122 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



original, and must be no mere compilation, at the same time it 

 must embody the most recent and reliable results of research. 

 In previous editions second-hand compilations, out of date before 

 they were printed, appeared alongside brilliant expositions by 

 eminent authorities. Crude personal views or peculiar scholastic 

 ideas, like Hansel's " Nescient Philosophy " in the eighth edition, 

 were prominent, but no editor so rigidly as Professor Baynes 

 excluded singular and peculiar views, or mediocre and well-worn 

 contributions. Even the index, a piece of formal routine labour, 

 one is apt to imagine, was entrusted not to an inferior writer but 

 to an eminent scholar, one no less eminent than the late Principal 

 John Cairns. A contemporary said of Cairns that he was one of 

 the few men who read through the twenty-five large volumes, 

 and brought his vast stores of knowledge into requisition in pre- 

 paring that most necessary supplement to any worthy work, an 

 adequate index. It had been commonly thought that an ency- 

 clopaedia was not the best vehicle for a specialist's exposition, 

 still less a book for specialists to consult, indeed Coleridge says in 

 the prospectus of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana that such a 

 work ''neither is nor can reasonably be considered as the book 

 which a profound man of science is likely to consult for those 

 things in which he is himself eminent. " It is, however, specialists 

 who have most appreciated the Encyclopaedia summaries of their 

 departments. Professor Baynes for the first time proved that 

 both needs, those of the general public and those of specialists, 

 could be met in one great compendium. Yet he kept out mere 

 speculation, which becomes old and discredited, frequently before 

 the ink becomes dry. Even the famous "Challenger" report 

 included speculations, which were antiquated, or rather rejected, 

 before the last volume was completed. The masterly editing of 

 Professor Baynes rendered this impossible. I doubt if even now, 

 and the first volume is thirty years old, any article can be strictly 

 declared out of date — an evidence, surely, of skilful editing powers. 

 It may be said that historical facts do not change — we cannot 

 expect new contributions on old-established truths and principles. 

 But the method of treatment can advance. The ninth edition 

 showed that an able original writer can present a subject — no 

 matter how venerable — in a picturesque and attractive manner. 

 Professor Baynes disproved that common idea that the articles 

 in an encyclopaedia must necessarily be dry, by insisting on new 

 articles in every case and disdaining the old. His standard was 



