TYXD ALL'S RELATION TO POPULAR SCIENCE. 739 



In England the custom of popular scientific lectures has been much 

 longer in existence than in Germany. Since the constitution of the 

 English universities is very d liferent from ours, fewer individuals are 

 there in a position to j)rosecute scientific research, or give scientific 

 instruction to regularly prej^ared scholars, as their life-calling. This 

 generally makes it much more diflicult for individuals to go deeply 

 into a special department of study, though genius of course every- 

 where breaks through these and other hindrances. The same circum- 

 stance has, on the other hand, maintained a closer connection of the 

 workers in science with all other classes of the population, and incited 

 to a more liberal care for the instruction of the student not regularly 

 trained. While this has hitherto been quite rare in Germany, there 

 have long been in England solid and well-furnished institutions for 

 the purpose. 



In the two circumstances, first that in England courses of a moder- 

 ate number of connected lectures can be delivered, and secondly that 

 this can be done in buildings well suited for demonstrations and ex- 

 periments of every kind, there is a great advantage over the general 

 custom in Germany, where each lecturer only delivers one lecture. 



Now, it is intelligible that during the seventy years since this state 

 of things has arisen, and under so much more favorable external con- 

 ditions, the English public have educated their lecturers, and the lect- 

 urers their public, much better tlian has hitherto been the case in 

 Germany. The Royal Institution has had, among its professors, two 

 men of the first rank, Sir Humphrey Davy and Faraday, who have 

 cooperated to that end. At present Prof. Tyndall is held in peculiarly 

 high esteem, both in England and in the United States, on account of 

 his talent for popular expositions of scientific subjects. Any one who 

 is conscious within himself of the gift and the power of working in a 

 particular direction for the mental development of humanity, has 

 usually a pleasure in such activity, and is ready to devote to it a good 

 share of his time and his energies. This is especially the case with 

 Prof. Tyndall. He has, therefore, remained true to his post at the 

 Royal Institution, though other honorable posts have been offered him. 

 But it would be quite an erroneous conception to think of him merely 

 as the able, popular lecturer; for the greater part of his activity has 

 always been given to scientific investigation, and we owe to him a 

 series of (in part) highly-original and remarkable researches and dis- 

 coveries in physics and physical chemistry. 



In his discourse " On the Scientific Use of the Imagination," deliv- 

 ered before the British Association at Liverpool, Prof. Tyndall has 

 given a peculiarly characteristic description of his manner of intel- 

 lectual working. There are two ways of searching out the system of 

 laws in Nature — that of abstract ideas, and that of thorough experi- 

 mental research. The former way leads ultimately, through mathe- 

 matical analysis, to an accurate quantitative knowledge of the phe- 



