32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
This also is a highly important function. The stimulus derived 
from the impact of mind upon mind, whereby ideas are often gene- 
rated like sparks from flint, is proverbial. Personal contact, too, 
with men distinguished in any branch of science has a wonderfully 
stimulating effect upon the younger students of the same branch ; 
and experience abundantly shows that in science as elsewhere it is 
not good for man to be alone. The reading of a paper in such a 
society is usually followed by a discussion in which those whose 
special studies have rendered them familiar with the subject of which 
the paper treats join, and, with an audience understanding the sub- 
ject and capable of fairly criticizing the paper, this discussion is often 
as valuable as the paper itself. 
Again, science is now so vast that it is wholly out of the power of 
any man to master it all. Hence the division of labour. Hence 
the separation of Human Knowledge into separate sciences. But 
after all these divisions are not hard and fast lines. Each science so 
called is dependent more or less upon its fellows; and each contri- 
butes its share to the others. Chemistry cannot do without Physics, 
and Biology cannot do without Chemistry, while Geology is an 
application of all three to the study of the earth’s crust. There 
are, therefore, advantages of no mean order in the facilities afforded 
by learned societies for the intercourse of students of different 
branches of science with one another. 
The social element then, as we may call it, is an important factor 
in the influence of Learned Societies upon the advancement of 
science. But science does not exist only for the scientific. Itisa 
most essential condition to its exercising its due influence upon the 
world that its discoveries should be disseminated among mankind at’ 
large. And this propagation of knowledge is another most important 
function of Learned Societies. We hear much now-a-days of popular 
science, and the phrase as sometimes understood has a rather ques- 
tionable signification. Too often those who have undertaken to 
enlighten the people in scientific matters have been sadly unfitted 
for their self imposed task. The spectacle of a man with only the 
merest smattering of a subject endeavouring to teach those whose 
ignorance is only less than his own is not an edifying one. Unfor- 
tunately it is not arare one. The shallow pretender who seems to 
think that any knowledge that goes beneath the skin of the subject 
would only be an incumbrance likely to hinder his glib and self 
