Oct. 25, 1888] 



NA TURE 



611 



astronomy successfully maintained, by the hoped-for 

 convert "failing to see that an astronomical instrument 

 had any application whatever to terrestrial objects." 



A paragraph recently inserted in an electro-technical 

 journal, with editorial sanction, styles mathematicians 

 " the accountants of science," and goes on in a tone less 

 comic than bitter: — "When some young shaver shoots 

 off his school learning" {i.e. uses some mathematical 

 operation or notation), " I feel inclined to reply to him in 

 Italian, as both are as generally and completely understood 

 in the Society of ." Now if the subject under dis- 

 cussion were, say, passages in Tasso or Dante, an Italian 

 quotation would be very natural, and persons ignorant of 

 the language would hardly be invited, or indeed anxious, 

 to express an opinion. Is it not equally clear that when 

 the subject-matter is numerical magnitude and quantity, 

 the appropriate language may sometimes have to be 

 used ? 



It has always been customary, as we have before re- 

 marked, for the empiric to feel some hostility to the 

 mathematician, especially to the mathematician who 

 endeavours to apply his powerful and beautiful machinery 

 to the elucidation of the facts of Nature. But only 

 recently has it become the fashion to extend the same 

 attitude of mistrust and dislike to the experimental 

 worker in a laboratory. Both these hostilities probably 

 have their root in an instinct of self-protection. Without 

 them the empiric would be constantly suffering wounds in 

 his self-esteem, and might lose confidence in his faith as to 

 the universal prevalence of ignorance and the advantages 

 of rule-of-thumb. For a man of the world professing a 

 certain science to have to recognize a certain number of 

 minds as immeasurably superior to his own, and their 

 conclusions in that very science as being almost certainly 

 correct, although flatly opposed to his own instinct and 

 traditions : this is in m my cases intolerable. He cannot 

 away with these great theorists, neither can he in his 

 heart contemn them ; but he can do his best to deceive 

 himself and others by extending to them euphemistic 

 terms of abuse, and by pretending that he could do all 

 that they do if only he thought it worth while. He may 

 even go further, and flinging abroad a universal accusation 

 of ignorance will easily delude a gullible public into the 

 belief that knowledge is after all only a matter of opinion, 

 and that what one man says is quite as good as what is 

 said by another. 



And in this procedure he is fairly secure against any 

 retaliation from the great men. They are deeply and 

 painfully conscious of ignorance in one sense : their 

 knowledge sits lightly upon them ; and .when broadside 

 and grotesque accusations of ignorance are hurled at them 

 with the intention of putting them on a level with the 

 uninstructed and, in quite another sense, " ignorant " 

 populace, they resent it not ; scarcely recognizing, indeed, 

 the absurdity of the position. 



The hostility of the " practical m.in : ' for the systematic 

 and recondite methods of science was at one time mainly 

 borne by mathematicians, because they it was mainly 

 who spoke a language and thought thoughts too high for 

 common apprehension. Since then experiment has become 

 more exact, more illuminated by theory, more scientific and 

 less empirical ; hence it is that the hostility is now being 

 extended to the experimentalist in his laboratory as well. 



But really, it may be rather offensively suggested, what 

 other attitude can be taken up? If a man is to be 

 ble of getting schemes through Parliament, of 

 impressing a jury, and generally of playing to the 

 gallery and becoming a power in the State, he cannot, 

 unless very exceptionally endowed, have the aptitudes 

 and powers proper to a man of high science. And yet it 

 will never do to allow even to himself that the sjientific 

 man is in his own line immeasurably above him. Such a 

 reverent and submissive attitude would ruin his chance 

 with the gallery at once. Swagger and a confident front 

 are more than the tricks of the trade, they are the 

 essentials to success. 



We are glad to recognize, however, that the recent 

 outburst against the methods and conclusions of pure 

 science is the work of the camp-followers rather than of 

 the leaders on the commercial side. There have been and 

 are several conspicuous examples not only of the scientific 

 man taking a high position on the commercial side, but 

 also of the commercial man taking a high position in 

 the ranks of pure s:ience. This interchange of indi- 

 viduals, and the further rapprochement which the great 

 extension of science into industrial life of various kinds 

 has caused, and must in the future still further cause, 

 are making it now clearly recognized how intimately pure 

 science and the commercial applications of science are 

 connected together, how great is their mutual dependence 

 on each other, and how essential to the well-being of 

 each is a close and friendly co-operation with the other. 



These facts, and the friendly attitude of the leaders on 

 both sides, render the attempt made in the rank and file 

 to sow discord between the two great classes the more 

 absurd, and must make it in the long run entirely futile. 



THE MESOZOIC MAMMALIA. 

 The Structure and Classification of the Mest 

 Mammalia. By H. F. Osborn. fount. Ac. Xat. . 

 Philadelphia, Vol. IX. No. 2. (Philadelphia: 

 lished by the Academy, 1888.) 



IN the elaborate memoir before us, comprising eighty 

 quarto pages of text, illustrated by thirty woodcuts 

 and two plates, Prof. Osborn, of Princeton College, New 

 jersey, gives us the result of his researches into the struc- 

 ture of the Mesozoic and allied Tertiary Mammals, based 

 upon observations carried on both in America and 

 Europe. As a rule, these Mammals are of small size, 

 and are mainly known to us by more or less imperfect 

 jaws and teeth ; by far the greater number of specimens 

 c msisting of the lo.ver jaw or mandible. Now, it is well 

 known that even in groups of the smaller Mammals 

 which are well represented at the present day, such as the 

 Shrews among the Insectivora, or the Bats, it is almost, if 

 not quite, impossible to recognize many of the genera, to 

 say nothing of the species, when we have to deal only 

 with a series of fossil or sub-fossil lower jaws from the 

 cavern or later Tertiary deposits. And if this be so in 

 groups with which we are well acquainted, the difficulty 

 is of course increased many times over when we have to 

 deal with forms having no close analogues among the 

 existing fauna. The puzzle is further increased by the 

 difficulty of referring such portions of upper jaws as are 

 more rarely found to the species indicated by mandibles ; 



