890 REPORT—1885. 
The British Association, by its title, exists for the advancement of science. Now, 
I hold that one of the essential conditions for that advancement is the existence of 
a scientific public—a public, like the Athenians of old, eager to hear and tell of 
some new truth; eager to discuss and eager to criticise; ready to appreciate what 
is novel; to receive it if sound, to reject it if unsound. It is to such a public that 
the British Association appeals, and certainly in the past it has not found its public 
wanting in generosity. What I should wish to see is less of mere friendly onlook- 
ing and more participation in the dance. 
I am not speaking now merely of a professional public, such as is so prominent 
in Germany for instance, made up of teachers and others professionally concerned 
with science. I refer mainly to that amateur but truly expert public which has 
always been so honourable a feature of English science, as examples of which I may 
mention Boyle and Cavendish in former days, and Joule and Spottiswoode in our 
own. It is quite true that much of that scientific public came in days of yore from 
the leisured class, whose ratio to the rest of the nation will not improbably decrease 
in the course of our social development. I think, however, that the loss we may 
thus sustain will be more than compensated by the continual increase of those who 
have received higher education of some kind or other, and whose daily occupations 
give them an interest, direct or indirect, in one or more branches of science. 
It may not be amiss to insist for a little on the advantages to science of a 
great body of men unofficially engaged in scientific research, in writing regarding 
science, or even in merely turning scientific matter over in their minds. It will 
not have escaped the notice of those among you who have studied the history of 
science, that few scientific ideas spring up suddenly without previous trace or 
history. It is perfectly true that in many cases some mind of unwonted breadth 
and firmness is required to formulate the new doctrine, and carry it to manifold 
fruition ; but a close examination always shows that the sprite was in the air 
before the Prospero came to catch him. It is very striking to notice, in the history 
of Algebra for instance, long periods in which great improvements were effected in 
the science, which cannot be traced to any individual, but seem to have been due 
merely to the working of the minds of scientific men generally upon the matter, 
one giving it this little turn, another that, in the main always for the better. Like 
every other thing that has the virtue of truth in it, science grows as it goes, not 
like the idle gossiping tale by the casual accretion of heterogeneous matter, but 
by the chemical combination of pure element with pure element in reasonable 
proportion. 
I know of no greater advantage for science than the existence of an army of 
independent workers sufficiently enlightened for self-criticism, who shall test the 
results and theories of their day. Great and indispensable as are the uses of pro- 
fessional schools of scientific workmen, they are open to one great and insidious. 
danger. The temptation there to swear by the word of the master is often irresis- 
tible. Not to speak of its being often the readiest avenue to fame and profit, it is 
the perfectly natural consequence of the contact of smaller mind with greater. 
There are few things where the want of an enlightened scientific public strikes 
an expert more than the matter of scientific text-books. If the British public 
were educated as it ought to be, publishers would not be able to palm off upon 
them in this guise the ill-paid work of fifth-rate workmen so often as they do; 
nor would the scientific articles and reviews in popular journals and magazines so 
often be written by men so palpably ignorant of their subject. 
We all have a great respect for the integrity of our British legislators, what- 
ever doubts may haunt us occasionally as to their capacity in practical affairs. 
The ignorance of many of them regarding some of the most elementary facts that 
bear on everyday life is very surprising. Scientifically speaking, uneducated 
themselves, they seem to think that they will catch the echo of a fact or the solu- 
tion of an arithmetical problem by putting their ears to the sounding-shell of 
uneducated public opinion. When I observe the process which many such people 
employ for arriving at what they consider truth, I often think of a story I once- 
heard of an eccentric German student of chemistry. This gentleman was idle, 
but, like all his nation, systematic. When he had a precipitate to weigh, instead 
