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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 976 



own cup of contemplation is often golden; 

 lie marks that around him there is fierce 

 fighting for cups that are earthen, and 

 largely broken ; and many there are that go 

 thirsting. And, again, the mathematician 

 is as sensitive as others to the marvel of 

 each recurring springtime, when, year by 

 year, our common mother seems to call us 

 so loudly to consider how wonderful she 

 is, and how dependent we are, and he is as 

 curious as to the mysteries of the develop- 

 ment of living things. He can draw in- 

 spiration for his own work, as he views the 

 spectacle of a starry night, and sees 



How the floor of heaven 



Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. 



Each orb, the smallest, in his motion, sings, 



but the song, once so full of dread, how 

 much it owes to the highest refinements of 

 his craft, from at least the time of the Greek 

 devotion to the theory of conic sections; 

 how much, that is, to the harmony that is 

 in the hiunan soul. Yet the mathematician 

 bears to the natural observer something of 

 the relation which the laboratory botanist 

 has come to bear to the field naturalist. 

 Moreover, he is shut off from inquiries 

 which stir the public imagination ; when he 

 looks back the ages over the history of his 

 own subject the confidence of his friends 

 who study heredity and teach eugenics 

 arouses odd feelings in his mind; if he 

 feels the fascination which comes of the im- 

 portance of such inquiries, he is also pre- 

 pared to hear that the subtlety of nature 

 grows with our knowledge of her. Doubt- 

 less, too, he wishes he had some participa- 

 tion in the discovery of the laws of wireless 

 telegraphy, or had something to say in re- 

 gard to the improvement of internal-com- 

 bustion engines or the stability of aero- 

 planes ; it is little compensation to remem- 

 ber, though the mathematical physicist is 

 his most tormenting critic, what those of 

 Ms friends who have the physical instinct 



used to say on the probable development of 

 these things, however well he may recall it. 



But it is not logical to believe that they 

 who are called visionary because of their 

 devotion to creatures of the imagination 

 can be unmoved by these things. Nor is it 

 at all just to assume that they are less con- 

 scious than others of the practical impor- 

 tance of them, or less anxious that they 

 should be vigorously prosecuted. 



Why is it, then, that their systematic 

 study is given to other things, and not of 

 necessity, and in the first instance, to the 

 theory of any of these concrete phenom- 

 ena ? This is the question I try to answer. 

 I can only give my own impression, and 

 doubtless the validity of an answer varies 

 as the accumulation of data, made by ex- 

 perimenters and observers, which remains 

 unutilized at any time. 



The reason, then, is very much the same 

 as that which may lead a man to abstain 

 from piecemeal, indiscriminate charity in 

 order to devote his attention and money to 

 some well-thought-out scheme of reform 

 which seems to have promise of real amelio- 

 ration. One turns away from details and 

 examples, because one thinks that there is 

 promise of fundamental improvement of 

 methods and principles. This is the argu- 

 mentiim ad homineni. But there is more 

 than that. The improvement of general 

 principles is arduous, and if undertaken 

 only with a view to results may be ill-timed 

 and disappointing. But as soon as we con- 

 sciously give ourselves to the study of uni- 

 versal methods for their own sake another 

 phenomenon appears. The mind responds, 

 mastery of the relations of things, hitherto 

 unsuspected, begin to appear on the men- 

 tal horizon. I am well enough aware of the 

 retort to which such a statement is open. 

 But, I say, interpret the fact as you will, 

 our intellectual pleasure in life cometh not 

 by might nor by power — arises, that is, 



