the discovery forced itself into notoriety by its intrinsic merits, the scientific corporation declared that they knew it all along, that in fact it was not new, but had been discovered by one of themselves ever so long ago. As useful discoveries were seldom made by the members of the scientific guild, who moved altogether too much in the old grooves to be able to strike out novelties, but generally proceeded from outsiders, who were not trammelled by cut-and-dry notions and observances, so it almost invariably happened that really important discoveries were treated in the way I have described. In fact it was so well understood that extra-academical discoveries would never be recognised by this self-constituted Academy of Science, that few discoverers took the trouble to apply for recognition by the Academy in the first instance, unless they were already of the guild. The plan was by lectures, writings and other means to gain over a certain number of the public to a belief in the correctness or utility of the discovery, and to leave the Academy out of consideration altogether. Long after the public had recognised and generally adopted the discovery or invention, the Academy would ostentatiously open its doors to the new-comer, and with a great flourish of trumpets—beating of drums would perhaps be a more correct term, for trumpets are unknown in Colymbia, while drums are common—set forth the manifold advantages they conferred upon science, how ready they always were to recognise the claims of new scientific discoverers (after all the world had acknowledged them), and how ill off the science of the country would be without such an institution to foster and encourage rising merit.
