588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



that it is as unscientific, and therefore as illusory, to seek a plan in the 

 course of events as it would be to seek a plan in the constitution of the 

 cosmos. Some of their maxims are: 



Tell us nothing except what the evidence before you warrants and tell us 

 everything for which you find evidence, so far as the space at your command 

 •will permit. No man has a right to ask for himself or for his friends immunity 

 at the bar of history. The historian is a judge, not an advocate. 



There can be no doubt that the gradual change that has come over the 

 attitude of the more intelligent public opinion toward the past is due 

 to the progress of physical science. The man who is in advance of his 

 age usually has to pay the penalty for his rashness. How many men 

 beginning with Anaxagoras have suffered banishment, imprisonment 

 and torture for daring to know more than those who had his fate in 

 their hands. It is a melancholy tale that has been repeated over and 

 over again. Albeit, in the conflict between conservatism and radicalism 

 the latter has always won in the end. To it has come the reward that 

 always comes to the undismayed searcher for truth. 



The fundamental principle of art is deception. A work of art is 

 either an illusion or a delusion. It is never an exact reproduction of 

 nature, of facts. A portrait which accurately represents an original is 

 not artistic. A painting, a photograph, an engraving is such a dis- 

 position of white upon black or of colors as to produce the illusion of 

 relief. An accurate drawing can not be made of a work of art. Neither 

 can work on chemistry, or on physics or on biology or on mathematics be 

 made artistic. The same is true, in a large measure, of historical writ- 

 ings. A faithful chronicle is not a history even when the connection 

 between cause and effect is clearly set forth. It comes too near the 

 truth, it approaches too close to science to be interesting to the great 

 majority of readers. Hence the more artistically a history is con- 

 structed, the more popular it is likely to become, and likewise the more 

 unreliable. The purpose of the artist is to produce pleasure by deceiving 

 the spectator or the reader. Every historian endeavors to make his work 

 interesting, readable. No scientist feels such a prompting. The dis- 

 tinction that is now usually made between the terms science, knowledge 

 and learning is not of long standing. Bacon's " Advancement of Learn- 

 ing " is merely a translation of " De Augmentis Scientiarum." Science, 

 as now generally interpreted, means the accumulation of facts relating 

 to man and the universe that have been discovered because they were 

 sought. Learning is used to designate data that have been stored up in 

 the memory without examination of their accordance with facts. A 

 man may be very learned, yet be in possession of a very small quantity 

 of real information. Knowledge is used to designate those facts that 

 men have come into possession of by experience and observation. Eome 

 grew great and eventually made itself master of the knovra world with- 



