206 Canadian Record of Science. 



science, the real advancement of science at their hands is 

 rather incidental than otherwise. In certain particulars 

 they may be likened to the class known as " middle men" 

 in commercial transactions, the connecting link between 

 producer and consumer. It is in no way to their discredit 

 that they usually excel both of these, in vigilance and cir- 

 cumspection and in their quick perception of utility. By 

 them the discoveries of science are prepared for and placed 

 upon the market, and it is difficult to overestimate their 

 usefulness in this capacity. It is true that the lion's share 

 of the profit in the transaction is generally theirs, and that 

 they are often negligent in the matter of giving the phil- 

 osopher the credit to which he is entitled, but for the lat- 

 ter, at least, it is believed that the philosopher is himself 

 often responsible. 



If this statement of the relative numbers of the scientific 

 and the non-scientific is reasonably correct, the scientific 

 man may at least congratulate himself on wielding an in- 

 fluence in affairs vastly greater than the census, alone, 

 would justify, and this fact encourages the belief that if there 

 is anything "out of joint" in his relations with the general 

 public, the remedy is in his own hands. Let our first in- 

 quiry be, then, in what particulars does he fail in the full 

 discharge of his duties as a man of science, and especially 

 as an exponent of science among his fellows ? 



"Without attempting to arrange the answers which suggest 

 themselves in logical order, or, indeed, to select those of the 

 first importance, I submit^ to begin with, his inability or un- 

 willingness, common but by no means universal, to present 

 the results of his labors in a form intelligible to intelligent 

 people. When inability, it is a misfortune, often the out- 

 growth, however, of negligence or indifference; when un- 

 willingness, it becomes at least an offence, and not one in- 

 dicative of the true scientific spirit. Unfortunately, we are 

 not yet entirely out of the shadow of the middle ages, when 

 learning was a mystery to all except a select few, or of the 

 centuries a little later, when a scientific treatise must be 

 entombed in a dead language, or a scientific discovery em- 

 balmed in a cipher. 



