The year's meeting of the British Association ended on Thursday.
It has not, to outside observers, been a very satis- factory one. Much of the apparent ineptitude of the discussions is doe, no doubt, to the wretched reporting, which is ruined by the effort to mention everything, however briefly ; but it is difficult to doubt that the managers, whoever they are, are not severe enough. They give the faddists too much swing, and the meeting becomes a gathering at which anybody may express views, however foolish, on any subject, however trivial. There shotild be more sifting and weeding, especially in the half.scientific divisions, even if people are offended. If this is not done, the Association will share the fate of the one for the Promotion of Social Science, which in reality died of want of hard-headedness. Science as it advances tends to extreme subdivision, and we have no quarrel with essays on the cause, say, of the iridescence of beetles' wings. They would probably be short, direct, and luminous. Oar objection ie to the vague vapidity which marked moat of the papers and discussions in all the departments described as social rather than scientific. An essay read before the Association should add something, however little, to human thought, and be discussed with at leapt an endeavour to instruct the essayist. There is too much frittering away of an intellectual energy of which this year the reservoir was not perhaps too f alL
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