32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



This also is a highly important function. The stimulus derived 

 from the impact of mind upon mind, whereby ideas are often gene- 

 rated like sparks from ilint, is proverbial. Personal contact, too, 

 with men distinguished in any branch of science has a wonderfully 

 stimulating effect upon the younger students of the same branch ; 

 and experience abundantly shows that in science as elsewhere it is 

 not good for man to be alone. The reading of a paper in such a 

 society is usually followed by a discussion in which those whose 

 special studies have rendered them familiar with the subject of which 

 the paper treats join, and, with an audience understanding the sub- 

 ject and capable of fairly criticizing the paper, this discu.ssion is often 

 as valuable as the paper itself 



Again, science is now so vast that it is wholly out of the power of 

 any man to master it all. Hence the division of labour. Hence 

 the separation of Human Knowledge into separate sciences. But 

 after all these divisions are not hard and fast lines. Each science sO' 

 called is dependent more or less upon its fellows ; and each contri- 

 butes its share to the others. Chemistry cannot do without Physics,^ 

 and Biology cannot do without Chemistry, while Geology is an 

 application of all three to the study of the earth's crust. There 

 are, therefore, advantages of no mean order in the facilities afforded 

 by learned societies for the intercourse of students of different 

 branches of science with one another. 



The social element then, as we may call it, is an important factor 

 in the influence of Learned Societies upon the advancement of 

 science. But science does not exist only for the scientifi.c. It is a 

 most essential condition to its exercising its due influence upon the 

 world that its discoveries should be disseminated among mankind at 

 large. And this propagation of knowledge is another most important 

 function of Learned Societies. "We hear much now-a-days of popular 

 science, and the phrase as sometimes understood has a rather ques- 

 tionable signification. Too often those who have undertaken to 

 enlighten the people in scientific matters have been sadly unfitted 

 for their self imposed task. The spectacle of a man with only the 

 merest smattering of a subject endeavouring to teach those whose 

 ignorance is only less than his own is not an edifying one. Unfor- 

 tunately it is not a rare one. The shallow pretender who seems to 

 think that any knowledge that goes beneath the skin of the subject 

 would only be an incumbrance likely to hinder his glib and self 



