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SCIENCE. 



[N. 



Vol XV. No. 369. 



to reach the unsensitive intelligence of per- 

 sons who lack a technical education. Fur- 

 thermore, he will claim that he cannot do 

 without the use of the terms to which 

 objection is made. However, in condemn- 

 ing the needless employment of bombastic 

 words of classical origin, in place of plain 

 English, I do not wish to be understood as 

 attacking all technical terms. They are 

 a necessary evil. Some of them are instru- 

 ments of precision invented to cover par- 

 ticular scientific ideas. Old words have 

 associations which sometimes unfit them to 

 express new conceptions and ■ therefore 

 fresh words are coined. The complaint 

 lodged against the pompous, ungainly 

 wordiness of a large part of the scientific 

 writing of the day is that it is an obstacle 

 to the spread of knowledge. 



Let us consider the subject as it is thus 

 presented. In the first place, does the ex- 

 cessive use of technical terms impede the 

 advancement of science? I think it does. 

 It kills the grace and purity of the litera- 

 ture by means of which the discoveries of 

 science are made Icnown. Ruskin, himself 

 a most accurate observer of nature, and 

 also a geologist, said that he was stopped 

 from pursuing his studies ' by the quite 

 frightful inaccuracy of the scientific peo- 

 ple's terms, which is the consequence of 

 their always trying to write mixed Latin 

 and English, so losing the grace of the one 

 and the sense of the other.' But grace of 

 diction is not needed, it may well be said; 

 that is true, and it is also true that a clear, 

 forceful, unadorned mode of expression is 

 more difficult of attainment and more de- 

 sirable in the teaching of science than 

 either grace or fluency of diction. One 

 must not, as Huxley himself remarks, 

 'varnish the fair face of Truth mth that 

 pestilent cosmetic, rhetoric,' and Huxley 

 most assuredly solved the problem of how 

 to avoid rhetorical cosmetics and yet con- 

 vey deep reasoning on the most complex of 



subjects in addresses which are not only as 

 clear as a trout stream, but are also bright- 

 ened by warm touches of humanity, keen 

 wit and the glow of his own courageous 

 manhood. Nevertheless, though clearness 

 of expression be the first desired, yet grace 

 is not to be scorned. When you have a 

 teaching to convey, it is well to employ all 

 the aids which will enable you to get a 

 sympathetic hearing. Man lives not by 

 bread alone, much less by stones. He likes 

 his mental food garnished with a sauce. 

 Let the cooking be good, of course, but a 

 chef knows the value of a well-seasoned 

 adjunct to the best dish. 



Our language is capable of a grace and 

 a finish greater than we give it credit. That 

 it is possible to write on geology, for in- 

 stance, in the most exquisite simple Eng- 

 lish has been proved by Ruskin, whose 

 ' Deucalion ' and ' Modern Painters ' con- 

 tain many pages describing accurately 

 the details of the structure of rocks and 

 mountains, and dealing with their geologic- 

 al features in language which is marked 

 by the most sparing use of words which 

 have not an Anglo-Saxon origin. 



The next aspect of the enquiry is 

 whether the language of science, apart 

 from the view of mere grace of style in 

 literature, is not likely, in its present 

 everyday form, to delay the advance of 

 knowledge by its very obscurity. Leaving 

 the reader's feelings out of the argument, 

 for the present, it seems obvious that the 

 whole purpose of science, namely, the 

 search after truth, which is best advanced 

 by accuracy of observation and exactness 

 of statement, is hindered by a phraseology 

 which sometimes means very much but 

 oftener means very little, and, on the 

 whole, is most serviceable when required 

 as a cloak for ignorance. To distinguish 

 between what we know and what we think 

 we know, to comprehend accurately the 

 little that we do know, surely these are 



