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RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



those respectively advocated by Brewster and by 

 Airy, the State and voluntary effort working side by 

 side. It is arguable that the principal danger at- 

 tendant upon voluntary effort has not been removed ; 

 that such effort tends in scientific organisations (as 

 elsewhere) to dissipate itself for want of co-ordination. 

 When the British Association itself was founded, 

 Brewster, as we have seen, saw shortcomings in 

 other scientific societies already existing. Therefore 

 he set on foot a new organisation, disregarding any 

 possibility of enlarging the scope of an existing 

 organisation so as to give effect to his scheme. The 

 British Association justified him by establishing 

 itself as a body addressing the public in the name 

 of science with a voice of peculiar authority, and 

 by promoting c intercourse between the pursuers of 

 science, both at home and abroad, in a manner which 

 is afforded by no other agency ' (Galton). But the 

 mechanism which has succeeded in doing that, is 

 one which may well be employed, and if necessary 

 extended, as an alternative to setting up wholly 

 new machines, to carry out any duty which involves 

 the co-ordination of effort within the body corporate 

 of science itself, or the strengthening of understanding 

 and relationship between science on the one hand, 

 the State and the nation on the other. And in 

 scientific organisation there is work to do in each of 

 these directions. 



But whatever drawbacks may attend upon our 

 national conceptions of voluntary service, it is well 

 that its merits should be recognised to the full. 

 To voluntary service in the interests of science the 

 whole record of the British Association stands as one 

 great memorial. Every word spoken at its meetings, 



