Men of Science and the General Public. 207 



Many scientific men of excellent reputation, are to-day 

 guilty of the crime of unnecessary and often premeditated 

 and deliberately planned mystification ; in tact almost by 

 common consent, this fault is overlooked in men of distin- 

 guished ability, if, indeed, it does not add a lustre to the 

 brilliancy of their attainments. It is usually regarded as a 

 high compliment to say of A that when he read his paper 

 in the mathematical section, no one present was able to un- 

 derstand what it was about ; or of B and his book that there 

 are only three men in the world who can read it. "We 

 greatly, though silently, admire A and B, while C the un- 

 known, who has not yet won a reputation and who ventures 

 to discuss something we do understand, (after his clear and 

 logical presentation of the subject) must go content with 

 the patronizing admonition that there is really nothing new 

 about this, and that if he will consult the pages of a certain 

 journal of a few years ago, he will find the same idea, not 

 developed, it is true, but hinted at and put aside for future 

 consideration, or, that he will find that Newton or Darwin 

 declared what is essentially the same principle, many years 

 before. JSTo one can deny that there is great reason and 

 good judgment displayed in all this, but the ordinary lay- 

 man is likely to inquire whether it is distributed and appor- 

 tioned with nice discrimination ; and it is the standpoint of 

 the layman which we are occupying at the present moment. 



All will admit that there are many men whose power in 

 original thinking and profound research is far greater than 

 their facility of expression, just as on the other hand, there 

 are many more men whose linguistic fluency is unembar- 

 rassed by intellectual activity, and representatives of both 

 classes may be found among those usually counted as men 

 of science. It is with the first only, that we are concerned 

 at the present moment, and it is sufficient to remark, that 

 their fault is relatively unimportant and easily overlooked. 

 Among them is often found that highly prized but imper- 

 fectly defined individual known as the " genius," for whose 

 existence we are always thankful, even though his inter- 

 pretation is difficult and laborious. 



