THE ENDOWMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 359 



concerned, what may be called the literature of science. And here, I 

 must confess, I do not share the opinion which has been expressed by 

 some, that the purely scientific qualities must suffer in proportion as 

 the expositional power is exercised. The habit of exposition devel- 

 oped by an educational calling may, indeed, as Mr. Appleton has 

 remarked, "have a tendency to bring into prominence the element of 

 form and phrase rather than that of substance," ^y, by an educational 

 calling, we understand the routine of the class-room. Going continu- 

 ally over the same ground, the class-teacher must of necessity be un- 

 able to advance. But so far as the literature of science is concerned, 

 even though the most elementary and popular forms of scientific liter- 

 ature be in question, this need not happen. The assertion that "the 

 growth of the popular and rhetorical element die phrase in der Wis- 

 senschaft is almost always a symptom that the work of investigation 

 is standing still," is not justified by facts. The most fruitful of our 

 scientific workers are also those who have succeeded best in scientific 

 literature. Sir J. Herschel, Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, 

 Grove, Lubbock, Tylor, Owen, Carpenter, Wallace: these are some 

 among the men who have done most for the literatui-e of science. 

 They have not been checked in original research by the time devoted 

 to such literature. Nay, I believe that every one of them would 

 tell us that the hours so employed were among those most fruitful 

 in suggestive thought, and therefore (by no means indirectly) in the 

 advancement of original research. It appears to me and here I speak 

 to some degree from my own experience that to write out a clear 

 account of the results obtained during scientific work is so useful an 

 exercise, that, apart from all question of the utility of popular treatises 

 on science, the scientific worker should adopt the practice for his own 

 sake. I feel sure that certain crude theories, which have been main- 

 tained by some who pride themselves most on avoiding the popular 

 and rhetorical element, would have been abandoned had they been 

 submitted to this process.* For my own part, however, I attach so 

 much importance to the extension of sound scientific knowledge so 

 much more importance to this, I will even say, than to the results of 

 the scientific researches of any man, or even of any body of men that 

 I regard as most earnestly to be deprecated all attempts to deprive 

 our people of the literary services of those alone who can write effec- 



' Prof, Tyndall was, on one occasion, berated and underrated for one of his most use- 

 ful treatises, by an opponent of rhetoric, a skillful mathematician, who had advanced a 

 theory about comets which would have crumbled into nothing under the test of popu- 

 larization. To popularize a theory one must present it clearly, and therefore one must 

 conceive it clearly. (Boileau said well, " Ce que Ton con9oit bien s'enonce clairement.") 

 But, to conceive a theory clearly, one must view it in so many aspects that, if it has any 

 flaws, they are almost certain to be recognized. I believe every successful popularizer 

 of science must have had this experience that a theory which had seemed satisfactory 

 under ordinary scientific tests has been found wanting when he has endeavored not only 

 to describe the theory itself clearly, but also the arguments for and against it. 



