ra 



that he feels, by an attempt to throw, under cover of fine phrases, 

 dust in the eyes of those who listen to him. It is time that we put 

 off charlatans, as the object of our worship, and took to knowledge 

 as a thing worth following. When this is done, intelligent men 

 will not tolerate a man who cannot express his ideas in English. 

 Every one will feel that the man is an Impostor, and not a man of 

 science, who, if he pretends to have anything to tell, cannot say it in 

 language intelligible to every man of ordinary education, instead of 

 wrapping it up in an unintelligible jargon. It was well said of one 

 of the old Philosophers of Greece, that he, the first, brought down 

 Philosophy from the clouds, and gave it a home in the dwellings of 

 men. We want a Socrates now as much as ever ; and if this As- 

 sociation does any good, not its least claim to respect will be, that 

 it will compel men who pretend to be scientific, to talk less bad 

 Latin and worse Greek, and to try, at least, what they can make of 

 English. 



Por the use of the unmeaning jargon which, upon the principle 

 Incus a non lucendo, has thus, of late years, come into fashion as 

 "scientific," — that is, to hinder science, — there cannot be the pre- 

 tence raised that it is a " universal language." The science of 

 Englishmen is wanted in England, not in Prance or Germany. It 

 were no excuse, therefore, for using a jargon which is certainly not 

 intelligible in England, even though it were intelligible in Prance 

 and Germany. But it is no more intelligible there than here. It 

 is purely a repulsive and fantastical pedantry everywhere ; and it is 

 above all things necessary that those who really value science, and 

 desire its diffusion, and wish well to the spread of knowledge, should 

 have the courage to denounce, in the strongest manner, as I feel 

 it my duty, in delivering an Inaugural Address to this Association, 

 most emphatically to do, this most monstrous of the abuses which 

 disfigure the literature of our day. 



Certain " terms of art," as they are properly called, must always 

 be in use. This is but another form of " idiom," and has no affinity 

 with the jargon of which I have been speaking. Though one who 

 has paid no attention to Geology may not be aware, on the moment, 

 of the sense in which the words " fault " and " dip " are used, in 

 regard to the layers of the earth's surface, each of those words con- 

 veys, at once, some idea to the hearer's mind ; which a few words 



