X PREFACE. 



know, O wise men, you can tell us if you care to, 

 provided your own thought is clear upon the subject. 

 It is not the depth of the lake which prevents our 

 seeiniT its bottom, but the obscurities in the water ; 

 yet, on the other hand, because water is muddy is no 

 sign it is deep, nor because a writer is obscure does 

 it follow that his knowledge is too profound for our 

 mental plummets. 



I can record such a protest against the refusal 

 of the Brahmins to try to make science popular, more 

 safely here than elsewhere, because no one will 

 maintain, I think, that a book like the present one 

 would be better for being very dry and statisti- 

 cal. Hence I do not feel myself open to the criticism, 

 conceivably sarcastic, of busily defending where I 

 have not been attacked. That a tendency does 

 exist among tlie pundits to decry eftbrts at making 

 scientific knowledge widely known and enjoyed, 

 is true ; that it should be argued against and, if 

 needful, laughed at, until abandoned, is the point I 

 wish to make. 



