12 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 418. 



his introducer knew even a little of these 

 things. 



When I take up a book like the one un- 

 der consideration I am always impelled to 

 ask myself the question, What are atoms? 

 although in studying ordinary books on 

 physical science the question never forcibly 

 occurs to me. In so far as we have any- 

 thing really to do with atoms, I believe 

 they are mere logical constructions. Bacon 

 Ipng ago listed in his quaint way the things 

 which seemed to him most needful for the 

 advancement of learning. Among other 

 things he mentioned 'A New Engine, or 

 a help to the niind corresponding to tools 

 for the hand,' and I think that the great- 

 est achievement of the nineteenth century 

 in the physical sciences is the realization 

 of Bacon's idea in a great body of useful 

 theory. Helmholtz says: 'It is a great 

 advantage for the sure understanding of 

 abstractions if one seeks to make of them 

 the most concrete possible pictures, even 

 when the doing so brings in many an as- 

 sumption that is not exactly necessary.' 

 Just how much of this useful theory is to 

 become the common property of all men it 

 is impossible to say. For the theory is 

 by no means fixed and may not be for a 

 century to come, and no one but the most 

 determined specialist can be expected to 

 appropriate and use the more complex 

 theories which depend upon the keenest 

 mechanical sense, the sharpest algebraic 

 faculty, the strongest geometrical imagin- 

 ation, and the most devoted study; but 

 there is a great and growing body of simple 

 conception and theory which can and does 

 represent to the understanding a vast array 

 of fact. 



This New Engine, as Bacon calls it, is 

 a necessity to every man in so far as its 

 state of perfection and the limited oppor- 

 tunity for education permits, and on these 

 two conditions no one need fear any seri- 



ous clogging of men's minds by it. Many 

 scientists do not, however, fully realize, I 

 think, that the great majority of men do 

 not have and should not have any interest, 

 or at least they should not expend their 

 energies, in those border regions of science 

 where uncertainty and obscurity neces- 

 sarily and prevailingly obtain. The fail- 

 ure of a specialist to realize the remote- 

 ness of his work from legitimate popular 

 interest often results in his endeavor to 

 capture the popular imagination by sensa- 

 tional announcements of which we see only 

 too many examples. The fact is that 

 specialization in science requires a degree 

 of renunciation and to the extent that this 

 requirement is not met by scientists they 

 do a disservice to their fellow men. I 

 believe indeed that no man can do honest 

 and effective work as a specialist and fail 

 to meet this fundamental requirement ; and 

 the disservice that accrues when he at- 

 tempts to evade it is illustrated most dis- 

 tressingly by that would-be electro-scien- 

 tist who has recently telegraphed to Mars! 



A career in which one could come into 

 sympathetic touch with great numbers of 

 men would be very satisfactory to most of 

 us, no doubt, but the career of the scien- 

 tific specialist is not such, and I can not 

 refrain from stating it as my conviction 

 that a sufficiently guarded appropriation 

 of, say, ten per cent, of the income of the 

 Carnegie endowment for furthering the 

 personal intercourse of scientific specialists 

 would be productive of greater results by 

 far than could possibly be effected by the 

 expenditure of the remaining ninety per 

 cent, in any other way whatever. I say 

 this more particularly from the point of 

 view of the western man. 



I think, with President Wilson that 

 scientists have, as a rule, recognized the 

 limitations of their work, and I certainly 

 think, also, that other men err in attribu- 



