October 31, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



611 



great gift. Fullness of experience Eind 

 broad knowledge of the phenomena of 

 human life on the part of the one — equally 

 broad and comprehensive grasp of the phe- 

 nomena of nature on the part of the other 

 —lead to revelations of otherwise unsus- 

 pected truths. 



We are not without illustrations. It is 

 really quite impressive that when we come 

 to know the lives of geologists intimately, 

 we very often find them expressing them- 

 selves in verse. I doubt not, if we could 

 have access to their notebooks, recorded in 

 the field, we would find many a stanza, in 

 which amid grand scenery the geologist 

 sought to give utterance to the emotions 

 which filled him. Some have actually gone 

 to press. The verses of Perceval, the old- 

 time state geologist of Connecticut and 

 Wisconsin, fill a volume in the works of 

 earlier American writers. Throughout the 

 ' ' Life and Letters of Sir Andrew Eam- 

 sey," the late chief of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Great Britain, we find now a sonnet, 

 again a song, in which his feelings found 

 irrepressible outlet. Only a few years have 

 passed since the late Professor Shaler, the 

 man of great heart and boundless sym- 

 pathies, long in the chair of geology at 

 Harvard, gave us five entire volumes of 

 dramas, reproducing the Elizabethan pe- 

 riod, and all in verse. His thought found 

 metrical expression with great ease and 

 fluency. His geological training, with its 

 broad sympathy with nature, was far from 

 an inappropriate preparation for the task. 

 To come nearer home, we will many of us 

 recall that from the severe mathematical 

 and scientific training of our School of 

 Mines, have come two of the most graceful 

 and appealing of our modern American 

 writers of verse. It is rare that stanzas go 

 so straight to our hearts as do theirs. In- 

 deed, unless the student or investigator of 

 scientific problems has in his composition 



some infusion of the divine fire, his work 

 never rises above the humdrum and the 

 commonplace. He must at times feel his 

 heart burn within him as he walks the ways 

 of his chosen calling. 



Many, as I have mentioned, follow 

 courses of study in the natural sciences 

 from interest in the subjects, but the stu- 

 dent can not do so without a reflex influ- 

 ence upon himself. He is, for example, 

 obliged by the very nature of the pursuit 

 to be accurate, precise and orderly in his 

 thinking. False observations, careless rec- 

 ords or confusion of thought bring no re- 

 sults. Clearness and a remorseless regard 

 for the truth must be all-absorbing. There 

 is and can be no attempt to make the worse 

 appear the better reason; there is no com- 

 plexity of motive; but simple and direct 

 habits of mind must be cultivated. Results 

 are to be reported to others and are certain 

 to be checked in the future. There is there- 

 fore the constant pressure to have them 

 right. An ideal is held before a man which 

 is not without its ethical response. While 

 one can not say that it is always manifested 

 in the lives of scientific men with all the 

 force that we might wish; nor can we say 

 that every one of them is as truthful, direct 

 or accurate as he should be, yet the infiu- 

 ences of his pursuits are strong, even if not 

 altogether transforming. 



The natural sciences, when not pursued 

 as a life-work, exercise in other respects a 

 most wholesome influence. They serve as a 

 change from other work and as a foil to 

 complete absorption in ordinary employ- 

 ments. People in general are too exclu- 

 sively occupied with matters which concern 

 their own kind alone. It becomes easy to 

 regard man as the end and object of the 

 universe, the old conception of the teleolo- 

 gists. The dwellers in crowded cities tend 

 to be concerned solely with human, purely 

 human affairs. Brick-walls and pavements, 



