ast by fashion
upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy
labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined
many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to
take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical
analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental
research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired
in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in
his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my
landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness,
and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the
results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this
subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end,
have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical
labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon
conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can
see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of
which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their
influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress
of Physics."[21]

[21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.

The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have,
like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in
number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized
SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much
good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out
their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries
of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable
communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will
not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by
the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to
the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_,
which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral
discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the
collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus
accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would
have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their
institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the
oth