NATURAL SCIENCE 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No 1 Vol. I. MARCH 1892. 



INTRODUCTION. 



N a comparison of the position of Science to-day with 

 that which it held fifty years ago, one is apt to be 

 so dazzled by the brilliance of the progress as to 

 overlook the fact that the advance has not been 

 unaccompanied by certain tendencies which are now 

 a stumbling block, and threaten even greater trouble in the future. 

 Half a century ago, scientific research was almost entirely in the 

 hands of amateurs — independent workers, as Humboldt, Darwin, 

 Lyell, Murchison, Hugh Miller, Waterton, and others — men 

 possessed of wide experience of affairs, who carried into scientific 

 investigation the broad grasp of general principles, and the sound 

 judgment gained by contact with the intricate problems of the 

 world of work and business. Since then, there has been a great 

 change, mainly wrought by the very rapidity of the progress. The 

 more rigorous accuracy demanded in scientific work, the necessity 

 of a knowledge, of at least three or four modern languages, and 

 the enormous increase in periodical literature, have combined to 

 discourage amateurs and to encourage the growth of specialisation, 

 with a consequent development of professionalism. This tendency 

 was, at first, strongly resisted, and The Natural History Review, with 

 other serials such as The Intellectual Observer, The Popular Science 

 Review, and The Quarterly Journal of Science, strove to proclaim 

 the latest results of scientific enquiry. The last of this group of 

 publications, however, has been discontinued, and for some time 

 no adequate systematic attempt has since been made in Britain to 

 interpret simply, and without excessive technicalities, the main 

 results of contemporary work in Natural Science to those who try 

 to follow the general progress of modern thought. 



