But, I hear someone say, these qualities are not the peculiar attributes of the man of science: they may be recognized as belonging to almost everyone who has commanded or deserved success, whatever may have been his walk of life. That is so. That is exactly what I desire to insist, that the men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace. Science, as Huxley 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.