CHAPTEE VIII 

 EETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



MORE than once the compiler of this record has 

 encountered such a phrase as ' the great days of the 

 Association/ referring vaguely to a period half a 

 century ago. Those who use such words generally 

 have in mind ' great days,' not of the Association, 

 but of science ; and even so, if a comparison is 

 intended between the position of scientific achieve- 

 ment then and now, derogatory to the second, it is 

 unjustified. Preceding chapters have indicated that 

 during the first fifty years of the Association's 

 existence, and especially during the later two or 

 three decades of that time, science came to occupy 

 a peculiarly conspicuous position : it was admitted 

 thereto because it was able to stage a succession of 

 wonderful spectacles before the gaze of a ready 

 public, which could entertain itself in appraising or 

 condemning them according to its lights. But if, 

 since then, science has found its main guiding lines 

 leading in a different direction, away from and (in 

 large part) above the level of the public understand- 

 ing, its achievements along those lines may have been 

 none the less great. 



Any seeming aloofness as between scientific 

 achievement and its public appreciation might be 

 expected to react upon an institution whose main 



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