respect and admiration for the scientific investigator. This
feeling is not logical, for very few have ever met or seen a
scientist, fewer still have ever seen the inside of a
scientific laboratory, and hardly any have ever seen scientific
research in the making.

The average man in the street or man of affairs has no very
clear conception of what manner of man a "scientist" may be. No
especial significance attaches in his mind to the term. No
picture of a personality or his work arises in the imagination
when the word "scientist" is pronounced. More or less
indefinitely, I suppose, it is conceded by all that a scientist
is a man of vast erudition (an impression by the way which is
often strikingly incorrect) who leads a dreary life with his
head buried in a book or his eye glued to telescope or
microscope, or perfumed with those disagreeable odors which, as
everybody knows, are inseparably associated with chemicals. The
purpose of this life is not very clear, but doubtless a vague
feeling exists in the minds of most of us that people who are
willing to pursue such an unattractive career must be worthy of
admiration, for despite all the triumphs of commercialism,
humanity still loves idealism, even idealism which seems
objectless because it is incomprehensible.

From time to time the existence of the scientific man is
recalled to the popular mind by some extravagant headlines in
the daily press, announcing some utterly impossible "discovery"
or some extravagantly nonsensical dictum made by an alleged
"scientist." The "discovery" was never made, the dictum never
uttered, but no matter; to-morrow its place will be taken by