The British Association

Abstract

FROM the correspondence that has recently appeared in NATURE it is evident that there is a healthy determination on the part of scientific men in Great Britain that the British Association shall not be allowed to stagnate, but must exhibit progressive evolution as well as the solid dignity implied in its full title. One point that I have recently noticed in your columns with great satisfaction is that in future representatives from similar associations in other countries will be invited to attend each meeting. We who work in parts of the British Empire remote from its centre, and are content to do so, although perhaps our scientific atmosphere is not so rarefied as some maintain, are undoubtedly apt to get out of touch, if not out of sympathy, with the work of our colleagues at home, while they are equally apt to view our endeavours as something distinct from their own, on a different, if not precisely a lower, plane, or—shall I say?—on a stage such as that on which the dogs danced for Dr. Johnson's admiration. Such misconceptions are good for no one. They ignore two fundamental facts: that science is universal, and that, nevertheless, scientific work may be undertaken on different lines, and even in a somewhat different spirit, under different conditions.