116 GERMAN SCIENCE 
have been saved by the knowledge and guidance that science 
could have supplied. It is difficult to substantiate such a 
statement, impossible, of course, to adduce the very instances, 
But I do not make the statement lightly or hastily. It 
expresses what is to me not a mere surmise but something as 
certain as anything can be that from its nature cannot be 
absolutely proved. 
If I am asked to go to the root of matters and say what I 
really believe it is that has underlain English neglect of science, 
I am afraid I should enter into regions where my cause might 
be better served by silence than by speech. I will therefore 
tell you frankly that I will not say all that is in my mind. 
There is a tacit understanding among the teachers of our 
university,—and I believe it is a very wise one,—that we put 
some restraint upon the public expressions of our purely 
personal opinions. But this much I may say freely, that the 
pursuit of science in this country has been subject to uneasy 
suspicion. Of the forms of suspicion I will only mention two. 
I daresay some of you may know that in the University of 
Oxford an honour student of natural science is commonly 
known among other sections as ‘a stinks man’. It is, of 
course, a playful term, which it would be ridiculous to take 
seriously. At the same time there is many a true word 
spoken in jest, and much serious opinion may be concentrated 
in words that can be given to a child to lisp. I do not be- 
lieve that the terse expression to which I have referred. was 
invented by an undergraduate. I think it much more prob- 
able that it came as a bright inspiration to some prodigiously 
learned don and was quietly dropped by him in some under- 
graduate’s room. If I do not know the very don in question, 
I know his double, nay, his centuple. 
What I mean is this, that science as commonly taught, as 
commonly pursued in this country has not seemed edifying to 
the man of letters; and the man of letters, until these later 
