DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



95 



shown how this can be done. But I do 

 not think that he has established the 

 superiority of Thucydides and Tacitus 

 over modern historians. Their work may 

 excel in conciseness and proportion, but 

 that of the moderns has a more than 

 compensatory advantage in deeper in- 

 sight and clearer exposition. Partisans 

 of either may fail to see that the shield 

 is silver on one side and gold on the 

 other; or, seeing this, they may fail to 

 agree as to which is the golden side. 

 "Let every man be fully persuaded in 

 his own mind." 



George P. Garrison. 

 University of Texas. 



THE RETARDATION OF SCIENCE. 



We hear a good deal about the ad- 

 vancement of science. There are huge 

 associations which make it the object 

 of their existence; there are universi- 

 ties, colleges, societies, museums, in- 

 stitutes and laboratories which reckon 

 this as at least one of their aims; and 

 the individual scientific workers, even 

 those who look upon science as 



"The milch-cow of the field, 

 Their only care to calculate how much 

 butter she will yield" — 



Even they, we say, profess to regard 

 science as 'the goddess great,' and base 

 their claim to honor on the service they 

 have rendered to her. And, at this 

 turning year of time, as we indulge in 

 self-complaisant retrospect, we boast 

 that, as a result of all this, science 

 really has advanced. Contradictions, 

 inconsistencies, harkings back: these 

 we frankly admit; but the shattered 

 theories line an onward path, and the 

 discovered errors are lamps on the way 

 of truth. We do well to rejoice; but 

 we shall not do ill to look also at the 

 other side of the shield. Might we not 

 be advancing more rapidly, surely and 

 easily? Are there not opposing forces 

 which combine to effect the retarda- 

 tion of science? 



Space need not be occupied by in- 

 sisting on the inertia of governments, 

 composed of ministerialists rather than 



statesmen on the lethargy and igno- 

 rance of the mass of people; on the 

 curse of Babel, or on any such obvious 

 hindrances to progress. But every 

 scientific student knows that many of 

 the difficulties in his way have no ne- 

 cessity in the nature of things, and 

 that many of them are raised by scien- 

 tific men themselves. We expect to 

 meet with difficulties when we read 

 a foreign language, but we resent hav- 

 ing to ferret out an author's meaning 

 when he publishes in our own tongue. 

 This is what one has to do too often, 

 for a vast number, if not the majority, 

 of scientific men write abominably. It 

 is all very well for the chemist in a 

 factory, or the electrician to a lighting 

 company, to be careless about the parts 

 of speech ; it hurts no one except himself 

 and his employer. But for the student 

 who makes researches in pure science, 

 the case is altered. The object of the 

 former is to earn his daily bread, and 

 the sooner the better; the object — pro- 

 fessed, at least — of the latter is to en- 

 lighten the world. A man may be a 

 profound investigator, and may pene- 

 trate far into the mystery of the un- 

 known, but if he cannot give an in- 

 telligible report to his colleagues, his 

 travels in the undiscovered country will 

 be disregarded. Worse than this, his 

 fellow-workers waste valuable time in 

 trying to read his riddles or very likely 

 are led astray by his bungling presen- 

 tation of veritable facts, and so science 

 is retarded. 



We do not propose to arouse the 

 anger of our scientific friends by quot- 

 ing elegant extracts from their writings 

 to support our contention. We pass 

 over the phraseology, to consider the 

 general plan and the details of the ar- 

 rangement. There are, it is true, mas- 

 ters in science who are also masters of 

 method. But they have gained their 

 mastery of the latter, as of the former, 

 in the school of experience. This would 

 be all very well were it not that we 

 others have to suffer during their ap- 

 prenticeship. Their immature essays, 

 with all the faults of a beginner, have 



