290 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



palatable. Admittedly, there is always plenty of gas in the 

 political soda. 



Propaganda in practice usually means the presentation of a 

 half-truth as though it were the whole. There is always some- 

 thing to be said on the other side, but the propagandist does 

 not say it. He must convey certainty, or he is lost. It is 

 probably for that reason that men of science are, on the whole, 

 the worst propagandists in the world. Science alway admits 

 the objections to its hypotheses ; politics never. But so long as 

 science includes psychology in its fellowship, it may disdain, but 

 it cannot be entirely disinterested in either the methods or the 

 results of propaganda. The propagandist is an experimenter 

 like the chemist, but in a far more delicate and dangerous 

 medium — human personality in the mass. His methods are 

 sometimes as crude as those of the old alchemists, and occasion- 

 ally there is an unexpected explosion. But undeniably he 

 produces results. 



It is what he is there for ; the propagandist is a fisherman. 

 Nobody asks him for a theory of tidal action, or a new hypo- 

 thesis of the formation of rivers ; it is his business to catch fish, 

 and only his unsuccessful rivals ask whether he tickled the trout 

 or landed it fairly. 



The human voice is, and will probably always remain, the 

 chief instrument of propaganda. The reason is clear. A 

 speech is personal, print impersonal ; speech appeals to the 

 emotions of the crowd, print to the reason of the individual. 

 The great orator plays on the feelings of his audience like a 

 trained musician on the piano ; every tone, every gesture, 

 every cheer, and even every interruption, adds to the effect. 

 Read the same speech the next morning, and cold type has 

 utterly transformed it. The moving denunciation that brought 

 men to their feet is now sheer rhetoric, the solemn appeal that 

 drew tears is shoddy sentiment ; the righteous indignation is 

 laboriously calculated, and the majestic peroration a mere string 

 of adjectives : the fire has gone, and only the ashes remain. 



Print has other disadvantages. Few people read books, at 

 least serious books ; and the political novel never converted 

 anybody. The only novel with a purpose that has been effective 

 as progaganda is Uncle Tom's Cabin. 



In the long-run, indeed, the printed word will accomplish 

 more than the spoken. The best oratory has something of the 

 local and ephemeral ; its appeal is here and now ; but the pen 

 has something of the eternal, and it slowly permeates the world 

 with a new idea which does not die. The speaker who is too far 

 ahead of his time lacks an audience ; the author in the same case 

 finds his audience when he is dead. Propaganda in book form is 

 slow, and in these days men want quick results. 



