14 



of men of science to the study of Nature is still a popular 

 puzzle. It is not yet looked upon as the highest occupa- 

 tion of the human mind to extend our knowledge of the 

 order of things around us. On the part of classes still 

 called educated there exists an ill-concealed contempt for 

 the mental pursuits of mere collectors, observers and ex- 

 perimenters. It is not now so bad as when in England 

 Ladv Granville's will was attempted to be set aside on 

 the ground of lunacy, evinced by no other evidence than 

 a fondness for collecting insects : yet enthusiastic natural- 

 ists who ransack field and forest, mountain and sea, are 

 still regarded as a class apart — as eccentric objects of cu- 

 riosity, not to be compared in dignity with the students 

 of art, literature and metaphysics. So much of the old 

 spirit continues that, as objects of thought and in the edu- 

 cation of to-day, the works of man are ranked as superior 

 to the works of God. Nor is it by any means considered 

 so very desirable to know all about nature. Large num- 

 bers of the cultivators of sentimental literature still pro- 

 test that if the world were once understood, it would no 

 longer be worth living in. The heads of college-bred 

 people are still filled with the old childish fictions which 

 are fondly cherished, and science, because it would clear 

 away the mountains of this rubbish, in which the seekers 

 after a liberal education are still made to delve, is dread- 

 ed as a desolating agency that would bereave us of all 

 that is most ennobling and refining in culture." Of the 

 scientist too many are yet apt to say that 



Whether he measure earth, compute the sea, 

 Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or split a flea : 

 The solemn trifler with his boasted skill 

 Toils much, and is a solemn trifler still. 



The author of Hudibras wrote a satire on the Royal 

 Society, notwithstanding Newton was a member, and sub- 

 mitted the. Principia to it, entitled the Elephant in the 

 Moon. This was two hundred years ago, and long before 

 that solemn body, the Pickwick Club, yet burlesque as it 

 is, it still to a large extent represents the popular idea of the 

 scientist's vocation, his mishaps and blunders. 



Agassiz's classical learning was something; more than 



