NEED FOR INTERPRETERS OF SCIENCE 395 



trained and qualified biologist who is prepared at the 

 present moment to maintain the existence of a " vital 

 principle," or of a force to be called " vitality," supposed to 

 be something different in character and quality from the 

 recognised physical forces, and having its existence along- 

 side, yet apart from, the manifestations of those forces. 



Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton recently said : " The 

 advance in science takes the workers in science more and 

 more beyond the ken of the ordinary public, and their 

 work grows to be a little understood and much misunder- 

 stood ; and I have felt that, as in many other cases, the 

 need would come for interpreters between those who are 

 carrying on scientific research and the public, in order to 

 explain and justify their work." Probably everyone will 

 agree with the Lord Justice : but what are we to say of 

 those responsible owners of great journals who not only 

 abstain from providing such interpretation but allow 

 anonymous and incompetent writers to mislead the public ? 

 Is the literary critic of a prosperous journal employed to 

 write the City article ? 



There has been a repetition this year (1912) of the usual 

 misrepresentation on the occasion of the meeting of the 

 British Association. The President, Professor Schafer, 

 had let it be known that his address would be concerned 

 with the chemistry of living processes, the gradual passage 

 of chemical combinations into the condition which we 

 call " living," and the possibility of bringing about this 

 passage in the chemical laboratory without the use of 

 materials already elaborated by previously existing "living" 

 material. The announcement was immediately made in 

 some "newspapers" that "startling revelations" were to be 

 made by the President, that he was " to throw a bomb- 

 shell " into the camp, etc. He did nothing of the kind. 

 He gave an admirable and clear statement of the progress 

 during recent years, towards the realisation of the coH'^ 



