TYXDALUS RELATION TO POPULAR SCIENCE, 737 



themselves, the unfolding of their influence on human education, and, 

 so far as they are a necessary element of this education, the healthi- 

 ness of the future mental development of the people, depend on an in- 

 sight being afforded to the educated classes, into the nature and the 

 results of scientific investigation, such as is generally possible, without 

 a personal engrossing occupation with these subjects. 



And in proof that the need of such an insight is felt even by those 

 who have grown up under the predominant linguistic and literary in- 

 struction, may be cited the large number of popular books of natural 

 science annually published, and the eagerness with which lectures of a 

 popular character on subjects in natural science are attended. 



It lies in the nature of the case, however, that the essential part of 

 this want, owing to the depth of its roots, is not easily satisfied. It is 

 true that what science may have established and wrought out in solid 

 results can, by intelligent compilers, be put together and brought into 

 suitable form, so that a reader without previous knowledge of the sub- 

 ject may, with some perseverance and patience, understand it. But 

 such a knowledge, limited to the actual results, is not properly that 

 which we have in view. These books, indeed, compiled with the best 

 intentions, often lead into devious paths. To prevent weariness, they 

 must seek to rivet the attention of the reader by an accumulation of 

 curiosities, w^hereby the image of science is rendered quite false. One 

 often feels this when the reader begins from his own impulse to tell 

 what he has considered important. Then there are the further objec- 

 tions that the book can give only word-descriptions, or, at the most, 

 drawings representing more or less imperfectly the things and pro- 

 cesses of which it treats ; and that the reader's power of imagination 

 is thereby subjected to a much greater strain, with much less satisfac- 

 tory results, than that of the investigator or student who, in museum 

 collections and laboratories, sees the things before him in their living 

 reality. A portion of the difficulties named may readily be obviated 

 in popular lectures, if, at least, some objects or experiments can be 

 shown: the opportunities of doing so in Germany, hitherto, have been 

 mostly very limited. 



It appears to me, however, that it is not so much a knowledge of 

 results of scientific investigations in themselves that the most intelli- 

 gent and well-educated of the laity ask, but rather a perception of the 

 mental activity of the investigator, of the individuality of his scien- 

 tific procedure, of the aims at which he strives, of the fresh point of 

 view which his work affords in reference to the great problems of hu- 

 man existence. There can hardly be any thing of all this in the prop- 

 erly scientific treatment of scientific objects; on the contrary, the 

 severe discipline of the exact method requires that, in scientific trea- 

 tises, only that be spoken of which is surely ascertained, hypotheses 

 only where equivalent to the proposal of questions for further inves- 

 tigation, a certain answer to these appearing probable from the next 



70L. V. — 4l1 



