Still, let us
recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may
be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be
ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand,
that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of
science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his
labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer
may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a
diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with
hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some
of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording
microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch
a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and
give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest
and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would
probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that
of the observer.
Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men,
unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey
to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the
honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type.
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