October 30, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



567 



that natural grace of style which, like ele- 

 gance of manners, can be felt but not ana- 

 lyzed. Doubtless the technical description of 

 a dinosaur or of an aboriginal shell-heap can 

 derive little aid from metonymy or climax; 

 but the field of the scientific specialist merges 

 insensibly in common ground, and when he is 

 on the borders he is within view of the whole 

 world of letters. Moreover, the man of sci- 

 ence often takes literary excursions into 

 neighboring provinces — at least many of the 

 great men of science do. Witness Huxley 

 himself, with his 'Lay Sermons'; and John 

 Tyndall, who almost made a specialty of feed- 

 ing ' Fragments ' to the unscientific, and whose 

 fame is due chiefly to his brilliant advocacy, 

 oral and in writing, of physical science; and 

 Ernst Haeckel, with his ' Eiddle of the 

 Universe.' 



" The importance of style," says Lewes, "is 

 generally unsuspected by philosophers and 

 men of science, who are quite aware of its 

 advantage in all departments of helles lettres. 

 * * * Had there been a clear understand- 

 ing of style as the living body of thought, 

 and not its ' dress ' * * * the error I am 

 noticing would not have spread so widely. 

 The matter is confluent with the manner, 

 and only through the style can thought reach 

 the reader's mind." Here Lewes but repeats 

 De Quincey, who cites Wordsworth to the ef- 

 fect that it is the highest degree unphilo- 

 sophical to call language or diction ' the dress 

 of thought ' ; Wordsworth would call it the 

 incarnation of thought. 'Never in one word,' 

 says De Quincey, ' was so profound a truth 

 conveyed.' 



Of the authors whose writings I have classi- 

 fied as ' good,' there are five or six whose writ- 

 ings I should place in the highest class, that 

 of excellent ; for to the characteristics of 

 clearness, orderliness and forcibleness they add 

 the final qualit.v of elegance or attractiveness. 

 As an example of scientific writing of this 

 class, mention may be made of that of the 

 late Dr. John S. Newberry. If one doubts 

 it one should read his paper on ' The Ancient 

 Lakes of Western North America,' in the 

 Fourth Haydcn Annual. 



Scientific men, especially the young men, are 

 prone to spend most of their time in observ- 

 ing and experimenting; comparatively little 

 is devoted to studying the accumulated data 

 and their relations, and little indeed is re- 

 served for composition. Phenomena are 

 sought with eagerness, but, once discovered, 

 interest in them wanes. The field and the 

 laboratory are too alluring to be resisted for 

 long, and the time to be devoted to reflection 

 and to writing is minimized. Neglecting what 

 Coleridge termed ' ratiocinative meditation,' 

 they produce with facility papers consisting 

 I if crude raw materials which can but repel 

 persons endowed witli a sense of order, 

 strength and beauty. Doubtless these writers 

 are, as Henry James says, ' strangers to the 

 pangs and the weariness that accompany the 

 sense of exactitude, of proportion and of 

 beauty,' but in many cases it is also true that 

 they are writers who ' have been hindered in 

 their course and never knew the reason why.' 

 I appeal to the scientific men of America, es- 

 pecially the younger men, to cast off this 

 shameful indifference to the power and beauty 

 of their marvelously rich and adaptable lan- 

 guage, and to devote to their writing some of 

 the energy they manifest in the field and some 

 of the patience they exercise in the laboratory. 



In a recently issued university catalogue, 

 under the heading 'Admission' and the sub- 

 heading ' English,' appears the following 

 item of gratifying information : " The can- 

 didate should read all the prescribed books, 

 but knowledge of them will be regarded as 

 less important than ability to write English." 

 That a young man entering on a scientific 

 course at a universitj' should have read care- 

 fully ' Silas Marner ' and ' The Sir Roger de 

 Coverley Papers ' is doubtless desirable, but 

 that he should be able to express, in English 

 that is at least clear and vigorous, whatever 

 he may know on any subject is of far more 

 importance. Without the property of reversi- 

 bility, giving the motor, the dynamo-electric 

 machine would lack the greater portion 

 of its usefulness. Though a man be sur- 

 charged with knowledge, his usefulness to 

 iiKinkiiid must be slight unless he is able to 



