74 The Xccesxity for I he Ai)ialciir Spirit in Scicniific Work. 



collcctiiii,'- i,'-re\v apace ; tluis the establishment of that lari^-er 

 permanent wallet, the museum, became inevitable; and then 

 followed, as a matter of course, the perception of the relation of 

 thini^s to each other, and their classification into like and unlike, 

 whereby a vastly increased number of facts were brou£,^ht easily 

 within the range of the mind. 



It is indeed essential that we should make constant reference 

 to the thing-s themselves in order to maintain the truth and 

 vigour of our impressions unimpaired ; for it is not in small 

 matters only that the mirage of memory and imagination tends 

 continually to lead our faculties astray. The note-book, with 

 its outcome — the technical memoir, and its latest development — 

 the scientific text-book, in which we strive, according to our 

 ability, to image the facts in words, are at the best but imperfect 

 pictures that show on a plane surface what must necessarily be 

 a superficial rendering of the object. 



Again and again has it happened to the wayfarer along the 

 path of knowledge that, through too much dependence upon 

 written directions, the wrong fork has been taken, and a by-way 

 entered that has led only into a maze of abstractions from which 

 there has been no escape save by harking back to the slower 

 path of laborious personal observation. And herein, again, lies 

 the virtue of the humble collecting-wallet, at which impatient 

 minds in all ages have been prone to scoff. How often has the 

 plausible and apparently brilliant generalization been proved 

 unsound and misleading when applied to the touchstone of a 

 sufficient collection either of data or specimens, such as any 

 intelligent worker finds it well within his power to make. In 

 this way the veriest mouse in science may, and sometimes has, 

 set free the lion himself from a network of error ; though I am 

 afraid that such service has not alwavs been received with the 

 gratitude that, under the circumstances, would have been 

 becoming in the lion. 



And this brings me to the matter that 1 had especially in 

 mind in claiming the privilege of addressing you as a fellow- 

 amateur. It is that, with the rapid advance in every branch of 

 science and the heaping up of its subject-matter into highly 

 technical schemes of much complexity, there has arisen a very 

 serious danger that the duty ot fmtln-r advance will be left too 

 much to the professional worker, and will be regarded as 

 beyond the scope of the amateur. Without implying any 

 disparagement of the professional scientific spirit as it exists at 

 present I cannot help feeling that the fulfilment of the magnifi- 



Naturalist, 



