134 Contemporary Evolution. 



hope for eminence in widely remote areas of study and 

 research. To take an example from one science, men 

 have not only almost ceased to be general zoologists, and 

 become ornithologists, entomologists, &c., as the case may 

 be ; but we hear now of lives being devoted to the study 

 of small sections of natural orders, and that this naturalist 

 is a Carabidist* and that a Curculionist^ while a German 

 naturalist has even published a quarto volume, with large 

 plates and numerous tables, the whole being devoted to 

 the anatomy of the lower part of the hindmost bone of 

 the skull of the carp ! 



Now physical science must continue, not only to grow 

 in complexity as well as mass, but also to diffuse itself 

 over an increasing area. The general diffusion of 

 modern instruction will hereafter render a certain ac- 

 quaintance with the facts and most approved theories 

 of science the common property of all who have the 

 least pretension to be deemed " educated," and influ- 

 ences as yet active, but in a very limited field, must 

 sooner or later become all but universal. At the same 

 time the clergy, diminished in relative number through 

 the consequences of the Renaissance movement, will come 

 to have less and less time to spare for any special acqui- 

 sitions in physical science, and far from monopolising the 

 physical knowledge of their time (as was the case in the 



* i.e., devoted to that family of beetles termed Carabidtz. 

 t i.e., devoted to the long-snouted beetles termed Curcnlionidce. 



