Dec. 3, 1885] 



NA TURE 



117 



foundation to roof. It may be natural that progress should 

 appear most striking to me among those sciences to which my 

 own attention has been directed, but I do not think this will 

 wholly account for the apparent advance " by leaps and bounds " 

 of the biological sciences witliin my recollection. The cell 

 theory was the latest novelty when I began to work with the 

 microscope, and I have watched the building of the whole vast 

 fabric of histology ; I can say ahnost as much of embryology, 

 since Von Baer's great work was published in 1828. Our know- 

 ledge of the morphology of the lower animals and plants, and 

 a great deal of that of the higher forms, has very largely been 

 obtained in my time ; while physiology has been put upon a 

 totally new foundation, and, as it were reconstructed, by the 

 thorough application of the e.\perimental method to the study of 

 the plienomena of life, and by the accurate determination of the 

 purely physical and chemical components of these phenomena. 

 The exact nature of the processes of se.xual and non-sexual repro- 

 duction has been brought to light. Our knowledge of geographi- 

 cal and geological distribution, and of the extinct forms of life, 

 has been increased a hundredfold. As for the progress of 

 geological science, what more need be said than that the first 

 volume of Lyell's " Principles " bears the date of 1830? 



This brief enumeration of the salient achievements of science 

 in the course of the last sixty years is sufficient not only to 

 justify what I have said respecting their absolute value, but to 

 show how much it excels, both in quantity and quality, the work 

 produced in any corresponding period since the revival of science. 

 It suggests, as I have said, that science is advancing and will 

 continue to advance with accelerated velocity. 



It seems to me, in fact, not only that this is so, but that there 

 are obvious reasons why it must be so. In the first place, the 

 interdependence of all the phenomena of nature is such that a 

 seemingly unimportant discovery in one field of investigation 

 may react in the most wonderful manner upon those which are 

 most widely remote from it. The investments of science bear 

 compound interest. Who could have imagined that a curious 

 inquiry into the relations of electricity with magnetism would 

 lead to the construction of the most delicate instruments for 

 investigating the phenomena of heat ; to means of measuring 

 .not only the smallest intervals of time, but the greatest depths 

 of the ocean ; to methods of exploring some of the most hidden 

 secrets of life? What an enormous revolution would be made 

 in biology, if physics or chemistry could supply the physiologist 

 with a means of making out the molecular structure of living 

 tissues comparable to that which tlie spectroscope affords to the 

 inquirer into the nature of the heavenly bodies. At the present 

 moment the constituents of our own bodies are more remote 

 from our ken than those of .Sirius, in this respect. In the next 

 place, the vast practical importance of the applications of scien- 

 tific knowledge has created a growing demand for technical 

 education based upon science. If this is to be effective, it 

 means the extension of scientific teaching to all classes of the 

 community, and the encouragement and assistance of those who 

 are fit for the work of scientific investigation to adopt that calling. 

 Lastly, the attraction of the purely intellectual aspects of 

 science and the rapid growth of a sense of the necessity of some 

 knowledge of the phenomena of nature, and some discipline in 

 scientific methods of inquiry, to every one who .ispires to take 

 part in, or even to understand, the tendencies of modern 

 thought, have conferred a new status upon science in the seats of 

 learning, no less than in public estimation. 



Once more reverting to reminiscence, the present sta'e of 

 scientific education surely presents a marvellous and a most satis- 

 factory contrast to the time, well within my memory, when no 

 systematic practical instruction in any branch of experimental 

 or observational science, except anatomy, was to be had in this 

 country ; and when there was no such thing as a physical, 

 chemical, biological, or geological laboratory open to the stu- 

 dents of any University, or to the pupils of any school, in the 

 three kingdoms. Nor was there any University which recog- 

 nised science as a faculty, nor a school, public or private, in 

 which scientific instruction was represented by much more than 

 the occasional visit of a vagrant orrery. 



At the present moment, any one who desires to obtain a 

 thoroughly scientific training has a choice among a dozen in- 

 stitutions ; and elementary scientific instruction is, so to speak, 

 hrouglit to the doors of the poorer classes. If the rich are 

 debarred fiom like advantages, it is their own affair ; but even 

 the most careful public school education does not now wholly ex- 

 clude the knowledge that there is such a thing as science from 



the mind of a young English gentleman. If science is not 

 allowed a fair share of the children's bread, it is at any rate 

 permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from the time-table, 

 and that is a great deal more than I once hoped to see in my 

 life- time. 



I have followed precedent in leading you to the point at 

 which it might be fair, as it certainly would be customary, to 

 end by congratulating you, as Fellows of the Royal Society, on 

 the past progress and the future prospects of the work which, 

 for two centuries, it has been the aim of the Society to forward. 

 But it will perhaps be more profitable to consider that which 

 remains to be done for the advancement of science, than to 

 " rest and be thankful " in the contemplation of that which has 

 been done. 



In all human aftairs the irony of fate plays a part, and in the 

 midst of our greatest satisfactions, "surgit amari aliquid." I 

 should have been disposed to account for the particular drop of 

 bitterness to wliich I am about to refer, by the sexagenarian 

 state of mind, where it not that I find the same complaint in 

 the mouths of the young and vigorous. Of late years it has 

 struck me, with constantly increasing force, that those who have 

 toiled for the advancement of science are in a fair way of being 

 overwhelmed by the realisation of their wishes. We are in the 

 case of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the Roman citadel to 

 the Sabines, and was crushed under the weight of the reward 

 bestowed upon her. It has become impossible for any man to 

 keep pace with the progress of the whole of any important branch 

 of science. If he were to attempt to do so, his mental faculties 

 would be crushed by the multitudes of journals and of volumin- 

 ous monographs which a too fertile press casts upon him. This 

 was not the case in my young days. A diligent reader might 

 then keep fairly informed of all that was going on, without 

 robbing himself of leisure for original work, and without 

 demoralising his faculties by the accumulation of unassimiiated 

 information. It looks as if tlie scientific, like other revolutions, 

 meant to devour its own children ; as if the growth of science 

 tended to overwhelm its votaries ; as if the man of science of the 

 future were condemned to diminish into a narrower and nar- 

 rower specialist, as time goes on. 



I am happy to say that I do not think any such catastrophe a 

 necessary consequence of the growth of science ; but I do think 

 it is a tendency to Ije feared, and an evil to be most carefully 

 provided against. The man who works away at one corner of 

 nature, shutting his eyes to all the rest, diminishes his chances 

 of seeing what is to be seen in that corner ; for, as I need hardly 

 remind my present hearers, that which the investigator perceives 

 depends much more on that which lies behind his sense-organs 

 than on the object in front of them. 



It appears to me that tlie only defence against this tendency 

 to the degeneration of scientific workers, lies in the organisation 

 and extension of scientific education, in such a manner as to 

 secure breadth of culture without superficiality ; and, on the 

 other hand, depth and precision of knowledge without 

 narrowness. 



I think it is quite possible to meet these requirements. There 

 is no reason, in the nature of things, why the student who is 

 destined for a scientific career should not, in the first place, go 

 through a course of instruction such as would insure him a real, 

 that is to say, a piactical acquaintance with the elements of each 

 of the great divisions of mathematical and physical science ; nor 

 why this instruction in what (if I may borrow a phrase from 

 medicine) I may call the institutes of science, should not be 

 followed up by more special instruction, covering the whole field 

 of that particular division in which the student eventually pro- 

 poses to become a specialist. I say not only that thee is no 

 reason why this should not be done, but, on the ground o" practi- 

 cal experience, I venture to add that there is no difficulty in doing 

 it. Some thirty years ago, my colleagues and I framed a scheme 

 of instruction on the lines just indicated, for the students of the 

 institution which has grown into what is now known as llie 

 Normal School of Science and Royal School of Mines. We 

 have found no obst.acles in the way of cirrying the scheme into 

 practice except such as arise, partly, from the limitations of time 

 forced upon us from without ; and, partly, from the extremely 

 defective character of ordinary education. With respect to the 

 first difficulty, we ought, in my judgment, to bestow at least four, 

 or better five, years on the work which has, at present, to be 

 got through in three. And, as regards the second difSculty, we 

 are hampered not only by tlie ignorance of even the rudiments 

 of physical science, on the part of the students who come to us 



