210 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 1, 1886. 



see good reason why a medal should not be given if there is 

 anychunce that its award to one man will give pain to 

 another, as in my case would admittedly have happened. 

 But when we consider how recognition has been refused to 

 Young, Draper, 8ecchi, and others, for no better real reason 

 than tliat they had succeeded where others had failed, or 

 that they had established results which others had long and 

 persistently, not to say perversely, opposed, then we cannot 

 but see that there is something risky about the fat-pig-prize 

 system as applied to scientific research. 



Then again, a medal may be used to discourage as well 

 as to encourage scientific workers. It is effectively used 

 in that bad way when the medal is given (as it nearly 

 always is) to men who, either as observatory chiefs or as 

 men "of large wealth, are able to obtain important results 

 independently of their individual exertions. A man writing 

 Mlone, perhaps also contending against the constant pressure 

 of the res amjusta iloiui, may be making much greater 

 sacrifice for science, though obtaining much less showy results, 

 than one who can employ a section of a large staft" to carry 

 out investigations which he has only planned or perhajis 

 planned so imperfectly that only as the work of subordinates 

 lias a correct method of research been developed. A man 

 with twenty thousand pounds a year may, without any real 

 sacrifice, devote five thousand a year to a scientific inquiry, 

 .and with most impressive results (obtained by " my assist- 

 .ants"), where another, with nothing a year but what he 

 earns, may barely be able to secure a tithe of what he aims 

 at, though sacrificing hours worth two-thirds of his income 

 to his work. If, in awarding the fot-pig order of prizes, societies 

 only encouraged the former class, all would be well. But, 

 iinibrtunately, they manage to discourage the other class. To 

 him that liath they give freely ; from him that hath not 

 they try to take even that which he seemeth to have. 



Of course only the weak are thus aflected. But men 

 writing under great ditiiculties, and trying to work alone, 

 are apt at times to he weak. Many know the feeling, and, 

 not only know it, but have yielded to it. I could name 

 half a dozen at least who have begun original work, and 

 would have gone on with it if simply left alone ; but when 

 scientific bodies have pretended to examine their work, and, 

 seeming to put it in the balance, have appeared to find it 

 wanting (though perhaps it has been of so special a kind 

 that not one of those who thus pretended to weigh it has 

 known anything about it), they have been discouraged and 

 have turned to other pursuits. As an instance, I might 

 mention a department of solar research, from which one 

 once active worker has entirely seceded because of pre- 

 cisely such discouragement as I have indicated. 



The same may indeed be said of many of the so-called 

 distinctions for which the weaker sort hanker. Take, for 

 instance, oflace on the council of a society. This ought to 

 lie simply a matter of service. " We want the help of such 

 and such a man," a society should in effect say, " and, if he 

 is willing, we will get him to join our working council." 

 But instead of that, we find oflSce on the council regarded 

 as a sort of distinction, and all sorts of small feelings at 

 work in deciding whether a man shall be elected or rejected. 

 I shall not easily forget, for my own part, the surprLse and 

 disgust with which, after sitting on the council of the 

 Astronomical Society several years, and consenting at a great 

 sacrifice to work as one of its secretaries, I found that I had 

 unwittingly hurt the feelings of a number of others, who 

 regarded me as stepping over their heads into those much- 

 coveted offices. Very quickly, thereon, did I withdraw from 

 all such interference with their happiness. But it ought 

 not to be so. 



And see how easily this unfortunate state of things may 

 be worked to cause pain and annoyance, nay, even to seem 



to cast a slur on a man's ability or on his work. At the 

 last election for the council of the Astronomical Society, 

 three marked cases of the kind occurred. Mr. Warren 

 delaRue and Captain Wharton, Chief Hydrographer to the 

 Admiralty, are both put on the list for election to the 

 council ; an opposition list is sent forth, and both are re- 

 jected. How can outsiders fail to draw the entirely erroneous 

 inference that the decision indicated an opinion adverse to 

 their merits on the part of the whole society 1 Then in the 

 opposition list Sir George A\vy is advanced as a candidate, 

 and is not elected. This, which looks like a slur, has in 

 reality no such meaning. But there is undoubtedly dis- 

 couragement in such action on the part of a body supposed 

 to represent astronomy in this country. I am for my own 

 part satisfied that the influence of scientific societies is too 

 often worked so as to tend more to the discouragement than 

 to the advance of science. And I am confirmed in this 

 belief by noting that not one series of scientific researches 

 of any importance has attained success through the influence 

 of any scientific body, or has even been materially helped by 

 such influence. 



ANALYSIS OF GENESIS.^ 



E 



hail with pleasure this new translation 

 and analysis of one of the most ancient 

 records in existence. The Cuneiform in- 

 scriptions include some records far more 

 ancient than the Book of Genesis, and 

 there are Egyptian records which belong 

 to still more I'emote times, but in the Book 

 of Genesis documents of venei'able antiquity are quoted. 

 To the Pentateuch, says Matthew Arnold jirstly, many an 

 old book had given up its treasures and itself vanished for 

 ever. Writing " record " for " book," this is specially true 

 of the Book of Genesis. No one can read it carefully 

 through, even in the imperfect (though charmingly written) 

 Authorised Version, without seeing that it is most complex 

 and, as it were, variegated, in character. We seem to feel 

 the sense of reverence with which the old collator of documents 

 and records preserved in the sacred lore chests of the Temple 

 went through their varied contents. Conscious as he must 

 have been of their many conti-adictions, noting as he must 

 how the same story was related of different persons, or 

 different accounts given of the same events, he could not 

 venture to excise or abstract. BeUeving all to be sacred, 

 because most ancient, he puts all in, in such order as seemed 

 to him least likely to bring the different records into 

 manifest contiadiction. 



We cannot but sympathise with the sense of reverence 

 thus shown. It is akin in character to the reverence with 

 which many a man as years advance and knowledge grows 

 regards the ways and thoughts of his parents and gi-and- 

 parents, conscious that in many respects the ideas they 

 taught him were inexact, but unwilling to admit that 

 consciousness even to himself and prepared to conceal it 

 closely from all others. 



Yet to us this willingness to be blind to ancient mistakes 

 appears, when looked at aright, as after all a weaknes.s. It 

 is such a weakness as we often see in individual life, when 

 the confident receptivity of the child is allowed to remain a 

 characteristic of the gi-own man. We know now that 

 knowledge was not altogether with the men of old, but 



* The Book of Genesis : a Translation irom the Hebrew, in which 

 the constituent elements of the text are separated ; to which is 

 added an attempted restoration of the original documents used by 

 the latest reviser. By Franijois Lcnormant. Translated from the 

 French, with an introduction and notes, by the author of " Man- 

 kind : their Origin and Destiny." London : Longmans, Green, & Co. 



