your scientific 

 work to your everyday life and become a habit of mind, 

 advantageous both to yourselves and to society at large. 



In the next place, I would set Thoroughness, which is closely 

 akin to accuracy. Again, your training here has shown you 

 how needful it is in scientific research to adopt thorough and 

 exhaustive methods of procedure. The conditions to be taken 

 into account are so numerous and complex, the possible com- 

 binations so manifold, befoie a satisfactory conclusion can be 

 reached. A laborious collection of facts must be made. Each 

 supposed fact must be sifted out and weighed. The evidence 

 niiist be gone over again and yet again, each link in its chain 

 being scrupulously tested. The deduction to which the 

 evidence may seem to point must be closely and impartially 

 scrutinised, every other conceivable explanation of the facts 

 being frankly and fully considered. Obviously the man whose 

 education has inured him to the cultivation of a mental habit of 

 this kind is admirably equipped for success in any walk in life 

 which he may be called upon to enter. The accuracy and 

 thoroughness which you have learnt to appreciate and practise 

 at College must never be dropped in later years. Carry them 

 NO. I 5 18, VOL. 59] 



with you as watchwonls, and make them characteristic of all 

 your undertakings. 



In the third place, we may take Breadth. At the outset of 

 your scientific education you were doubtless profoundly im- 

 pressed by the multiplicity of detail which met your eye in 

 every department of natural knowledge. When you entered 

 upon the study of one of these departments, you felt, perhaps, 

 almost overpowered and bewildered by the vast mass of facts 

 with which you had to make acquaintance. And yet as your 

 training advanced, you gradually came to see that the infinite 

 variety of phenomena could all be marshalled, according to 

 definite laws, into groups and series. You were led to look 

 beyond the details to the great principles that underlie them 

 and bind them into a harmonious and organic whole. With 

 the help of a guiding system of classification, you were able to 

 see the connection between the separate facts, to arrange them 

 according to their mutual relations, and thus to ascend to the 

 great general laws under which the material world has been 

 constructed. With all attainable thoroughness in the mastery 

 of detail, you have been taught to combine a breadth of treat- 

 ment which enables you to find and keep a leading clue even 

 through the midst of what might seem a tangled web of con- 

 fusion. There are some men who cannot see the wood for the 

 trees, and who consequently can never attain great success in 

 scientific investigation. Let it be your aim to master fully the 

 details of the tree, and yet to maintain such a breadth of vision 

 as will enable you to embrace the whole forest within your ken. 

 I need not enlarge on the practical value of this mental habit in 

 every-day life, nor point out the excellent manner in which a 

 scientific education tends to develop it. 



In the fourth place, I would inculcate the habit of wide 

 Reading in scientific literature. Although the progress of 

 science is now too rapid for any man to keep pace with the 

 advance of all its departments, you should try to hold yourselves 

 in touch with at least the main results arrived at in other 

 branches than your own ; while, in that branch itself, it should 

 be your constant aim to watch every onward step that is taken 

 by others, and not to fall behind the van. This task you will 

 find to be no light one. Even were it confined to a survey of 

 the march of science in your own country, it would be arduous 

 enough to engage much of your time. But science belongs to 

 no country, and continues its onward advance all over the 

 globe. If you would keep yourselves informed regarding this 

 progress in other countries, as you are bound to do if you 

 would not willingly be left behind, you will need to follow the 

 scientific literature of those countries. You must be able to read 

 at least French and German. You will find in these languages 

 a vast amount of scientific work relating to your own department, 

 and to this accumulated pile of published material the journals 

 of every month continue to aild. In many ways it is a misfortune 

 that the literature of science increases so fast ; but we must take 

 the evil with the good. Practice will eventually enable you to 

 form a shrewd judgment as to which authors or papers you may 

 skip without serious danger of losing any valuable fact or useful 

 suggestion. 



In the fifth place, let me plead for the virtue of Patience. In 

 a scientific career we encounter two dangers, for the avoidance 

 of which patience is our best support and guide. When life is 

 young and enthusiasm is boundless ; when from the details 

 which we may have laboriously gathered together we seem to 

 catch sight of some new fact or principle, some .addition of more 

 or less importance to the sum of human knowledge, there may 

 come upon us the eager desire to make our discovery know n. 

 We may long to be allowed to add our own little stone to the 

 growing temple of science. We may think of the pride with 

 which we should see our names enrolled among those of the 

 illustrious builders by whom this temple has been slowly reared 

 since the infancy of mankind. So we commit our observations 

 to writing, and send them for publication. Eventually we 

 obtain the deep gratification of appearing in print among well- 

 known authors in science. Far be it from me to condemn this 

 natural desire for publicity. But, as your experience grows, you 

 will probably come to agree with me that if the desire were more 

 frequently and energetically curbed, scientific literature would 

 gain much thereby. There is amongst us far too much hurry in 

 publication. We are so afraid lest our observations or dcduc- 

 tijns should be forestalled— so anxious not to lose our claim to 

 priority, that we rush before the world, often with a half- 

 finished performance, which must be corrected, supplemented, 

 or cancelled by some later communication. It is this feverish 

 haste which is largely answerable for the mass of jejune, ill- 



