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A N. Z. ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE. 147 
very large amount of good work. Original research might fur- 
ther be encouraged by the giving of a yearly medal, like the 
Copley, Royal, or Rumford. All such honours should be given 
sparingly, and with most jealous care, in order to maintain their 
high prestige. Such prizes would stimulate a large number of 
workers, both young and old. Not a few scientific workers are 
apt to despise all such aids to science, but every man of the 
world will agree as to their utility. 
For centuries all scientific workers were believed to practice 
the black art, to have sold themselves to the Devil ; and, though 
this feeling has almost entirely died out, it still lingers ina 
modified form in the belief so common among the multitude 
that science is something very mysterious, very weird, and always 
incomprehensible. Unfortunately this feeling was largely 
fostered by a class of men who delight to maintain this incom- 
prehensibility, by the use of an extravagantly technical phrase- 
ology. Sometimes this was pure matter of habit, but very often 
it was the child of pure affectation and conceit. Men who had 
little to say liked to make that little seem much by clothing it in 
the longest, most uncouth terms they could find, so that the 
public became thoroughly averse to reading any scientific work. 
It is only recently that efforts have been successfully made to 
popularise science, and chief among these is the greatest of all 
modern scientific workers. In his “ Voyage of the ‘Beagle,’” 
“Origin of Species,” “Descent of Man,” and in all his works 
down to his latest on earthworms, Mr. Darwin has clothed the 
highest generalisations and the purest science in words and 
phrases so simple that the most unlearned can easily understand 
and take pleasure therein. Hehas been followed by Huxley, with 
his humourous, clear, incisive writing ; by Tyndall in a masterly 
prose, and by Proctor in the freest and easiest manner. These 
men and many others have done a vast amount of good, alto- 
gether outside the actual scientific contents of their books, by 
teaching the people that science iss not an incomprehensible 
mystery, but is really very simple and very easily understood. 
Unfortunately this old spirit of eclecticism still lives in the 
_ breasts of many scientific workers; they hate all attempts at. 
“popularising ” science, and deem all such efforts as degrading, 
as ruinous to science, and altogether worthy of contempt. These 
men like to think that their work is special, select, and cavaire 
tothe general. They have a feeling akin to that which ruled the 
old Egyptian priests, who had a special high-class religion, with 
carefully guarded rites, for themselves, whilst they had another 
religion and other ceremonials for the common herd. I feel 
sure there is very little danger to fear from popularising science, 
which after all only means that we put thoughts into language 
which every one who runs may read. 
I think this absurd dread of “ popularising ” science has done 
and is still doing a great deal of harm. JI am a constant attend- 
ant at the meetings of the Wellington Philosophical Society, and 
I have read many accounts of the meetings of its kindred 
