294 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



the vast majority hopelessly on the wrong side. There we will leave them for a 

 little, in order to discuss a collateral issue. 



What is science? Whatever it is, it is certainly not mere knowledge, even of 

 facts. If I had Babbage's Logarithms by heart, as a school-boy has the multiplica- 

 tion table, I should know more than any other human being, besides being the 

 most wonderful calculator that ever existed ; but my knowledge would not be science. 

 No more, indeed, than it would be scholarship, if it consisted in my being able to 

 repeat the whole of Liddell and Scott. Every decently-educated Greek knew all 

 the contents of that huge volume (its errors excepted) two thousand years ago, 

 better than did these learned pundits. But it would never occur to the least dis- 

 cerning among us to speak of that Greek's "scholarship." These things are what, 

 now-a-days, we call cram. Descriptive botany, natural history, volumes of astro- 

 nomical observations, etc., are collections of statements, often facts, from which 

 scientific truth may ultimately be extracted, but they are not science. Science 

 begins to dawn, but only to dawn, when a Copernicus, and after him a Kepler or a 

 Galilei, sets to work on these raw materials, and sifts from them their essence. 

 She bursts into full daylight only when a Newton extracts the quintessence. There 

 has been, as yet, but one Newton ; there have not been very many Keplers. Thus the 

 great mass of what is commonly called science is totally undeserving of the name. 

 But, the name being given (though in error) to the crude collection of undigested 

 facts, the worker at them gets the name of " scientific man " from an undiscerning 

 public. And it is to be particularly observed that statements as to the so-called 

 incompatibility between religion and science come, all but exclusively, from this 

 class of persons. Not from all not even from the majority of them ; but from 

 their ranks alone. How trustworthy is their judgment, as a general rule, may be 

 seen from some of their recent statements. Nothing like these has been heard since 

 " all, with one voice, about the space of two hours, cried out, Great is Artemis of the 

 Ephesians." Take this one unique, it is to be hoped, in its absurdity " When the 

 boldness of (Darwin's) generalisations, and the great school which he has founded, 

 are taken into account, it is perhaps no exaggeration to bracket him with Newton, 

 Kepler, and Tycho Brahe " ! So careful and conscientious an observer as Darwin 

 may justly be bracketed with Tycho, who was distinguished for these very qualities ; 

 but Tycho himself was no more than the mere hodman of Kepler. Should the 

 hypothesis of Wallace and Darwin turn out to be correct, its authors may perhaps 

 claim the position of Copernicus; otherwise they fall back to that of Ptolemy. The 

 mention of Newton in such a connection is only an ingenuous confession of inability 

 to comprehend the very nature of Newton's work. There cannot be a Newton in 

 natural science until there has been at least one Kepler ; and he has not yet 

 appeared, nor do we see much promise of his coming. 



Let us revert to Maxwell's lines, "Words, and their wonderful play." Has any 

 one, in a single phrase, ever more fully, or more fittingly, characterised at once the 

 one talent, and the abundant but temporary success, of the pseudo-scientific ? Roar 

 me in King Cambyses' vein, and you have the multitude at your feet. This is their 

 distinctive mark. 



I have purposely made the above remarks in a disconnected manner, insidi- 



