June 23, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



953 



crease in its consumption, we must still 

 admit that the burning of coal is a mere 

 incident in human history. It seems to 

 me that it is the duty of thinking people to 

 begin to think about such things. Why 

 should they be left to those who are con- 

 tinually planning to perfect and legalize 

 schemes of public robbery ? The people of 

 the country are waitiag for leaders, who 

 have been trained in methods of careful 

 and logical thinking, who not only are not 

 for sale, but who can not be bought, and 

 who are not afraid. 



There are other duties which are de- 

 manded of thinking men. It is evident 

 that the honest public needs light on many 

 questions which are of vital interest to all. 

 It is possible to fool nearly half of the 

 people, nearly all of the time. For ex- 

 ample, there are many well-meaniag people 

 to whom it would never occur that the 

 citizens of Missouri need protection against 

 Iowa, or Arkansas, who can be made to 

 believe that the people of the United States 

 need protection against Canada, or Ger- 

 many or England. 



What we do need protection against, 

 first of all, is organized systems of bribery 

 and public robbery. 



I know of men who have given attention 

 to such public matters, who have engaged 

 in a successful private business, and who 

 among a wholly different class of men are 

 regarded as authorities in some branch of 

 scholarly or scientific work. The man who 

 has scholarly tastes, the man who appre- 

 ciates the value of those things which 

 money can not buy, is not likely to be 

 dominated by the insane greed which seems 

 to have taken possession of such a large 

 class of our citizens. He may appreciate 

 the approval and gratitude of those whom 

 he has helped, and to whom his life has 

 been an inspiration. He is not dominated 

 by a desire to attract attention. Certainly 



he will not seek to attract attention by 

 spectacular or ostentatious waste of iU-got- 

 ten gains. 



Perhaps we should not be far from the 

 truth if we lay down as a fundamental 

 axiom, that men's lives are guided by a 

 desire to secure personal enjoyment or 

 pleasure. The differences between men 

 arise when we observe from their behavior, 

 what it is that gives pleasure to them. 

 Some wiU undergo hardships and distress, 

 for the joy of attaining a worthy end. 

 Some will spend their earnings for the 

 pleasure of a midnight carouse. The 

 searcher for the unknown ia nature will 

 spend years of labor and mental toil, in 

 the hope that he may feel the joy of finally 

 adding his mite to the store of knowledge 

 which his predecessors have given to the 

 world. Such work as this is often attended 

 with a feeling which might properly be 

 called mental distress. 



In the twenty-fourth series of his "Ex- 

 perimental Researches" Faraday describes 

 many tedious and intricate experiments in 

 which he sought to discover some relation 

 between electrical action and gravitation. 

 As his biographer tells us, "He labored 

 with characteristic energy for days, on the 

 clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament 

 and in the shot-tower of Southward, rais- 

 ing and lowering heavy weights connected 

 with wire coils." Many times his results 

 appeared for a time to furnish conclusive 

 proof of his assumption. Then came a 

 period of self criticism, and of doubt, and 

 when the final end was reached, there re- 

 mained absolutely no result. As Faraday 

 described his mental condition, "Occasion- 

 ally, and frequently, the exercise of the 

 judgment ought to end in absolute reser- 

 vation. We are not infallible, and so we 

 ought to be cautious." On another occa- 

 sion he said: 



