HI SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 93 



Argyll claims for them. Nothing would be more 

 personally offensive to me than the supposition 

 that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any 

 lecture I ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed 

 of myself if, when I stood up as an instructor of 

 others, I had not taken every pains to assure 

 myself of the truth of that which I was about to 

 say ; and I should feel myself bound to be even 

 more careful with a popular assembly, who would 

 take me more or less on trust, than with an 

 audience of competent and critical experts. 



I decline to assume that the standard of 

 morality, in these matters, is lower among the 

 clergy than it is among scientific men. I refuse to 

 think that the priest who stands up before a con- 

 gregation, as the minister and interpreter of the 

 Divinity, is less careful in his utterances, less 

 ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman 

 who comes before his audience, as the minister 

 and interpreter of nature. Yet what should we 

 think of the man of science who, when his 

 ignorance or his carelessness was exposed, whined 

 about the want of delicacy of his critics, or pleaded 

 his " work and calling " as a reason for being let 

 alone ? 



No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, 

 or wise enough, to dispense with the tonic of 

 criticism. Nothing has done more harm to the 

 clergy than the practice, too common among 

 laymen, of regarding them, when in the pulpit, as 



