326 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with little effort, and convert bar- 

 ren deserts into gardens, and thus the 

 entire globe could be transformed and 

 made a fitter abode for mankind." 



The golden age figures largely in 

 Mr. Tesla's article; he offers us all that 

 is entrancing and wonderful. He is 

 generous. We ask for the bread of defi- 

 nite facts of science and intelligible 

 evidence, but he gives us the amethyst 

 and topaz and diamonds of an ambient 

 medium doing all our work and the at- 

 mosphere transporting all our motive 

 power and the tyrant gravity held 

 powerless by a screen, and Mr. Tesla 

 correcting Lord Kelvin's errors. Still 

 amethyst and topaz and diamonds are 

 only stones. They may dazzle the 

 magazine reader, but they do not 

 nourish the student of science. 



The editorial department of the Cen- 

 tury Magazine perhaps felt that these 

 jewels were a bit too bright. We read 

 there that "much that must seem specu- 

 lative to the layman can take its proper 

 place only in the purview of the scien- 

 tist." Some conservative scientists will 

 feel like growling, "And much that 

 must seem bosh to the man of science 

 can take its proper place only in the 

 purview of the editorial departments of 

 popular magazines." Leaving aside the 

 present case, it is a fact that the same 

 care which is exercised by editors to se- 

 cure in their contributions excellence 

 of style and syntax, a proper moral tone 

 and freedom from advertisement of 

 business ventures, is not exercised to 

 secure accuracy in statements of fact or 



decent credibility in matters of theory. 

 The editors apparently impute to their 

 readers a desire to be entertained at all 

 costs. They descend to a footing with 

 the Sunday newspaper instead of trying 

 to rise to the level of such scientific 

 literature as Huxley or Tyndall gave us. 

 They evidently often do not know 

 science from rubbish and apparently 

 seldom make any effort to find out the 

 difference. They should at least sub- 

 mit their scientific literature to com- 

 petent men for criticism and revision. 



The general public is helpless before 

 any supposedly scientific statement. It 

 may judge vaguely by the standing of 

 the paper or magazine or book contain- 

 ing it, by the name of the writer or by 

 the general tone in which the article is 

 written. But it cannot judge definitely 

 by comparison with relevant facts or 

 by critically examining the logic of the 

 deductions, for the general public lacks 

 both knowledge of the relevant facts 

 and training in logical criticism. That 

 a man should invent a microscope which 

 will enable one to see objects a million 

 times as small as can be seen with the 

 naked eye seems no more questionable 

 to the general public than that a man 

 should cause unfertilized eggs to de- 

 velop. Yet the first would be impos- 

 sible while the second has been possible, 

 probable, and still more lately proved. 

 Guidance in scientific matters should be 

 welcome if only for the protection thus 

 given against fraudulent medicines, 

 bogus inventions and nonsensical enter- 

 prises. Physicist. 



