72 The Necessity for the Amateur Spirit in Seieiiti/ic Work. 



myself a Vorkshireman, 1 know that our complacency ou 

 this, as on most matters, needs no stinuilus. Therefore I have 

 chosen the other course, and shall face outward over the wider 

 field, in whose cultivation we amid a multitude of earnest 

 workers have taken our little share, and have still a vast 

 undeveloped country ahead of us. 



But in sug"icesting^ this familiar old simile of the labourer 

 and the field, it is well to consider what in this particular case 

 is its meaning" — we become so accustomed to the use of time- 

 worn symbolism that we are apt to forj^et that a concise 

 meanini^ may attach to it. What then are we doing-, and why 

 should we busy ourselves so g^reatly with matters that lie 

 outside the routine of our daily life ? Even it may be asked, is 

 what we are so busy with really worth doings ? To the pro- 

 fessional man in a professional atmosphere, such a question 

 would seem trivial and unworthy of notice ; but I know by 

 experience that to the amateur, workings amid more or less 

 unsympathetic surrounding's, it is a question with which, 

 tacitly or outspokenly, he is so persistently challengfed that he 

 cannot entirely ig^nore it. To that question we can give a clear 

 and sufficient answer, for the justification is complete. 



In increasing- the sum of human knowledg^e — be it by ever 

 so little — we are increasing- the rang-e of human consciousness 

 and pushing^ forward the development of those faculties which 

 have raised mankind to his present state, and have given him 

 great promise of further attainment. We are the makers of the 

 new material of thought — the humble silkworms drawing the 

 threads from which the philosophers and poets of the future 

 will weave their most radiant and enlightening perceptions. 

 This, as it seems to me, rises above all the utilitarian — all the 

 educational all the personal considerations which obscure our 

 forward path. Each in his own sphere — the astronomer in 

 studying the heavens, the physicist and chemist in studying the 

 properties of matter, the geologist in stud\ ing- the past of the 

 earth, the zoologist and botanist in studying the life upon its 

 surface — is trying to bring into his own consciousness, and 

 through his own, into the general consciousness, a more faithful 

 representation of the universe in which we find ourselves. The 

 investigator may so lose himself in the fascinating detail of his 

 work that for a time this wider pui-pos'e may not be perceived ; 

 but, knowingly or unknowingly, it is toward this end that he is 

 striving. Carefully he corrects the slightest inaccuracy in the 

 received idea ; carefully he seeks to add his mite to the general 



Naturalist 



