yb Tin- XccessHy for //ir Amateur Spirit in Scientific Work. 



contidently expect to iind thiit the advancement of science will 

 depend as lari^ely upon the efforts of its voluntary workers in the 

 future as in the past. It is true that the number of those 

 employed professionally in the work has been lari^-ely increased 

 of late, but it does not by any means follow that the rate of 

 advance will be proportionately increased — indeed, to judg-e 

 from analogy, there is much probability that such will not be 

 the case. The advance in Medicine has never been propor- 

 tionate to the number of its professional followers, of whom 

 the majority are content even to stop short of what is already 

 known. Nor can it be said that in Law or in Theoloi^y 

 the endowment of the professions has broug-ht about the 

 results that mig-ht reasonably have been anticipated. So also 

 in Education, I think it must be acknowledged that the vested 

 interests of the schoolmasters have been a hindrance rather than 

 a help to advance in the methods of their profession. 



Indeed, as in all other spheres of human activity, where there 

 is a livelihood to be gained the livelihood and not the work most 

 frequently becomes the paramount motive ; and when this 

 happens, it is only to be expected that the worker will view with 

 some disfavour the movements that tend constantly to increase 

 the amount of labour required of him. It is not every medical 

 student who hails with delight the wider range of knowledge 

 that modern advances in science have made necessary to him ! 



Moreover, the very fact that the range of knowledge required 

 of the professional man has so greatly increased and is still 

 increasing, whereby his mental energies are taxed to the utmost, 

 and under the spur of necessity, at the beginning of his career, 

 must have a tendency to check the ardour of his later work. 

 It is only in exceptional cases that we can expect the keen 

 amateur pleasure in the work itselt to be maintained unabated 

 after the hard pressure of the professional training is 

 withdrawn. 



Then, too, thr mullitude of new facts and ihcir subtending 

 problems with which the professional worker has perforce to 

 deal, tend to distract his attention and to blunt his sense of 

 appreciation for new discovery. Yet it is only when such 

 discovery is welcomed with delight, and is lovingly cultivated 

 to mature growth, that it attains its full productiveness. To 

 change the metaphor, we may say that new ideas thrive best 

 that are treated, not as patients, but as offspring. 



Hence, I repeat, it appears to me that instead of there being 

 less necessity for the amatevu' worker owing to the increasing 



Naturalist, 



