Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing

“ Hence it came about that Geology, the science which deals not in warm life and lovely colours, but in mud and stones and bones and old refuse, obtained a predominance and a publicity which it could not otherwise easily have secured. Persons of candid mind would naturally wish to hear both sides of an exciting question. Persons of pre-occupied mind would still sometimes wish to see for themselves what nonsense the geologists were writing. Of course it was foolish of them, for if a man has made up what he calls his mind he ought never to hear the other side. ”

“ Believe me, that ever as you pursue your path through the fairyland of science, and become more and more acquainted with the riches and splendour of the scene, you will more and more be convinced that the fame of it has not exceeded the reality, that at your outsetting the half was not told you. ”

“ Now, the men of science, with rare exceptions, make no claim from the scientific point of view to know what goes on in Heaven or in Hades; but, as I understand the matter, they are modestly certain that our globe has lasted for hundreds of thousands of years; that within the human period the whole of its surface has never been submerged at once; that no human being ever lived to the age of nine hundred years; that the human species began quite otherwise than with an abruptly created pair; that no woman was ever formed of a rib taken from the side of a man ”

“ We need not then be surprised if many hundreds or thousands of observers are used up in unproductive labour or self-amusement for every true light of science that shines upon a generation. Yet the laborious accumulation of knowledge by very humble workers may ultimately be of service to mankind. Thus Gilbert White of Selborne not improbably traces the extirpation of leprosy from this part of the globe to the improved knowledge and therewith the greatly extended use of vegetables. ”

“ The difference often ranges from supreme excellence to detestable badness. By publishing what is old as though it were new; by incomplete, inaccurate, confused and misleading descriptions of what is really new; by hypotheses based on easily avoidable ignorance, authors win themselves no honour, and they grievously trouble science. Those, too, do an injury to themselves and their neighbours who, out of carelessness, or out of self-will, or out of superfluous modesty, use irregular, unrecognised, and obscure means of publication for discoveries that are valuable and good. ”

“ Therefore, while extolling the men who seem to have been most signally effective in raising natural science out of obscurity into prominence, we may readily own that minds and ideas, like species, are no result of abrupt creation, but the product of a long process of evolution. ”

“ Nevertheless, through the marvellous unity of Nature—that unrivalled argument for the oneness of a Divine Author of it—there seem to be no branches of knowledge so remote and unconnected that they cannot upon occasion benignantly illumine each the other. ”

“ On the one hand, the man who has had the trouble of examining and describing a species has much more right to be regarded as the "author" than one who has merely suggested a name. On the other hand, an author should not be deprived of his credit because his work happens to be incorporated in another man's publication. The majority of the Commission append a recommendation—for it can scarcely be intended for a rule—that the name of the author should follow the specific name "without the interposition of a comma." ”

“ From the law court and the camp, from the ledger and the counting house, men turn sometimes for amusement's sake to Natural History. They find it a delightful and absorbing pastime. That in itself is something. ”

“ He made an orderly record of all the natural history objects discovered by all men everywhere. He gave, in short, by his example and by his teaching, by what he himself did and by what he induced others to do, such an impetus to our science as no one man had ever given it before. ”

“ The name of James Hutton is far less dazzling, by far less widely celebrated, than that of Linnæus; but it has been shown by those competent to judge that Hutton's services to science were of the order which can truly be described as epoch-making. His 'Theory of the Earth' upset many ancient opinions as deeply rooted as mountain chains, as widely spread as the main oceans. Contrary to the apparent evidence of men's senses, he maintained that the crust of the globe is a great piece of machinery perpetually at work. ”

“ It is commonly supposed that the advance of science has been greatly hindered by the persistent and often recurring opposition of theologians. That may be true of the middle ages, but of the last century and our own it is extremely doubtful. The new views on the age of the earth, on the antiquity of man, on the transmutation of species, severally in their turn aroused, it is true, the most violent hostility. ”

“ The principle of priority is weakened when the original form of a name is relinquished not in the interests of science, but of scholarship. On the other hand, it is so easy to let the names alone, carrying with them their small but interesting touches of autobiography, and no possible harm is done if we do leave to the polished scholar some little occasion for chuckling over us untutored sons of science. ”

“ The object of our Union is to win for science such benefits as are found to accrue in manufactures from division of labour, and in trade, commerce, and finance from co-operation. We think that the good work which is being done by numerous local societies in isolation will be better done if they are brought into sympathetic contact and join hand to hand in unselfish brotherhood.
The present Union is not the first of its kind. In this world, as we know it, nothing ever is the first of its kind. ”

“ Writers can only attain efficiency by reiterated efforts. But it is not necessary that every beginner's essays, every crude attempt at research, every uncompleted investigation, every reproduction of the obvious and the commonplace, should be printed and published. Those who are engaged in bibliography, classification, and monographic work of every kind, however free they may be from critical cynicism, cannot close their eyes to the difference of merit in the writers whose works they are obliged to examine. ”

“ If even opposition has promoted the knowledge of nature, much more must the innumerable societies established expressly for its promotion have been efficacious. The growing appreciation of science led to their being founded. Their foundation has led to an ever-extending growth in the appreciation of science. ”

“ In the use of the microscope one thing is very likely to happen. A curious sensation of shame will steal over an observer when he becomes conscious that what is really ridiculously small is not the animal or plant which he is handling, but his own knowledge of its functions and powers and organization. ”

“ Anyone who has tried to light a fire will know that when too much paper is used in the kindling, the flame is extinguished by its own smoke. From these metaphors you may understand the risk to which scientific truth is exposed of being disabled and smothered by the multitude of its exponents. ”

“ The Societies which have joined our Union are almost exclusively Natural History Societies. They are quite friendly to philosophy and literature, to mathematics and chemistry, to agriculture and political economy, to astronomy and the use of the globes, but they find their own more special and serious employment in zoology, botany, and geology. ”

“ But again, as I understand the matter, a large body of our pastors and masters, of men who have a prescriptive right and a splendid vantage-ground for teaching morality and religion, deny in these respects what the men of science affirm, and affirm what they deny, or else they ignore the matter, or else they are ignorant of the points in dispute and take no interest in them. ”

“ It has brought the wonders and surprises of advancing knowledge to men's own doors. It beats the drum outside their windows, so that they cannot altogether shut their ears to the music. The reception of it entails upon the hospitable town an astonishing amount of trouble and expense. Nevertheless the welcome it receives is not only everywhere extremely cordial, but the pleasant sight is witnessed of rival towns or cities competing for the honour of giving it entertainment. ”

“ There is nothing to be said against this except that sometimes an author's name may come into a ludicrous combination with an uncomplimentary remark intended for the Snake, or the Cockroach, or some other low-minded species. Another recommendation, posing as a rule, prescribes the use of italics for distinguishing between the names of the species and the name of the author. It would be better to proscribe italics than to prescribe them. They are less legible than many other forms of type, and, as old books show, they are the worst in wear. ”

“ But the fact is that no one can stop the revolution of the earth by simply saying that it does not move, and no teacher can influence his disciples if in his argument he pre-supposes as accepted and impregnable truth what they, rightly or wrongly, regard as incredible legends. ”

“ With scientific names there is an understanding that, if they are thrown according to the rules of the game, they ought to stick at least to some of the objects at which they have been thrown. In early attempts at classification a generic name is often attached to an incoherent miscellany of species. ”

“ Carry back your minds to the almost unthinkable time when printing was unknown, when as yet there was no post office and no freedom of the press, when paper was costly, and when men had to do their travelling without steamers and without railways. ”

“ Therefore a Congress like ours aims at bringing together men engaged on different lines of research, that from time to time and in a measure all may understand what all are doing. It aims also at bringing together men pursuing the same line, that they may learn from one another the best methods and the best results. ”

“ The ancients have constantly been convicted of stealing our best jokes, and they have evidently tried to rub the gloss off some of our finest scientific discoveries by rather too plainly speaking of them before they were made. ”

“ The work pleading to be done is, in fact, so overwhelmingly extensive that it may be refreshing to hear of some work pleading to be not done. For fostering a love of natural history, the ideal method long practised was to encourage young people, and beginners in general, to make collections of eggs and birds, of butterflies and beetles, of flowers and fossils. ”

“ If in housebuilding it would be difficult for a man to begin with the attics and the roof, and afterwards to lay the foundation and construct the ground-floor, it would be equally difficult for Nature, after laying down one stratum upon the ocean-bed, to deposit a newer one, not on the top of the older, but underneath it. ”

“ For truth to win any lasting and valuable victory, it is essential that contradictory opinions should be brought face to face. Facts so opposed that they cannot be true together should be confronted one with another, and the antagonism of each to each made manifest and expressly declared. ”

“ To ourselves there is this advantage, that we can explain our hopes and purposes by reference to valuable work already done elsewhere. For instance, the important and long-established Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, besides having monthly summer excursions, and an annual congress and an annual subscription, issues transactions, publishes a monthly journal, and maintains a library. It is divided into sections, with their several presidents and secretaries, and it has a great many committees of research, of research connected with the great county from which it is named. ”

“ That is, perhaps, for us the necessary way of forming a healthy public opinion, just as our ancestors thought that scourge and gibbet, rack and faggot, must be freely used to keep the social machine in order. Of course I know that revenge is sweet, and that it is delectable to bring others round to our way of thinking under compulsion. ”

“ Whether any of these illustrious men personally deserved credit is a pleasing subject ever open to debate. Original ideas always run two risks, first of being condemned as mischievous novelties, and then of being stigmatized as shameless plagiarisms. ”

“ But the enormous increase in the number of collectors, often having only a commercial or other quite unscientific object in view, has made it necessary for the lovers of nature to protest loudly against rapacity and ravage. ”

“ The force of circumstances is making it ever less and less easy to induce the man who is investigating the properties of helium or studying the corona of the sun to sympathise with the other man who is carrying on researches into the genealogy of a centipede or the domestic economy of a cockroach. ”

“ The social discouragements, which we all more or less unconsciously apply to those whose opinions we dislike, were no doubt brought to bear as remorselessly as ever upon the happiness and prosperity of many outspoken geologists and evolutionists. ”

“ They stand a chance of being left out in the cold, as things no longer wanted—a kind of disinherited vagrants, blissfully forgotten, till some meddling bibliographer disturbs the peaceful oblivion in which their claims lie buried.
When Otho Fridrich Müller, in 1785, definitely established the genus Lynceus, which he had already brought forward in his 'Prodromus' of 1776, he assigned to it nine species, the first being L. brachyurus, the second L. sphæricus, a variation from the order adopted in the earlier work. ”