Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt.

  • Allbutt, T. Clifford (Thomas Clifford), 1836-1925.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    that a certain coin is of Constantine; in the next paragraph he himself has a ' theory' that a burglar climbed over the garden wall and let himself in by the cellar window ; in the next a ' theory ' that the leader of the opposite political party talks nonsense ; and so on (vide p. 93). We, who shrink from pedantry, scarcely venture nowadays to speak of ' opinions' or ' notions,' or to keep ' theory' for higher uses. Words, then, are wasted, blurred, abused, or lost: but at what point does a word die ? at what stage of its neglect or evanescence have we to reconcile ourselves to its loss ? Generation after generation men of letters have extended the range and the riches of our tongue, and have conferred precision and distinction upon the words of it: are we to relinquish many of these, significant as they may be, because the man in the street has forgotten them ? or many meanings of them because the coarser and shallower notions of the many have no need of their refinements ? Nay, shall we not try stealthily to restore to life some inanimate words which cannot well be spared ? Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere, cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula. Hor. Ars P. 11. In this matter much must be left to the tact of the writer; but let us all have a care to see our thoughts and things clearly, definitely, and as it were objectively, as an artist sees the lines and values of natural objects; and to furnish our memory with all and any words and means of expression which may represent them intimately and vigorously.