14 SCIENCE IN WANT OF A COMMON LANGUAGE 



III 



Mr. Seager's Natural History in Shakespeare's Time 

 science in i s an amusing compilation, affording useful 

 common a insight into the methods of pre- scientific 

 language research. No statement too dogmatic, no 

 falsehood too flagrant, no explanation too preposterous, 

 to be presented and accepted in those days as revela- 

 tions of natural phenomena. Once a lie got into print 

 (and Elizabethan publishers were by no means 

 squeamish about what passed through their hands) it 

 took centuries to overtake it ; one writer after another 

 copied it ; and any one who should express any doubts 

 as to the breeding of barnacle geese from shellfish or 

 the influence of the phases of the moon on the climate 

 of Great Britain (as distinguished from the rest of the 

 globe) was looked upon as a troublesome fellow 

 incapable of sound philosophy. Writers on natural 

 science seem to have been afraid of showing imperfect 

 erudition, unless they began by faking up all the 

 rubbish that had found utterance by their predecessors. 



At the present day danger of another kind besets 

 the diffusion of knowledge. There is such a multitude 

 of patient systematic workers and observers in every 

 quarter of the globe, such an abundance of scientific 

 literature in almost every civilised language, that it is 

 difficult for those who are not active members of 

 learned societies to keep abreast of the discoveries 

 which reward the student in every department. Even 

 the foremost and most fruitful workers are conscious 



