again felt necessary, we
know that the opinion is doomed.

If there is any truth in the above, it follows that our conception of the
words "science" and "scientific" must undergo some modification. Not
that we should speak slightingly of science, but that we should recognise
more than we do, that there are two distinct classes of scientific
people, corresponding not inaptly with the two main parties into which
the political world is divided. The one class is deeply versed in those
sciences which have already become the common property of mankind;
enjoying, enforcing, perpetuating, and engraining still more deeply into
the mind of man acquisitions already approved by common experience, but
somewhat careless about extension of empire, or at any rate disinclined,
for the most part, to active effort on their own part for the sake of
such extension--neither progressive, in fact, nor aggressive--but quiet,
peaceable people, who wish to live and let live, as their fathers before
them; while the other class is chiefly intent upon pushing forward the
boundaries of science, and is comparatively indifferent to what is known
already save in so far as necessary for purposes of extension. These
last are called pioneers of science, and to them alone is the title
"scientific" commonly accorded; but pioneers, important to an army as
they are, are still not the army itself, which can get on better without
the pioneers than the pioneers without the army. Surely the class which
knows thoroughly well what it knows, and which adjudicates upon the value
of the discoveries made by the pioneers--surely this class has as good a
right or better to be called scientific than the pioneers themselves.

These two classes above described blend into one another with every shade
of gradation. Some are admirably proficient in the well-known
sciences--that is to say, they have good health, good looks, good temper,
common sense, and energy, and they hold all these good things in such
perfection as to be altogether without introspection--to be not under the
law, but so entirely under grace that every one who sees them likes them.
But such may, and perhaps more commonly will, have very little
inclination to extend the boundaries of human knowledge; their aim is in
another direction altogether. Of the pioneers, on the other hand, some
are agreeable people, well versed in the older sciences, though still
more eminent as pioneers, while others, whose serv