Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/73

Rh memoirs, handbooks, text-books, and bibliographies. Now in the three latter good workmanship is indispensable, for their utility depends on their arrangement, the right proportion of parts, and the skillful use of language; but the value of original memoirs depends upon the discoveries which they report and the sufficiency of the evidence presented to support the discoveries claimed; hence the form in which the matter is presented appears less important than in a handbook or text-book. Moreover, our original memoirs, saving a very few which mark epochs of progress in natural science, are, as we all perfectly know, destined to oblivion. In time our new discoveries will become old-established facts, the original authorities for which will be forgotten. Who of us would search, save as a student of the history of science, for the original authority on the muscles of the human arm, or for the proof that fossils are not lusus naturæ but genuine remains, or that some rocks are of sedimentary origin? When we have attained certainty in our discoveries, they gradually become so verified that the memoirs, which originally brought the proofs, lose their value. Original memoirs are like digestive organs; they are filled with raw facts, which they prepare for assimilation, but to build the body of science these same facts must be absorbed and transmuted.

We are, of course, convinced that our original memoirs are for temporary service, though their recorded facts are to be permanently added to knowledge. To the influence of this conviction we may ascribe that carelessness of style, verbosity, and frequent padding which mar scientific writings too commonly, because the necessary care does not appear worth while for a temporary essay. But the time has now come when the burden of reading the thousands of pages of memoirs which are published annually even in a single field of research is overwhelming, and it is evident that for the advantage of science every legitimate means to lessen this heavy burden should be adopted. The habit of conciseness and clearness should be sedulously cultivated.

With a view of estimating what might be done in this direction, I have gone over a number of articles upon embryology which have been published in the four accepted languages of science—German, English, French, and Italian—during the last two years. I am compelled to admit that the majority of these articles could be easily shortened by a half, and many of them shortened by much more than that, and still offer a thorough, or, better, said an exhaustive account of the matter presented. I have been astonished at the amount of perfectly irrelevant matter and of personal details which appears. The author informs us that he could not leave home until Tuesday; that it rained on Friday; that he had to carry the eggs eleven kilometres on Saturday;