The Necessity for the Amateur Spirit in Scientijic Work. 75 



cent prospect which science has opened before us is not likely to 

 be thus attained. It has happened many times in the history of 

 our race that the Learning^ of the community has been left 

 entirely to the Wise Men employed for its service, and always 

 the results have sooner or later been disastrous not only to the 

 community and to the Wise Men themselves, but especially to 

 Learning-. For a time, perhaps, all has g^one well — the first 

 Wise Men have been devoted to their work and have worthily 

 fulfilled the measure of their great responsibility. But after a 

 time, these worthy men have been succeeded by others with 

 scarcely any sense of responsibility beyond the duty of main- 

 taining- and enlarg-ing- the caste-privileges that were obtained by 

 the virtues of their predecessors ; until by and by the position 

 has become intolerable, and the community has been compelled 

 to resume, in amateur fashion, its releg-ated task of enquiring- 

 into the nature of thing's. 



It is easy enough for the community by payment to secure 

 the services of the professional Teacher who will impart what 

 he has himself been taught ; but not by any system of tithe 

 can we evade our collective responsibility to investigate the 

 things that have not yet become teachable. And it is only in the 

 spirit of the amateur that such investigation can be carried out ; 

 though the spirit may — and fortunately very often does — animate 

 the professional worker also. 



Of course it is necessary that there should be men to whom 

 can be allotted the dut}' of gathering together all that is already 

 known in some particular branch of learning, so that such 

 knowledge may be the more readily communicable at need ; and 

 this duty can rarely be undertaken except as a profession. But 

 the amateur is not disqualified from doing serviceable work 

 because he may lack this comprehensive knowledge. It is still 

 such a short distance to the limits of the surveyed ground, 

 that he who will but choose a definite path and follow it steadily 

 and unswervingly for a while, will soon find himself in new or 

 imperfectly known country whatever may be the direction in 

 which he choose to travel. It is when the amateur seeks to 

 follow the professional method in ranging over what is already 

 known that he becomes discouraged by the complexities and 

 difliculties of the trodden ground. 



In dwelling on the importance of the amateur in science, we 

 of course refer only to those who have an earnest purport in the 

 pursuit — the trifler does not count whether he call himself 

 amateur or professional. But with this proviso, I think we may 



1906 March i. 



