522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tube from the other, although he may know on which side his 

 bread is buttered. 



Even the surgeon, whose profession is eminently scientific, is 

 too often shamefully ignorant of the very elements of chemistry, 

 physics, and mechanics, the three general sciences which, together 

 with the trivial science of anatomy, make up the whole of the sci- 

 ence of his profession. 



On the bench the want of scientific culture is painfully con- 

 spicuous. Speaking under correction, I suppose I may go so far 

 as to say that, theoretically, law is founded upon justice ; that it 

 is, at all events, a more or less crude effort toward that rather 

 illusive ideal. As a matter of fact, lawyers will tell you, with 

 beaming countenances, that English law is an inchoate hotch- 

 potch of enactments and precedents, obsolete, imaginary, supple- 

 mentary, and contradictory. In fact, the idea of right is replaced 

 by an indefinite number of rules of an arbitrary character. It is 

 here to be well noted that the study of such arbitrary informa- 

 tion — I will not call it knowledge — has and must have a narrow- 

 ing influence ; it deadens the mind, as it must deaden it, to the 

 perception of principles. Now, the laws of Nature are not parlia- 

 mentary enactments, and a judge, in his questions to witnesses, 

 and in his remarks and summings-up, when scientific matters are 

 before him, often appears at great and painful disadvantage 

 through his efforts to codify Nature. Frequently, indeed, his re- 

 marks, as reported, are the funniest things in a daily paper. Of 

 course, the efforts of the judge are greatly aided by counsel, who 

 are supposed to be able to master any question in any science in 

 twenty minutes. I am ashamed to say how justice is aided by 

 the " scientific experts," generally of third or fourth rate stand- 

 ing in their professions — well, this is also an unpleasant subject. 

 As to the final outcome of the suit, as a court generally reverses 

 the decision of the one below, a great deal depends upon whether 

 there is an odd or even number of courts between the first and 

 the last. But I for one do not want either to ridicule or pity that 

 which should be sober and majestic. And if it is not possible 

 that every judge should have scientific training, it would be surely 

 advisable that one or two should have it, and that causes involv- 

 ing scientific questions should be brought before such alone. 



As it is from the universities that the so-called liberal profes- 

 sions are to a great extent recruited, I am bound to speak a word 

 or two as to the position of science in them. 



Of the teaching of science at the Universities of Oxford and 

 Cambridge I need say but little. The weighty list of names illus- 

 trious in mathematics and astronomy which the latter of these 

 can show, might be considered sufficient to redeem it from the 

 reproach of neglect of scientific culture. But in such an estima- 



