ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
245 
its processes, that they exceed the powers of all who cannot devote their 
lives to it. The details increase so constantly in number and variety 
that it is compelled to partition itself into infinitesimal provinces. Its 
mere language and vocabulary distract by their immensity and pecu- 
liarities. None but professed students are any longer able to master the 
diction and the classifications, which are perpetually being changed. 
The literature on any and every department follows the same rule of 
crabbedness and bulk. Its publications are too costly for the majority 
of pockets, and particularly for those which have other demands upon 
them. Intending naturalists have the authority of the President of the 
Microscopical Society for believing that all these impediments to the 
pursuit are superfluous and erroneous. The instrument from which 
the association derives its name might have been supposed to be prin- 
cipally responsible for the modern banishment of a popular character 
from inquiries into natural history. Dr. Hudson protests against the 
injurious suspicion, and deprecates earnestly the practices of professors 
of science in which it has originated. Specialists, he declares, are 
enemies against whom war should be waged. Natural history does not 
need, in his judgment, the uncouth terminology which is the bane of 
monographs. A host of creatures would, he is persuaded, live more 
comfortably within the common species, in which of old they congre- 
gated, than penned, as now, into separate little enclosures. The one 
essential for a naturalist is joy in the investigation of the wonders of 
life ; and the freest cultivation of the propensity to indulge the pleasure 
is equally requisite for the progress of the true science of natural history. 
Other sciences are backed by their utility. On them arts are founded 
which ward ofi^ material dangers, or serve material interests. The 
structure of civilization, and most of the conveniences of human exist- 
ence depend on the principles they embody. Dr. Hudson sees little of 
this practical bearing in the study for which he pleads. Though a few 
branches, especially researches into the minutest forms of life, may, he 
acknowledges, be of the profoundest consequence to human health and 
prosperity, in general the knowledge of natural history must be its own 
final reward. For the attraction of recruits to its camp it will, as 
hitherto, have, he thinks, to rely chiefly on the delight it yields. He is 
seriously afraid that the emotion may be choked, stifled, and killed 
before it has had a chance of maturing into a habit, by the exasperating 
resolve of specialists to encompass the whole subject with an atmosphere 
in which none but themselves can breathe. 
This is a very grave indictment to proceed from the learned recesses 
of the Eoyal Microscopical Society. Its President based his remarks 
on the stumbling-block interposed by the caprices of classification, the 
addiction to technical terms, and the multiplication of species, to the 
enrolment of volunteers in the army of naturalists. Their real import- 
ance rests rather upon the degree to which the disposition he attacks is 
adverse to the advancement of science itself. Specialists would not be 
afllicted if they were left alone in their pursuit. They are inclined to 
resent and not to court the company of amateurs. They feel the eager 
inner enjoyment of their study which Dr. Hudson regards as the main- 
stay of the whole. To them the changes in classification are substan- 
tially necessary. Every fresh subdivision for which they can invent a 
