NATURAL SCIENCE 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress 



Ko. 75— Vol. XII— MAY 1898 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 



" Science falsely So-called " 



Not infrequently we receive pamphlets that we ascribe without 

 much hesitation to some hard - worked curate or member of a 

 college essay society, and consign to our rubbish-box with the 

 thought that the young man will grow wiser some day, and 

 'twould be shame to harm him. Of His Grace the Duke of 

 Argyll we cannot be quit so easily : his pen has a commercial 

 value, and what it writes does not meet with speedy oblivion. For 

 the Duke's latest essay — a lecture entitled, " What is Science ? " 

 delivered at the opening of the Literary Society of Inverary, 

 December 23rd, and now published by Mr David Douglas of 

 Edinburgh — we predict a large sale. There is some sound sense 

 in it, with useful warnings against the fallacies that may be in- 

 volved in a loose use of words, and against travesties of scientific 

 conceptions ; but so far as its treatment of actual scientific con- 

 ceptions is concerned, it is little advanced beyond the usual college 

 essay. We have all of us written plenty of this kind of thing, and 

 we have all of us wondered why scientific workers were so con- 

 temptuous of it — pig-headed, short-sighted pedants that they were ! 

 Now we ourselves are of the practical pigheads ; we are doing de- 

 finite work in science, and our college essays are thrown aside with 

 the poetry that we have also all written in our springtime.. But 

 the Duke of Argyll — should we not honour him for it ? — retains 

 all the rashness and verdure of youth, and, despite his own solemn 

 warning, still serves up travesties of scientiiic conceptions and 

 beliefs that we had thought outworn. 



After the ' flower in the crannied wall ' has been dragged forth 

 for the usual purpose, we find some curious remarks on Linnaeus, 

 who, we are told, " invented what is called the Binomial system of 

 classification for the organic world. . . . This system . , . has been 

 found to be so truly representative of the facts of Nature that it 

 has been universally adopted by scientific men all over the world." 



X 289 



