NOTES 117 



learning, acquire no influence. The Briton hates a bore and a pedant." Unfor- 

 tunately the Briton now has to pay for his hatred, because learned men of 

 insignificant appearance, and even bores and pedants, sometimes prove astonish- 

 ingly useful in war-time. An old woman once laughed at Nelson because she 

 thought he had an insignificant appearance. No, the fault lies with the British 

 people as much as with their politicians and officials. 



At its best, as in Shakespeare, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, the British intellect 

 can probably give some points to the best found elsewhere ; but by every test we 

 attempt the average does not seem high and the lowest is low indeed. Not to 

 dwell on details — what strikes one most is the enormous prevalence of sub- 

 rationalism or even absolute irrationalism among the public. Few seem to 

 recognise the difference between probability and proof, and nearly every person 

 one meets appears to keep the skeleton of some absurd superstition hidden away 

 in a secret cupboard of his mind — though he may be reasonable enough in other 

 matters. At every dinner party one is sure to find a spiritualist, telepathist, 

 theosophist, ghost-hunter, antivivisectionist, antivaccinationist, antibellumist, uni- 

 versal-rights-monger, immoralist, or some other long-eared exponent of unreason ; 

 and we have often thought that the war was due to the fact that the German 

 waiters who overheard dinner-table conversations in England became so Impressed 

 with the idiocy of the modern Briton that they urged their imperial master to 

 commence the attack at once before educational reform had time to improve the 

 nation's mentality ! But seriously, the same irrationalism permeates all public 

 life and has long paralysed the executive efficiency of the country. It is enough 

 to read the proceedings of Parliament to be convinced that that assembly, though 

 it doubtless contains many able men, is undermined by its numerous fools. We 

 may surmise that most of our great political questions are really impostures, 

 created like Borborygmarol Pills to benefit the makers but not the consumers. 

 We find that they always deal with every one's dues but nobody's duties, and 

 that whichever way the solution may lie, no one will receive any real benefit from 

 it, except perhaps at the expense of others, and, of course, excepting the politicians 

 who create the said questions and live by them. What are we to think of the 

 intelligence of a nation which is so easily deceived by such frauds ? 



On the other hand, offer to this nation some priceless benefit— a scientific 

 discovery, a new invention, a great work of art — and it will yawn in your face ; 

 politicians, officials, editors, publishers, patent-agents, learned societies, and 

 academies will yawn in your face. Why — because it is too much trouble to think 

 hard about anything. 



The fact is that for some generations we have been expressly taught by our 

 politicians, pedagogues, priests and prophets (for their own advantage) to prefer 

 "feeling" to intellect and "character" to mind, to "be good and let who will be 

 wise." They have expressly taught our youth to despise science, ridicule art, 

 depreciate all intellectual effort — to make a business of games and a game of 

 business. Under this teaching the nation has bartered away its brains for a mess 

 of political or sentimental pottage, and it is now paying the penalty. " Man may 

 forgive, but Nature never." 



Notes and News (D. 0. W.) 



At the meeting of the Royal Society, held on May 2, the following candidates 

 were elected to the Fellowship of the Society : C. Bolton (Lecturer in Clinical 

 Medicine at University College Hospital Medical School) ; H. C. H. Carpenter 



