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the question might well arise whether almost the whole of it will not have to be consigned to oblivion. Such a conclusion should not be entertained until we have made a vigorous effort to find what pure metal of value can be extracted from the mass of ore. To do this requires the co-operation of minds of various orders, quite akin in their relations to those necessary in a mine or great manufacturing establishment. Laborers whose duties are in a large measure matters of routine must be guided by the skill of a class higher in quality and smaller in number than their own, and these again by the technical knowledge of leaders in research. Between these extremes we have a great variety of systems of co-operation. There is another feature of modern research the apprehension of which is necessary to the completeness of our view. A cursory survey of the field of science conveys the impression that it embraces only a constantly increasing number of disconnected specialties, in which each cultivator knows little or nothing of what is being done by others. Measured by its bulk, the published mass of scientific research is increasing in a more than geometrical ratio. Not only do the publications of nearly every scientific society increase in number and volume, but new and vigorous societies are constantly organized to add to the sum total. The stately quartos issued from the presses of the leading academies of Europe are, in most cases, to be counted by hundreds. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society already number about two hundred volumes, and the time when the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences shall reach the thousand mark does not belong to the very remote future. Besides such large volumes, these and other societies publish smaller ones in a constantly growing number. In addition to the publications of learned societies, there are journals devoted to each scientific specialty, which seem to propagate their species by subdivision in much the same way as some of the lower orders of animal life. Every new publication of the kind is suggested by the wants of a body of specialists, who require a new medium for their researches and communications. The time has already come when we cannot assume that any specialist is acquainted with all that is being done even in his own line. To keep the run of this may well be beyond his own powers; more he can rarely attempt. What is the science of the future to do whe
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