scientific pedantry, which makes it difficult to tell whether or not
on some points his thought is obscure also. Modern scientists, like
modern historians and, above all, scientific and historical educators,
should ever keep in mind that clearness of speech and writing is
essential to clearness of thought and that a simple, clear, and, if
possible, vivid style is vital to the production of the best work in
either science or history. Darwin and Huxley are classics, and they
would not have been if they had not written good English. The thought
is essential, but ability to give it clear expression is only less
essential. Ability to write well, if the writer has nothing to write
about, entitles him to mere derision. But the greatest thought is
robbed of an immense proportion of its value if expressed in a mean or
obscure manner. Mr. Haseman has such excellent thought that it is a
pity to make it a work of irritating labor to find out just what the
thought is. Surely, if he will take as much pains with his writing as
he has with the far more difficult business of exploring and
collecting, he will become able to express his thought clearly and
forcefully. At least he can, if he chooses, go over his sentences
until he is reasonably sure that they can be parsed. He can take pains
to see that his whole thought is expressed, instead of leaving
vacancies which must be filled by the puzzled and groping reader. His
own views and his quotations from the views of others about the static
and dynamic theories of distribution are examples of an important
principle so imperfectly expressed as to make us doubtful whether it
is perfectly apprehended by the writer. He can avoid the use of those
pedantic terms which are really nothing but offensive and,
fortunately, ephemeral scientific slang. There has been, for instance,
a recent vogue for the extensive misuse, usually tautological misuse,
of the word "complexus"--an excellent word if used rarely and for
definite purposes. Mr. Haseman drags it in continually when its use is
either pointless and redundant or else serves purely to darken wisdom.
He speaks of the "Antillean complex" when he means the Antilles, of
the "organic complex" instead of the characteristic or bodily
characteristics of an animal or species, and of the "environmental
complex" when he means nothing whatever but the environment. In short,
Mr. Haseman and those whose bad example he in this instance follows
use "complexus" in