EDITOR'S TABLE. 



121 



tific world, and regard the phenomenon 

 with indifference or even with com- 

 placency. They have an infinite con- 

 tempt for any science that aims at being 

 popular; and we are not sure that the 

 efforts we have ourselves made to inter- 

 est the public in scientific subjects have 

 not encountered in certain quarters a 

 high disdain. Prof. Mendenhall, who 

 may be trusted to know whereof he 

 speaks, asserts that some men in their 

 scientific disquisitions are "guilty of the 

 crime of unnecessary and often premedi- 

 tated and deliberately planned mystifi- 

 cation." Think of it for a moment a 

 man of science aiming not at being as 

 lucid as possible, at bringing his ideas 

 within the comprehension of as large a 

 number of persons as possible, but con- 

 trariwise trying to achieve the maxi- 

 mum of obscurity and the maximum of 

 intellectual exclusiveness ! The thought 

 is really a painful one ; and yet we 

 may profitably dwell upon it, for it 

 shows that scientific knowledge, like any 

 other form of power, needs to be hu- 

 manized if it is not to degenerate into a 

 selfish and pretentious tyranny. One 

 thing which must always be set to the 

 credit of the founder of the Positive 

 Philosophy is that he clearly saw the 

 risk which pure science ran of losing it- 

 self in all kinds of refinements and spe- 

 cializations, and utterly ignoring so- 

 cial claims and interests. Many are the 

 passages in which he has raised a note 

 of warning on this point; and to-day 

 we have the President of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of 

 Science telling us how seriously the 

 warning is needed. 



How are we to bring down our specu- 

 lations and researches to the level of 

 popular comprehension? some of the 

 mystifiers referred to by Prof. Menden- 

 hall will probably ask. Nobody wants 

 you, we reply, to bring down to popu- 

 lar comprehension that which can not 

 possibly be popularly comprehended ; 

 but we do want you to have, and show 

 that you have, an interest in the general 



advancement of knowledge, and that 

 you regard your specialty, whatever it 

 may be, as simply a higher development 

 of forms of knowledge that are within 

 the popular grasp, and as being, if re- 

 motely, still vitally, connected with the 

 practical concerns of life. If such is 

 not the case, if, on the contrary, you 

 are soaring in a region in which practi- 

 cal views have no place and no possible 

 relevancy, then we make bold to say 

 that your so-called science is merely a 

 laborious and pretentious idleness. It 

 is one thing to wander far afield in 

 search of that which may at some time 

 or another, if not immediately, prove of 

 value to the human race. It is another 

 and very different one to wander far 

 afield for the acknowledged purpose of 

 getting, not only beyond general com- 

 prehension, but beyond the sphere of all 

 possible utility. The only condition on 

 which science can claim the reverence 

 of mankind is that it devote itself to 

 human service, and it rests with the se- 

 rious students of science to make good 

 this claim. In order that the relations 

 between science and the age may be 

 what they ought to be, the world at 

 large must be made to feel that science 

 is, in the fullest sense, a ministry of 

 good to all, not the private possession 

 and luxury of a few, that it is the best 

 expression of human intelligence and 

 not the abracadabra of a school, that it 

 is a guiding light and not a dazzling fog. 

 Prof. Mendenhall's address testifies that 

 things are not on a right footing at pres- 

 ent, but we may hope that those who 

 have it in their power to bring about 

 the change that is desirable will be in- 

 fluenced by his appeal to exert them- 

 selves for that purpose. "We hear a great 

 deal nowadays about the responsibility 

 attaching to the holders of wealth. It 

 is often said that wealth needs to be 

 " moralized." Prof. Mendenhall makes 

 it plain that knowledge needs to be 

 moralized through the awakening of the 

 holders of knowledge to a sense of their 

 social responsibility. Whether knowl- 



