360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tively or satisfactorily about science the scientific workers themselves. 

 Too long what has been called the popularization of science has been 

 attempted by anscientific persons. When men like Herschel and 

 Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, and Huxley, undertake the real populariza- 

 tion of science, we have at once the promise and the sign of progress. 

 "But," Mr. Appleton says, "there is not wanting evidence that the 

 popularization of science, in the best and most necessary meaning of 

 the word, is in this country beginning largely to take the j^lace of 

 original study and investigation of truth." Where, however, is this 

 evidence? Mi*. Appleton must have been sorely pressed, when he can 

 only find it in the fact that " in Oxford, where the business of educa- 

 tion has been brought to a pitch of perfection almost unequaled else- 

 where, the actual additions to knowledge that are made, in the course 

 of a generation, in the old traditional studies of Latin and Greek phi- 

 losophy, are, as compared with what is done in Germany, almost 

 inappreciable." I am not concerned to deny this, or even to question 

 it. It is the natural result of old traditional arrangements. But it 

 proves nothing concerning the effect of the popularization of science 

 in the best sense of the word and as distinguished from what is often 

 so called, but might more correctly be termed the vulgarization of 

 science. It seems to me undeniable that the great improvement which 

 has of late taken place in the work of correct scientific exposition has 

 synchronized with a great increase in the amount of fruitful original 

 research. I say simply that the two developments have synchronized; 

 but I am strongly of opinion that they stand to each other in the rela- 

 tion of cause and effect. Not only does it appear to me that our 

 Herschels, Darwins, Huxleys, Tyndalls, and so on, have gained as 

 science workers rather than lost, by their work in popularizing science, 

 but I cannot doubt that the number of science-workers, in the several 

 departments to which their writings relate, has been largely increased 

 by treatises which combine sound science with clear and elegant expo- 

 sition. 



There is another aspect in which the improved scientific literature 

 of our time must be considered. It is unfortunate that modern scien- 

 tific progress necessarily tends to increase the number of specialists. 

 Not only is it impossible for any man to thoroughly master several 

 departments of scientific research, but no man can be thoroughly 

 master of a single science in all its developments. It is absolutely 

 necessary that there should be specialists nay, every real worker in 

 science must be a specialist. But while each science-worker has thus, 

 and should have, his special branch of his own science, it is very 

 desirable that he should also have a correct general view of other 

 sciences. If he ought to know every thing about something, there is 

 no reason why he should not know something about every thing.* It 



' " The specialists," says Wendell Holmes, " are the coral insects that build up a reef. 

 By-and-by, it will be an island, and, for aught we know, may grow into a continent. But 



