tively or satisfactorily about science—the scientific workers themselves. Too long what has been called the popularization of science has been attempted by unscientific persons. When men like Herschel and Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, and Huxley, undertake the real popularization of science, we have at once the promise and the sign of progress. "But," Mr. Appleton says, "there is not wanting evidence that the popularization of science, in the best and most necessary meaning of the word, is in this country beginning largely to take the place of original study and investigation of truth." Where, however, is this evidence? Mr. Appleton must have been sorely pressed, when he can only find it in the fact that "in Oxford, where the business of education has been brought to a pitch of perfection almost unequaled elsewhere, the actual additions to knowledge that are made, in the course of a generation, in the old traditional studies of Latin and Greek philosophy, are, as compared with what is done in Germany, almost inappreciable." I am not concerned to deny this, or even to question it. It is the natural result of old traditional arrangements. But it proves nothing concerning the effect of the popularization of science in the best sense of the word—and as distinguished from what is often so called, but might more correctly be termed the vulgarization of science. It seems to me undeniable that the great improvement which has of late taken place in the work of correct scientific exposition has synchronized with a great increase in the amount of fruitful original research. I say simply that the two developments have synchronized; but I am strongly of opinion that they stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. Not only does it appear to me that our Herschels, Darwins, Huxleys, Tyndalls, and so on, have gained as science workers rather than lost, by their work in popularizing science, but I cannot doubt that the number of science-workers, in the several departments to which their writings relate, has been largely increased by treatises which combine sound science with clear and elegant exposition.
There is another aspect in which the improved scientific literature of our time must be considered. It is unfortunate that modern scientific progress necessarily tends to increase the number of specialists. Not only is it impossible for any man to thoroughly master several departments of scientific research, but no man can be thoroughly master of a single science in all its developments. It is absolutely necessary that there should be specialists—nay, every real worker in science must be a specialist. But while each science-worker has thus, and should have, his special branch of his own science, it is very desirable that he should also have a correct general view of other sciences. If he ought to know every thing about something, there is no reason why he should not know something about every thing.[1] It
- ↑ "The specialists," says Wendell Holmes, "are the coral insects that build up a reef. By-and-by, it will be an island, and, for aught we know, may grow into a continent. But
