50 AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



verified. The pertinacity with which men cling to theories, 

 ballasted with authority rather than freighted with proof, 

 seems strange in these days, when every A.B. is his own 

 navigator across the Sea of Science. But this respect for 

 authority must be allowed for in studying the history of 

 knowledge. It is not, perhaps, altogether to be con- 

 demned. Nor should the errors of the "men of old times " 

 lead us to undervalue the intellectual force of the men. 

 The tendency of us moderns is perhaps towards immense 

 knowledge and hasty, ill-considered generalisations, mea- 

 gre conclusions from abundant data rather than wide con- 

 clusions from meagre data. It is the inevitable result of the 

 vast accumulation of knowledge and the multiplication of 

 workers engaged in research. As we sometimes wonder 

 when the increase of traffic in front of the Mansion House 

 will lead to its arrest, so are we tempted to ask whether the 

 prosecution of research will not some day cease altogether, 

 owing to the multiplicity of workers and the consequent 

 impossibility of any one informing himself as to the work 

 which others have done. Every man who is engaged in 

 . research knows the sinking of heart which occurs when he 

 decides to publish. Publishing involves the " getting up of 

 the literature," which perhaps reveals the fact that all that 

 he proposed to announce to the world has been anticipated 

 by some one else. A new discovery is a discovery new to 

 me. Its interest does not necessarily vanish when I find 

 that I am not unique. Nothing but the prick of vanity or 

 the pressure of self-interest would induce a scientific worker 

 to face the drudgery of going through all that the compe- 

 tencies and incompetencies of every tongue have written 

 on his subject. The quiet academic student, who recognises 

 no responsibility towards the public to make known his re- 

 sults, and feels no sense of gratification in substantiating a 

 claim to priority, is often to be envied. 



The history of human progress is at the same time the 

 history of error ; but both progress and error should be 



