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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



welcome Wiggins because ho aims not to 

 instruct, but to excite and terrify — be- 

 cause he undertakes to tell them things 

 about which other men are silent. The 

 medical quack promises everything ; the 

 meteorological and astronomical quack 

 threatens everything ; and both achieve 

 popularity. Human nature likes strong 

 sensations. 



Once more Wiggins has been put to 

 shame, or put to what any other man 

 would regard as shame ; but what guar- 

 antee have we that he will not, after the 

 lapse of a few months, don his prophetic 

 robes again and fill the land with the 

 noise of his foolish babblings? None: 

 the probability is that we have not heard 

 the last of Mr. Wiggins by a great deal. 

 It will show a moderation on his part 

 on which we have no reason to count, 

 if he withdraws altogether from the no- 

 tice of a public that is abundantly will- 

 ing to forget his past blunders, on the 

 sole condition of his propounding new 

 terrors in complete disregard of all the 

 principles of science. 



What we see and lament to see in 

 this whole business is, the evidence af- 

 forded of the very slight extent to which 

 true scientific knowledge has as yet per- 

 meated the public mind. Large portions 

 of our population are at the mercy of 

 charlatans of every profession and of 

 every type. Some of these prey upon 

 their pockets, some upon their health, 

 some upon their emotions. There is 

 knowledge in the world that ought to 

 be the heritage of all, but that really is 

 confined to a few. The masses have 

 no means of distinguishing between the 

 man who speaks in the name of acquired 

 and organized science and the man who 

 uses a scientific terminology, that he 

 himself only half understands, for the 

 purpose of getting himself talked about. 

 Their sympathies, however, rather go 

 out toward the latter, for the simple 

 reason that, instead of making his state- 

 ments in guarded language, and build- 

 ing upon the previously ascertained facts 

 of science, he throws all reserve to the 



winds, and speaks out of the fullness of 

 his ignorance in a tone of the most ab- 

 solute authority. 



It seems trite to say that what is 

 wanted is the more general diffusion of 

 sound scientific knowledge; andyet,with 

 the vast agencies that are now being em- 

 ployed in popular education, it should 

 not be impossible, one would think, to 

 do something to guard the community at 

 large against ridiculous and hurtful delu- 

 sions such as those which "Professor" 

 Wiggins, with the aid of the press, has 

 been instrumental in creating. We do 

 not see why, in our public schools, some 

 effective instruction might not be given 

 in the spirit and methods of science. 

 It might be shown how the early ages 

 of scientific inquiry were marked by 

 the predominance of the most extrava- 

 gant fancies and ambitions; and that 

 these had their use in stimulating to re- 

 searches that would not else have been 

 undertaken. Had the stars not been 

 supposed to control human destinies, 

 they would not have been made the ob- 

 ject of so attentive a study in the an- 

 cient world. Had men not conceived 

 the possibility of transmuting the baser 

 metals into gold, the rise of the science 

 of chemistry would probably have been 

 long postponed. But to-day the true 

 guide in scientific investigation is sci- 

 entific analogy. The edifice of univer- 

 sal knowledge is being built up little by 

 little through the contributions of pa- 

 tient students everywhere. To but few 

 is it given to discover the operation of 

 any widely acting law ; and these are 

 more prone to announce their discover- 

 ies in a modest, tentative fashion — as did 

 Darwin when he published his "Origin 

 of Species " — than to burst forth upon 

 the world with loud and confident as- 

 sertions. 



It might also be shown how wide- 

 spread and well-organized are the agen- 

 cies now established for the study of 

 physical phenomena, how many ear- 

 nest men, equipped with all the knowl- 

 edge of the age in so far as the sciences 



