Lil PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
cated ; but neither the conflict nor the duplication are necessarily 
wholly evil in themselves, nor in so far as they are evil are they 
necessary parts of the present system. This system is of the nature 
of a growth; it is organic and not a mere pudding-stone aggrega- 
tion of heterogeneous materials, and the wise course is to correct 
improper bendings and twistings gradually, prune judiciously, and 
go slow in trying to secure radical changes lest death or permanent 
deformity result. 
Tt will be seen that in what I have said I have not attempted to 
eulogize science or scientists in the abstract. I should be very 
sorry, however, to have given any one the impression that I think 
they should not be eulogized. Having read a number of eloquent 
tributes to their importance by way of inducing a proper frame of 
mind in which to prepare this address, it is possible that I overdid 
it a little, and was in a sort of reaction stage when I began to write. 
But the more I have thought on the subject, and the more care- 
fully I have sought to analyze the motives and character of those of 
my acquaintances who are either engaged in scientific work or who 
wish to be considered as so doing, and to compare them with those 
who have no pretensions to science, and who make none, the more 
I have been convinced that upon the whole the eulogium is the 
proper thing to give, and that it is not wise to be critical as to the 
true inwardness of all that we see or hear. 
At least nine-tenths of the praises which have been heaped upon 
scientific men as a body are thoroughly well deserved. Among them 
are to be found a very large proportion of true gentlemen, larger, 
I think, than is to be found in any other class of men—men char- 
acterized by modesty, unselfishness, scrupulous honesty, and truth- 
fulness, and by the full performance of their family and social duties. 
Even their foibles may be likable. A little vanity or thirst for 
publicity, zeal in claiming priority of discovery, or undue wrath 
over the other scientist’s theory, does not and should not detract 
from the esteem in which we hold them. A very good way of 
viewing characteristics which we do not like is to bear in mind that 
different parts of the brain have different functions; that all of 
them cannot act at once, and that their tendencies are sometimes 
contradictory. 
There are times when a scientific man does not think scientifically, 
when he does not want to so think, and possibly when it is best that 
he should not so think. There is wisdom in Sam. Lawson’s remark 
