The Presidents' Addresses. 27 



other hand, Professor Lesley prefers to speak to the inner 

 circle of scientists as one of themselves, and his address 

 might have been called " The True Temper of the Scientist." 

 The result is that the two addresses cover very different 

 grounds and can hardly be compared together, though each 

 is interesting in a different way. 



The address of the American President cannot fail to 

 strike the reader as being distinctly conservative in tone. 

 He poses as the representative of older scientists to the ris- 

 ing generation, dwelling on the dangers and folly of empiri- 

 cism. ' Do not go too fast ! ' he says, ' Your own character 

 is more important than the construction of new theories. 

 We have too many of these : what we want is solid work 

 and extreme caution.' Character, he insists, should not be 

 sacrificed to science, which is "our means, and not our end. 

 Self-culture is the only real and noble aim of life." There 

 is danger of an over-accumulation of scientific information : 

 " Not only the avarice of facts, but of their explanations 

 also, may end in a wealthy poverty of intellect for which 

 there is no cure. . . . How much we know is not the 

 best question, but how we got at what we know ; and what 

 we can do with it ; and above all what it has made of us. 

 . . . I beg you to reflect that it is as true of science as 

 of religion, that the mere letter of its code threatens its 

 devotee with intellectual death ; and that only by breathing 

 its purest spirit can the man of science keep his better 

 character alive." 



The pursuit of science should be made ancillary to the 

 public good. They are indeed closely connected. " Every 

 advancement in science is of its own nature an improvement 

 of the commonwealth. Every successful study of the laws 

 of the world we inhabit inevitably brings about a more 

 intelligent and victorious conflict with the material evils of 

 life, encouraging thoughtfulness, discouraging superstition, 

 exposing the folly of vice, and putting the multitudes of 

 human society on a fairer and friendlier footing with one 

 another. The arts of philan thro py are therefore as direct 

 an outcome of science as is the lighting of the public 

 streets, or the warming of our homes." 



