11 



an actual knowledge of the sort of facts, upon the accumulation of 

 which the science of Geology must be entirely built up. 



And here I am led to a branch of the subject from which, though 

 I touch on it with some unwillingness, I do not wish to shrink ; — for 

 I am convinced of its very great importance. I mean the wretched 

 pedantry that disfigures so much of modern so-called science, seek- 

 ing to cover superficialism by a pompous show of unmeaning words. 

 I do not hesitate to say that one of my own strongest reasons for 

 hailing the suggestion for the formation of this Association has been, 

 that it is quite time that Englishmen, when they deal with science, 

 began to talk English, and ceased to grimace in an unintelligible 

 jargon. 



It is well enough perhaps, — at any rate it is politic, — in those 

 countries where true humanity is dead, and where the very breath 

 of human self-respect and freedom is regarded as a pestilence, that 

 great pretensions should be made of State honour done to science. 

 True science is dishonoured, not exalted, by a policy so selfish and 

 so transparent, though, unhappily, so successful. The greater the 

 halo of mysticism and pretence that can be thrown round science, 

 the better the end of the enslavers of the human mind is gained ; 

 for they know that, the more intricately they thus succeed in wrap- 

 ping the toils of a mock intelligence round the minds of men, the 

 more easily will they succeed in keeping them from being engaged 

 with the worthy thoughts that ennoble the Man. " Mere memory 

 is sought to be developed at the expense of understanding, free 

 thought, and creative power; and thus are instilled passive obe- 

 dience and blind submission on all political and religious subjects." 

 It is thus that the young Prussian is taught to imagine himself 

 educated, — and there are some in England whom the delusion of 

 words is unhappily able so to blind that they hold him up and call 

 him educated, — because he is, at a given age, drilled up into a ma- 

 chine capable of no end of parrot repetitions, out of the "isms" 

 and the " ologies while, of that which alone constitutes real edu- 

 cation, — the education of the man, for the duties of life, as the 

 free citizen of a free state, — he is carefully kept in hopeless dark- 

 ness ; and there is no country in Europe where this last and only 

 worth-having education is, in any sense or manner, given, except 

 England. But what thus marks the crafty systems of miscalled 



