The Scottish Naturalist. 51 



among its members." In the following remarks, I shall en- 

 deavour to explain what seem to me to be the best means and 

 directions in which those objects can be carried out. 



The Society has not yet reached that stage when its member- 

 ship can be attained only by distinguished services to science, or 

 by competitive examinations, yet it may not be amiss to point out 

 to actual or intending members that a halo 01 awe and mystery is 

 created in the minds of many people by the use of the terms 

 science, scientific and scientist. While not denying the con- 

 venience of these words, it should be remembered that science 

 simply means knowledge, and that a scientist is one who devotes 

 much of his time to the acquisition of, or it may be to the 

 teaching of, knowledge. It follows conversely that all know- 

 ledge is science, and that all the "logies " are within its domain. 

 A sub-division has, however, come to be made by the use of the 

 somewhat unmeaning term natural science. This term, if I 

 understand it properly, is intended to mean the science or know- 

 ledge of the nature' and properties of matter. It is to this de- 

 partment of knowledge then I imagine we mean to confine our- 

 selves, and by doing so to exclude metaphysics, religion, and poli- 

 tics. You constantly hear people say, " So-and-so is a scientific 

 man," or " He is not a scientific man; he is a practical man." 

 What is meant of course is, that he is not theoretical, but 

 practical — though I am bound to admit that your practical man is 

 often justly qualified by his ignorance to be exempted from the 

 appellation of scientific. Again, you often hear a person say, " I 

 am not a scientific man ! " He means, of course, by this, that he 

 is comparatively ignorant of some branches of knowledge ; but to 

 say that he is not scientific, in the strict sense of the term, implies 

 that he is an utter idiot. Every infant so soon as it can use its 

 senses, begins its science training; and all through life we are 

 striving to acquire knowledge which has for its end the promotion 

 of our happiness and the prolongation of our lives. How much 

 the scientific training and expansion of the human race have been 

 impeded by interested ignorance and superstition, is a matter of 

 history ; and we have only to look back over sixty or seventy 

 years to see what a more correct and extended knowledge of the 

 properties of matter has done to promote human wellbeing. 



It is to this knowledge that we owe the advance that has been 

 made in augmenting the comforts of life, increasing the facilities of 



