said, is organized common sense, and men of science are common men
drilled in the ways of common sense. For their life has this feature.
Though in themselves they are no stronger, no better than other men, they
possess a strength which, as I just now urged, is not their own, but is
that of the science whose servants they are. Even in his apprenticeship,
the scientific inquirer, while learning what has been done before his
time, if he learns it aright, so learns it that what is known may serve
him, not only as a vantage-ground whence to push off into the unknown, but
also as a compass to guide him in his course. And when, fitted for his
work, he enters on inquiry itself, what a zealous, anxious guide, what a
strict and, because strict, helpful, schoolmistress does Nature make
herself to him! Under her care every inquiry, whether it bring the
inquirer to a happy issue or seem to end in nought, trains him for the
next effort. She so orders her ways that each act of obedience to her
makes the next act easier for him; and step by step she leads him on
toward that perfect obedience which is complete mastery.

Indeed, when we reflect on the potency of the discipline of scientific
inquiry, we cease to wonder at the progress of scientific knowledge. The
results actually gained seem to fall so far short of what under such
guidance might have been expected to have been gathered in, that we are
fain to conclude that science has called to follow her, for the most part,
the poor in intellect and the wayward in spirit. Had she called to her
service the many acute minds who have wasted their strength struggling in
vain to solve hopeless problems, or who have turned their energies to
things other than the increase of knowledge; had she called to her service
the many just men who have walked straight without the need of a rod to
guide them, how much greater than it has been would have been the progress
of science, and how many false teachings would the world have been spared!
To men of science themselves, when they consider their favored lot, the
achievements of the past should serve, not as a boast, but as a reproach.

If there be any truth in what I have been urging, that the pursuit of
scientific inquiry is itself a training of special potency, giving
strength to the feeble and keeping in the path those who are inclined to
stray, it is obvious that the material gains of science, great as they may
be, do not make up all the good which