252 the president's address. , 



is that the increase of knowledge has its drawbacks, not perhaps as 

 Solomon said — "He that increaseth knowledge increasetli sorrow ;" 

 but certainly it is an increase of trouble and an increase of worry. 

 Whoever becomes a man of science by profession must know some- 

 thing pretty thoroughly, and this means that he must not only know 

 pretty accurately this or that piece of detailed work ; he must have 

 not only the knowledge of general facts, but must possess the special 

 knowledge also, and be able to guide the one by the other, and to 

 criticise his speculations by his knowledge of detail — this is the only 

 title by which he can sustain his claim. But during the last quarter 

 of a century science has taken to grow in a most portentous and 

 astonishing fashion. I remember the time when it was quite easy 

 for an ordinarily industrious man to keep up with the scientific 

 literature of the period ; if he made himself acquainted with what 

 went on here, and if he read a French or German work now and then, 

 it was enough ; but, at the present day, to keep up with all that 

 goes on, he must be a most industrious man indeed, and if he even 

 tries to keep up with it he must do an amount of reading which is 

 singularly demoralising to his habits of thought. If he wishes to 

 work out any scientific points with accuracy and detail, it must be a 

 very small matter which does not occupy him for months, and need 

 his closest attention, during which time he will be drifting altogether 

 away from the stream of progress of scientific knowledge. This con- 

 stitutes the difficulty — experto crede — the great difficulty of being 

 broad without being shallow, and of being deep without being narrow. 

 Any one who has exceptional qualities of work or method, may per- 

 haps be able to keep creditably abreast with the course of progress, 

 and to do some work of his own besides ; but if he is not so 

 gifted, he has before him one or other of these two unsatisfactory 

 alternatives. 



But you, members of this Club, are in this respect vastly better 

 off, because you can give your attention to any one point which you 

 want to get at the bottom of, and you are not likely to be pulled up 

 by some student in the lecture room who has read the latest thing 

 published, and who expresses surprise that you do not know all 

 about it too. Consequently you can give your attention to your own 

 subject as exclusively as you may desire. I do not mean to say that 

 you do not lose anything, for naturally where you have to deal with 

 the deeper problems you will never come to any good unless you 

 have those principles to guide you ; but, for three-fourths of the 

 problems of microscopy, although you will require neatness and 



