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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 843 



tionably tend to lead pure science into 

 disfavor wherever the humanities are more 

 prevalent. This unhappily growing dis- 

 position to finality of statement, forgetting 

 that we are still watching only the first 

 scene of our drama, is, I think, essentially 

 at fault, and we are ourselves largely to 

 blame for an evidently increasing indiffer- 

 ence with which the autocratic theories of 

 science are now received. Nothing fails in 

 our philosophy, there is neither want of 

 majesty or fullness of truth in our objec- 

 tive. But men of science need to mend 

 their manners. 



The vast majority of all our communi- 

 ties to-day are almost wholly abandoned to 

 commercial pursuits. However this truth 

 may be paraphrased, the euphemism of 

 "making a living" applies to the absorbing 

 share of human activities, instigates the 

 volume of our legislation, controls our in- 

 ternational relations, impregnates con- 

 ceptions of the conservation of natural re- 

 sources and lies at the base of all the 

 comforts and conveniences of life which we 

 now enjoy in unparalleled measure. Com- 

 merce has been the advance agent of civili- 

 zation, has reduced the wilderness to an 

 Hesperidean garden, is the seat and source 

 of power of one over another, whether of 

 individual, state or nation. To the ad- 

 vance of commerce both science and art are 

 under tribute, but to the commercial spirit 

 itself the human world owes no good thing, 

 no higher thinking, no advance of vital 

 truth, certainly no ethical progress. It is, 

 like the lust of blood, a primitive impulse 

 which still overpowers the race and it gives 

 the reflecting man some notion of how 

 short is the way he has traveled toward 

 excellence and how long the road that lies 

 ahead. "Science," says a recent writer, 

 "means service." That is applied science 

 in its relation to the state, and it is well. 

 But "science" has a profounder phi- 



losophy and blessed it is for humanity that 

 the scientific ideal is sometimes wholly su- 

 preme and the achievement wholly inci- 

 dental. 



Experience and observation have deeply 

 impressed me with the conviction that the 

 most subtle intellect in our communities is 

 that of the lawyer. I use the term only in 

 its broadest and best sense. Trained to 

 precise and consecutive thinking, averse to 

 conclusions without full substantiation in 

 fact or precedent, dealing with, at the bar, 

 but perhaps, abhorring from the bench, 

 hypotheses and reasonable presumptions, 

 skilled in holding judgment in reserve and 

 averse to dogmatic statement, the very in- 

 tellectual practises which have effected 

 these traits have helped to evolve a mental 

 machine of extraordinarily delicate caliber 

 and accurate register. 



I can conceive of no finer training for a 

 scholar of pure science than a course in the 

 precedents and procedure of the law, if not 

 carried too far, or if not that at least such 

 intimate personal association with mem- 

 bers of the legal profession as will help to 

 irrigate the method of the scientific man 

 with the mental prudence and reserve of 

 the lawyer. Such a training would be bet- 

 ter than Greek. The body of men that 

 constitute the tribunals and the advocates 

 in any country are the most influential ele- 

 ment in conserving its culture. They are 

 an anchor to windward. For human so- 

 ciety they perform a function comparable 

 only to that of the conservative mother in 

 humanity; they ensure the perpetuation of 

 the type. 



But the lawyer is a dead wall to the 

 progress of scientiflc truth. Deference to 

 the common law, allegiance to the statute 

 law, seem to have developed in him, both 

 by training and association of ideas into 

 the essentials of an instinct. We will not 

 assume that the shortcomings of the con- 



