94 NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



there were some closing thoughts that caught our attention. A strictly 

 scientific paper need not, he says, be without its artistic aspect ; it 

 may " be made as finished a piece of writing as a work of fiction." 

 The qualities demanded are not beauty of phrase and aptness of meta- 

 phor, but lucid language, logical arrangement, and a due subordina- 

 tion of the various observations to the conclusion of the whole. " To 

 strive after such perfection will always repay the trouble to men of 

 science ; for it is the best means of testing whether a chain of reason- 

 ing is faultlessly complete." The popular exposition of science may 

 however, retain the ornamental character of literary art to a greater 

 extent. The literature of knowledge, as a brilliant literary critic of 

 the AihencEum calls it, may for these purposes invoke the artifices of 

 the literature of powder. The modern rush after scientific and tech- 

 nical education has brought with it an aversion to the other aspects 

 of culture ; and the practical pedant of to-day scoffs at literary form 

 as unnecessary, and at the graces of style as " high-falutin." Against 

 this tendency we have always protested, and shall continue to do so. 

 For to see the material world alone is to be blind to one-half of 

 nature. 



But if we would ally Science with Literature, let us at least ask 

 that the friendship be mutual ; for so then will be the benefits. 

 " Everyone," writes Sir Mountstuart Grant-DufF, " must be conscious 

 of the curious effort in much modern writing to supply the absence 

 of fresh facts and ideas, by saying old things in a new and much more 

 difficult way. For a moment the strange contortions of the writer 

 attract our attention ; but it is presently found that his performance 

 is a mere acrobatic feat, proving nothing more than the presence of a 

 certain cleverness. The mind of the reader is neither enriched nor 

 soothed. There is but one remedy, and that is to greatly increase 

 the number of facts with which literature deals." The new facts 

 with which Literature is called upon to enrich her store are those of 

 Nature and Natural Science. " Literature will, in her turn, repay 

 with interest all she gains from a larger commerce with Nature." 



Food for Babes. 

 The above remarks of Sir M. E. Grant-Duff are quoted from an 

 introduction that he has written to " A Handbook to the Study 

 of Natural History for the Use of Beginners," which has recently 

 been edited by the Lady Isabel Margesson, and contributed to by 

 many writers. With the aims of this book we have much sympathy. 

 At the same time, we must confess that it is not a little difficult 

 to discover what its exact aims may be. Taken as a whole, the 

 book would appear to be designed as the Natural History Codex 

 of the P.N.E.U., that admirable body to which we have occasionally 

 alluded. But the contributors to it seem to have had very different 

 ideas of the way in which they were to fulfil their task. Some have 

 clearly written for the parents ; others as clearly for the children. 



