Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/253

Rh For these reasons the man of science may be very directly benefited by a study of the great poets, and he will learn thereby how close is the bond between science and art. Yet many still hold the strange idea that the scientist lacks all fancy, as though he could ever explain without the help of it! He who has no gift of imagination has no place in science.

It is by what we call judgment that we measure our hypotheses. This comes in the main from experience, is capable of nurture, and is well characterized as good sense.

In his haste a man may try to run straight through a briar patch, but if he has common sense he will, like the renowned Br'er Rabbit, hunt out some trail; so he will reach the clearing quicker though he can not show so many honorable scars. Herein lies the main value of studying the lives of the masters of thought. Of each man who has markedly advanced knowledge we should make a hero, and humbly try to follow his footsteps by analyzing his methods of work. Indeed, this study of personalities should not be limited to the great, for from every man that we meet we may learn something to help our own working method; that is, we may learn if we try to. Each of us realizes that we can not give a correct estimate of a man's work unless we know his personality, ShakspereShakespeare [sic] always excepted. Therefore to judge of scientific data we can be greatly aided by measuring personalities. It is then suggested, to help us to a sound judgment, to analyze the individualities of others, to see how they came by their results. This is the chief value of all collegial intercourse in seminar and society meetings. A fellow student is often the best of all teachers. And for the same reason it is well worth the time both to study the history of one's subject, that is, the methods and especially motives of its founders, and to read reverently and lovingly classical monographs whether they be now fashinablefashionable [sic] or not. How many of us do actually read Aristotle, Newton and Helmholtz? It is such study that enables us to see modern discoveries in their proper perspective, and restrains us from fancying each mole hill to be a mountain.

Breadth of judgment may be helped by catholicity of interest. Some men seem to do their best by devoting every energy to one problem, seeing nothing outside of it. Their mind is a short-focus lens with consequent penetration, but it can not see the garden for the weeds. It is perhaps more wholesome, however, and it certainly leads to a nicer mental balance, to respect all good endeavor and to try to understand at least the fundamentals of our sister subjects. This indicates the choice of a problem that is not circumscribed, but that leads into an ever-widening field. It further indicates that we should breed acquaintance with subjects quite apart from our own, to see the relations of our work to that of others. Expression of contempt for any