THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 67 



i. THE INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE 

 SEVERAL BRANCHES OF SCIENCE. 



The boundaries of my own understanding and the 

 practical consideration of what is appropriate to a 

 brief essay must limit my attempt to give to the general 

 reader some presentation of what has been going on 

 in the workshops of science in this last quarter of a 

 century. My point of view is essentially that of the 

 naturalist, and in my endeavour to speak of some of 

 the new things and new properties of things discovered 

 in recent years I find it is impossible to give any 

 systematic or detailed account of what has been done 

 in each division of science. All that I shall attempt is 

 to mention some of the discoveries which have aroused 

 my own interest and admiration. I feel, indeed, that 

 it is necessary to ask forbearance for my presumption 

 in daring to treat of so many subjects in which I cannot 

 claim to speak as an authority, but only as a younger 

 brother full of fraternal pride and sympathy in the 

 glorious achievements of the great experimentalists and 

 discoverers of our day. 



As one might expect, the progress of the Knowledge 

 of Nature (for it is to that rather than to the historical, 

 moral and mental sciences that English-speaking people 

 refer when they use the word ' science ') has consisted, 

 in the last twenty-five years, in the amplification and 

 fuller verification of principles and theories already 

 accepted, and in the discovery of hitherto unknown 

 things which either have fallen into place in the existing 

 scheme of each science or have necessitated new views, 

 some not very disturbing to existing general conceptions, 

 others of a more startling and, at first sight, disconcerting 

 character. Nevertheless I think I am justified in saying 



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