PHILOSOPHY AND SPECIALTIES. 
29 
did. He may still remember it, but I have forgotten.” The 
incredible part of this story is that Bohme ever did under¬ 
stand the passage that he had written so obscurely. 
That the effort to write intelligibly, forcibly, and ele¬ 
gantly on science can be successful is shown by such recent 
English writers as Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, Lubbock, Tylor, 
Sayce, Galton, Lockyer, and Proctor. I will not attempt to 
offer a similar list of American writers, but cannot forego 
the pleasure of mentioning a recent publication as a model 
for attractive»beauty as well as for sound instruction. It is 
frequently praised in the phrase “ as interesting as a novel,” 
which at once recognizes its literary excellence and implies 
surprise' that science can be entertaining. Its title is The 
New Astronomy. 
It is an open question whether a work is more useful 
which clearly and adequately presents the condition of exist¬ 
ing thought and knowledge afterward found erroneous or a 
work which, correct in its facts and conclusions, is so confused 
and unintelligible as to require the labors of later com¬ 
mentators to make its truths apparent. The first writers, 
though mistaken, are at least preserved as milestones to 
show the march of evolution. Paley may be cited as an 
example. His Evidences will still be read, even after the 
doctrine of special creations shall have abandoned its hope¬ 
less fight. Mr. George now secures and will retain readers 
by his wealth of illustration and fascinating rhetoric. More 
accurate closet-thinkers but unattractive or slovenly writers 
make no positive mark, their rough fragments being only 
used or abused by antiquarian wreckers of later reputations, 
as our patent-lawyers, by delving in dusty boxes of waste 
papers, defeat the perficient inventor and introducer of im¬ 
portant originality. 
The point involved in the question is more readily exam¬ 
ined when the power of style is directed not to the discus¬ 
sion of facts of nature, but to matters of judgment and reason. 
The contemporary critics of Sir William Blackstone asserted, 
perhaps with some truth, that on every page of his com- 
