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Essay on Herbert Baxter Adams
It is far more difficult to give a clear and definite idea of the life-work of a man occupied in that general field of knowledge, called the humanities, than it is to present a succinct and precise account of the services of the one whose chosen field falls within the natural or exact sciences.
When we take up the careers of men like Darwin or Rowland, it is possible to give names and dates to great and very definite achievements which have brought fame to them and have pushed forward the boundaries of human knowledge. It is not easy to do this in the case of even the greatest names in the fields of history, philosophy, ethics, economics and politics. It is not a simple matter to tell the story of what the world owes to two of the greatest lights in its history, namely, Plato and Aristotle. Yet it is true that the general character of the civilization which surrounds us and the kind of culture which we enjoy are very largely the product of men whose work cannot be described in an enumeration of events with fixed dates. That which makes life worth living in our world cannot be presented in tabular form and the work of the men of exact science could not be done, and if it could be done, would not be worth while, had not the humanitarians preceded them and did they not in later times work with them. The work of the humanitarians -- if we may be permitted to use that term in this connection -- is pervasive, general and its best features are not tangible in any literal sense.
The character of the work which Dr. Adams accomplished, however, is of such a nature that a fair approximation to accuracy of judgment concerning it can be formed even now and those persons
Another difficulty is the absence of satisfactory criteria. It is, I presume, easy to detect the quack or impostor in physics and chemistry, and even in the general field of biology valuable work is apt to be recognized and duly appreciated in a few years, although it may be quite radical in its character. It is not always so easy to distinguish between a pretender and a great light in the humanities, and in economics and philosophy it may require a generation for the correct evaluation of the best work...................
