494 
The Booh of the Balance of Wisdom . [October, 
There might occur conflicts of jurisdiction, and widely dif- 
ferent estimates of the value of work done. Two papers 
substantially identical might be sent, by one and the same 
author, to two different Societies. A dissertation rejected 
by one authority might be entertained by another, to the 
occasioning of no little scandal. Subdivision could, more- 
over, hardly fail to weaken the sense of responsibility. As, 
moreover, the Royal Society rarely fails to include all the 
most eminent men in every department of science, it cannot 
be urged that any paper could find in any other Society a 
more competent body of judges. 
• In submitting these schemes for the promotion of research 
in England, or rather amongst the English nation, we are 
far from conceiving them as incapable of improvement. All 
we desire is that our country shall not fall short of any 
foreign land in the value and the extent of its contributions 
to science ; and if this end can be more effectually promoted 
in any other manner than in those we have suggested, we 
shall be the first to abandon our own views and to labour 
for the adoption of the more excellent way. 
Mr. Dyer says— Everywhere the harvest of new know- 
ledge is maturing and ripening. England alone is loth to 
send labourers to reap it.” 
V. THE BOOK OF THE BALANCE OF WISDOM. 
By H. Carrington Bolton, Ph.D. 
f O rapid are the strides made by science in this pro- 
gressive age, and so boundless is its range, that those 
who view its career from without find great difficulty 
in following its diverse and intricate pathways, while those 
who have secured a footing within the mysterious domain 
and are free to journey on the same road are often quite 
unable to keep pace with its fleet movements and would fain 
retire from the unequal contest. It is not surprising, then, 
that those actually contributing to the advancement of 
science, pressing eagerly upward and onward, should negleCt 
to look back upon the labours of those who precede them, 
and should sometimes lose sight of the obligations which 
science owes to forgotten generations. 
Could the wisdom of the world concealed in the silent un- 
written history of past ages be divulged by a miracle of 
