170 



SCIENCE, 



[YOL. VL, No. 134. 



synclinals en echelon have exercised in originally di- 

 recting, and afterwards perpetually shifting, the sys- 

 tems of river-drainage, as the general surface became 

 lower and lower through erosion; the extraordinary 

 differences in the amount and rate of erosion in dif- 

 ferent parts of the same region, due to the various 

 heights and shapes of the plications, — but a deep 

 sense of insufficiency for properly handling such 

 great subjects deterred me from the attempt. They 

 demand the largest treatment, the fullest illustration, 

 and the long cooperation of many minds. All the 

 great transcendental questions of science remain open 

 to research; not one of them has as yet been answered 

 satisfactorily; all answers have been premature, and 

 most of what has been published for such seems to 

 me puerile ; yet the disposition to deal in transcen- 

 dental science seems to grow daily stronger. There 

 are no laws, however, against initiation into Alpine 

 clubs. If men choose to run fatal risks for notoriety, 

 let them do so, in the name of all that is chilly and 

 unprofitable; but let them not pretend, that, when 

 they reach the summit of some Jungfrau or Matter- 

 horn, their demon of adventure shows them all the 

 kingdoms of the world of science, and the glory of 

 it; for, in fact, the inaccessible sky surrounds them 

 still, and clouds obstruct their vision in every direc- 

 tion. I have no fancy for such mountain-climb- 

 ing, and think lightly of exploits so barren of 

 results. 



I seize the occasion, rather, to awake to your re- 

 membrance some thoughts of common interest, which 

 the multiplying avalanches of facts and theories 

 threaten to bury out of sight, as the pure ice of the 

 glacier gets covered over with a sordid sheet of debris, 

 perpetually tumbling from the cliffs between which 

 it flows. 



Consider, then, first, that the final cause of a 

 glacier is not to carry moraines, lateral or medial; 

 that these are mere accidents of its existence; and 

 that, were it endowed with intelligence, it would feel 

 little interest and less pride in the heterogeneous, 

 variable, and for the most part useless, burden, which 

 it cannot escape, and throws away at the close of its 

 career. Such are the loads of science which we are 

 compelled to carry forward through life, in the forms 

 of fact and theory ; misshapen, accidental droppings 

 upon us from our local surroundings; fragmentary 

 specimens of knowledge, of which we construct our 

 confused and shapeless heaps of learning, most of 

 which is of little use, either to ourselves or to the 

 world. The life of the glacier is an elaboration of 

 the universal moisture into snow, neve, and pure 

 ice, by a slow process of internal constitution; and 

 such is the happy destiny of the true man of science, 

 worked out in wisdom of character, apart from all 

 accidental accumulations of learning, and mainly 

 irrespective of them. 



Let us avoid the sacrifice of character to science. 

 As the saying of Jesus of Nazareth, that the sabbath 

 was made for man, not man for the sabbath, has 

 rung through the centuries, a tocsin of alarm to 

 rouse mankind to resist ecclesiasticism, so let the 

 warning cry fill the air of our association, from meet- 



ing to meeting, that science is our means, and not 

 our end. Self-culture is the only real and noble aim 

 of life. And as the magnificence, beauty, and utility 

 of a glacier, as a perpetual reservoir of solid moisture, 

 is not gauged by the size, arrangement, or constitu- 

 tional features of its moraines, neither is the great- 

 ness and usefulness of the philosopher measured by 

 his amount of the knowledge of the physical fact- 

 and-theory science of the times. 



Of all kinds of intellectual greatness, the greatest 

 is achieved by the philosopher who stands before the 

 thinking world as a model of scientific virtue ; deaf 

 to flattery; insensible to paltry, hostile criticism; 

 patient of opposition; dead to the temptations of 

 self-interest; calmly superior to the misjudgments 

 of the short-sighted ; whom nothing diverts from the 

 endeavor to live nobly, and to whom noble means 

 are as indispensable as noble ends; in whom the 

 most brilliant successes foster neither vanity nor 

 arrogance; to whom fame is unimportant, and pov- 

 erty a trivial circumstance; whose joys, like fragrant 

 breezes from an encircling landscape, come from the 

 surrounding friendship of the general world, to whose 

 best interests the noble heart is forever loyal. 



Another subject for serious reflection is the over- 

 accumulation of scientific information. To broach it 

 before such an assembly may seem to require some 

 apology. Certainly, the feeling prevails, that the 

 world cannot have too much science. But tbe science 

 of learning and the science of knowledge are not 

 quite identical; and learning has too often, in the 

 case of individuals, overwhelmed and smothered to 

 death knowledge. The average human mind, when 

 overstocked with information, acts like a general put 

 in command of an army too large for him to handle. 

 Many a vaulting scientific ambition has been thus 

 disgraced. Nor is this the only danger that we run ; 

 for the accumulation of facts in the treasury of the 

 human brain has a natural tendency to breed an 

 intellectual avarice, a passion for the piling-up of 

 masses of facts, old and new, regardless of their 

 uses. In the great game of our spiritual existence, 

 facts are mere counters with which to play the game. 

 A million of them are worth nothing, unless the player 

 knows how to play well the game ; and when the game 

 is over, the worthless counters are swept back into 

 the drawer. And tbe danger pursues us to higher 

 and higher planes of science. 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. Even the sacred fires of research may be allowed 

 to burn too long, until, in fact, they turn the investi- 

 gator into a mere miser of ideas. As for those who 

 are not themselves original investigators, but busy 

 themselves incessantly in appropriating the secretions 

 of research at second hand, how often it happens that 

 the richest additions of reliable theories to the stock 

 of their ideas, even to a point where they suppose 

 themselves, and are supposed by others, to know all 

 the conclusions arrived at by past and present in- 

 quirers, leave them as thinkers just what they were 

 at first, — incompetents ; mere ill-hung picture-gal- 

 leries; disarranged museums; complicated inventions 



