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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1402 



disinterested service rendered by it to hu- 

 manity. The record of discovery or descrip- 

 tion of progress is, therefore, only one func- 

 tion of a local scientific society; beyond this 

 is the duty of using the light of science to 

 reveal the dangers of ignorance in high as 

 well as in low places. Though in most socie- 

 ties there is only a small nucleus of working 

 members, the others are capable of being in- 

 terested in results achieved, and a few may 

 be so stimulated by them as to become just 

 and worthy knights of science, ready to re- 

 move any dragons which stand in the way 

 of human progress, and continually uphold- 

 ing the virtues of their mistress. 



Every local scientific society should be a 

 training ground for these Sir Galahads, and 

 an outpost of the empire of knowledge. The 

 community should look to it for protection 

 from dangers within and without the settle- 

 ment, and for assistance in pressing further 

 forward into the surrounding woods of ob- 

 scurity. At present it is unusual for this 

 civic responsibility to be accepted by a sci- 

 entific society, with the result that local 

 movements are undertaken without the guid- 

 ance necessary to make them successful. A 

 local scientific society should be the natural 

 body for the civic authority to consult be- 

 fore any action is taken in which scientific 

 knowledge will be of service. It should be 

 to the city or county in which it is situated 

 what the Eoyal Society is to the State, and 

 not a thing apart from public life and affairs. 

 As an example of what a local society may 

 usefully do, the action taken by the Man- 

 chester Field Naturalists' and Archsobgists' 

 Society several years ago may be mentioned. 

 The Society appointed a Committee for the 

 purpose of promoting the planting of trees 

 and shrubs in Manchester and its immediate 

 suburbs. The idea commended itself to the 

 Corporation, and the Committee obtained ad- 

 vice as to the best trees for open spaces in 

 the district, shrubs for tubs and boxes, and 

 tree culture in towns generally. This is the 

 kind of guidance which a scientific society 

 should be particularly competent to give, and 

 which the community has a right to expect 



from it. Many similar questions continually 

 arise in which ascertained knowledge can be 

 used for the promotion of healthy individual 

 and social life, and if scientific societies are 

 indifferent to them they neglect their best 

 opportunities of playing a strong part in the 

 scheme of human progress. 



When wisdom is justified of her children, 

 and local scientific societies are no longer 

 esoteric circles, but effective groups of en- 

 lightened citizens of all classes, they will 

 provide the touchstone by which fact is dis- 

 tinguished from assertion and promise from 

 performance. As the sun draws into our 

 system all substantial bodies which come 

 within its sphere of infiuence, while the pres- 

 sure of sunlight drives away the fine dust 

 which would tend to obscure one body from 

 another, so a local scientific society posses- 

 ses the power of attracting within itself all 

 people of weight in the region around it and 

 of dispersing the mist and fog which com- 

 monly prevail in the social atmosphere. Thus 

 may the forces of modern civilization, moral 

 and material, be brought together, and an 

 allied plan of campaig-n instituted against 

 the armies of ignorance and sloth. The serv- 

 ice is that of truth, the discipline that of 

 scientific investigation, and the unifying aim 

 human well-being. Kingsley long ago ex- 

 pressed the democratic basis upon which this 

 fellowship is founded. " If," he said, " you 

 want a ground of brotherhood with men, not 

 merely in these islands, but in America, on 

 the Continent — in a word, all over the world 

 - — such as rank, wealth, fashion, or other 

 artificial arrangements of the world can not 

 give and can not take away; if you want to 

 feel yourself as good as any man in theory, 

 because you are as good as any man in prac- 

 tice, except those who are better than you in 

 the same line, which is open to any and every 

 man, if you wish to have the inspiring and 

 ennobling feeling of being a brother in a 

 great freemasonry which owns no difference 

 of rank, of creed, or of nationality — the only 

 freemasonry, the only International League 

 which is likely to make mankind (as we all 

 hope they will be some day) one — then be- 



