Chapter I: Preface

The papers which make up this volume have been selected because, although they deal with different aspects of various scientific ideas, yet they do illustrate, more or less, one point of view. That point of view may be described, perhaps as æsthetic, but rather better as humanistic. Scientific ideas have a history; they arose to satisfy certain human needs; to see them in their context is to see them as part of the general intellectual and emotional life of man. What they exist to do they do better than does anything else, and the needs they satisfy are not peculiar to scientific specialists. These papers try to show one or two of the many reasons why, for people who are not specialists as well as for those who are, science may be interesting.

J. W. N. SULLIVAN.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE 9

A PHYSICIST ON PHYSICS 23

SCIENCE AND CULTURE 36

JAMES CLERK MAXWELL 41

ASSUMPTIONS 49

ON LEARNING SCIENCE 72

THE ENTENTE CORDIALE 77

POPULAR SCIENCE 82

PATIENT PLODDERS 89

THE AMATEUR ASTRONOMER 95

SCIENTIFIC CITIZENS 100

THE SCEPTIC AND THE SPIRITS 105

THE SCIENTIFIC MIND 112

THE SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION 116

THEORIES AND PERSONALITIES 122

THE IDEAL SCIENTIFIC MAN 128

PARALLEL STRAIGHT LINES 133

THE NEW SCIENTIFIC HORIZON 139

THE HOPE OF SCIENCE 145

THE RETURN OF MYSTERY 151

MATHEMATICS AND MUSIC 159

HUMAN TESTIMONY 177

THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE