Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/541

Rh conscientious labor for the advancement of knowledge and the intellectual elevation of mankind. I would rather point to that far greater multitude who worked in faith for the love of knowledge, and who ennobled themselves and ennobled their nation, not because they added to its material prosperity, but because they made themselves and made their fellows more noble men.

I come back now again to the moral of all this, to urge upon you, as the noblest patriotism and the most enlightened self-interest the duty of striving for yourselves and encouraging in others the highest culture in the studies you have chosen, and this culture with one end in view to advance knowledge. I am far, of course, from advising you to grapple immaturely with unsolved problems, or, when you have gained the knowledge with which you can dare to venture from the beaten track, to undertake work beyond your power. Many a young scientific man has suffered the fate of Icarus in attempting to soar too high. Moreover, I am far from expecting that all or many of you will ever have the opportunity of going beyond the well-explored fields of knowledge; but you can all have the aim, and that aim will make your work more worthy and more profitable to yourselves. Every American boy cannot be President of the United States, but if, as our English cousins allege, he believes that he can be, the very belief makes him an abler man.

We have dwelt long enough on these generalities, and it is time to come down to commonplaces, and to inquire what are the essential conditions of this scientific culture which shall fit us to investigate Nature; and the first thought that occurs to me in this connection may be expressed thus: Science presents to us two aspects, which I may call its objective and its subjective aspect. Objectively it is a body of facts, which we have to observe, and subjectively it is a body of truths, conclusions, or inferences, deduced from these facts; and the two sides of the subject should always be kept in view. I propose next to say a few words in regard to each of these two aspects of our study, and in regard to the best means of training our faculties so as to work successfully in each sphere. First, then, success in the observation of phenomena implies three qualities at least, namely, quickness and sharpness of perception, accuracy in details, and truthfulness; and on its power to cultivate these qualities a large part of the value of science, as a means of education, depends. To begin with the cultivation of our perceptions. We are all gifted with senses, but how few of us use them to the best advantage! "We have eyes and see not;" for, although the light paints the picture on the retina, our dull perceptions give no attention to the details, and we retain only a confused impression of what has passed before our eyes. "But how," you may ask, "are we to cultivate this sharpness of perception?" I answer, only by making a conscious effort to fix our attention on the objects we study, until the habit becomes a second nature. I have often noticed,