August 28, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



171 



which will not work; costly expeditions for discovery, 

 frozen fast and abandoned in the polar ice. 



A certain temperance in science is obligatory from 

 another point of view. As mere wealth of posses- 

 sions cannot guarantee happiness, neither can a 

 superfluity of learning insure wisdom. When the 

 body from overfeeding grows plethoric its vital ener- 

 gies subside and its life is endangered. The intellect 

 may be mischievously crammed with science. How 

 much we know is not the best question, but how we 

 got what we know, and what we can do with it; and, 

 above all, what it has made of us. The tendency 

 of training now is to subordinate the soul to that 

 which should be merely its endowment and adorn- 

 ment ; to turn the thinker into a mere walking ency- 

 clopedia, text-book, or circle of the mechanic arts; 

 not to produce the highest type of man. Wliat ridic- 

 ulous and pitiable creations are these ! — an author- 

 ity in physics who cannot speak the truth? a leader 

 in natural history who is given over to the torments 

 of envy? a god in chemical research sick of some 

 false quotation? a youthful prodigy of mathematical 

 science tottering with unelastic steps and outstretched 

 arms to grasp his future fame ? Yet no one will 

 deny that the intemperate pursuit of any branch of 

 science has a tendency to produce such characters, 

 by elevating to undue importance the individual ac- 

 cumulation of scientific facts and scientific theories, 

 to the neglect and depreciation of that spirit of truth 

 which alone can inspire and justify an earnest study 

 of the material universe. 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 intel- 

 lectual death, and that only by breathing its purest 

 spirit can the man of science keep his better character 

 alive, — that indefinable spirit which, in its intimate 

 and essential nature, has little to do with the number 

 of facts discovered, or tlieories accepted; a spirit 

 which merely exercises itself in research, and accepts 

 discoveries as delightful accidents; a spirit which 

 walks the paths of science, not as if they were turn- 

 pikes converging upon some smoky and squalid focus 

 of toil-wearied population, but as if they had been 

 gravelled and flower-bordered for it through some 

 princely park ; a spirit of natural and cultivated noble- 

 ness, sweetened by boundless friendship for the world 

 and all that lives therein; just and true to all men 

 worthy or unworthy, proud without vanity, indus- 

 trious without haste, stating its own griefs as lightly 

 as an angel might, and generously bringing help to the 

 discouraged and forlorn. In every one of us there is 

 this genius, if we did but know it; and, as Emerson 

 well says, the moral is the measure of its health. 



I have been saying, then, that we should pursue 

 science, like any other business of this life, with a dis- 

 tinct and unwaveiing intention to ennoble our own 

 characters. It were a trite addition to propose that the 

 pursuit be made ancillary to the public good. ' The 

 love of science ' is a phrase which has been greatly 

 glorified in popular discourse; and if the phrase be 

 confined to its true meaning, — a zealous admiration 

 for all that is beautifully true and useful in nature, — 

 it cannot harm us in the practice of our profession. 



But when the imagination lias exhausted itself in 

 transcendental ecstasies over an ethereal sentiment so 

 named, but undescribed except in poetry, what wiser 

 or better thing can we say of any branch of physical 

 or natural science, cultivated by our association, than 

 that its votaries are knowingly or unknowingly bet- 

 tering the condition and character of mankind? 

 Every advancement in science is, of its own nature, an 

 improvement of the commonwealth. Every success- 

 ful study of the laws of the world we inhabit inevi- 

 tably 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 philanthropy are, therefore, as 

 direct an outcome of science as the lighting of the 

 public streets, or the warming of our homes. Cruelty 

 and shame are products of the night. The daylight 

 is a friend to friendliness. The progress of civiliza- 

 tion and the progress of science are alike typified by 

 the progressively brilliant and general illumination of 

 cities. So, in old times, human sacrifices and piracy 

 ceased wherever the worship of the Tyrian Melcarth 

 yielded place to the philosophy, belles-lettres, and fine 

 arts of the genial and beautiful Delphic Apollo, the 

 civilizer, the far shiner, the sun of Grecian right- 

 eousness, whose initiated became the educators of the 

 modern world. 



And yet these two magic words, 'initiation,' * edu- 

 cation,' have meanings directly the reverse of one 

 another, — the one a going in to learn the secrets of 

 esoteric doctrine, unsafe for publication because im- 

 mature; the other a being led out from ignorance to 

 knowledge, from helplessness to the active perform- 

 ances of life. The idea of universal education is 

 wholly modern ; in fact, a product of the century in 

 which we live. It is democracy in the world of intel- 

 lect. It is the doctrine of equal human rights ap- 

 plied to the possessions of the human brain. It is 

 the apotheosis of common sense. It demands the 

 distribution of knowledge in adequate quantity and 

 quality to all who live and all who are to live upon 

 the earth. How this is to be accomplished, is the 

 greatest of the questions of the day; and it espe- 

 cially concerns us as members of an association for 

 the advancement of science. 



I do not intend to discuss the subject, to define the 

 quantity and quality of knowledge adequate for the 

 various classes of human society, or to propose any 

 plans for its distribution. All I wish to say about it 

 is, that it seems to me nature limits both the respon- 

 sibilities of teachers and the rights of learners more 

 narrowly than is commonly supposed. The parable 

 of the sower is a good reference for explanation. 

 Most of tlie surface of the globe is good for little 

 else than cattle-ranches or sheep-farms; and the large 

 majority of mankind must, in all ages, be satisfied 

 with tlie mere rudiments of learning : what they want 

 is unscholastic wisdom with wliich to fight the fight 

 of life, and they must win it for tliemselves. Only a 

 limited number of persons in any community can 

 acquire wealth of knowledge, and the only tlioughi 



