APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 57 



truth, in those who do not really follow his argu- 

 ments ; and of a desire to know more and better in 

 the few who do. 



At the same time it must be admitted that the 

 popularisation of science, whether by lecture or 

 essay, has its drawbacks. Success in this depart- 

 ment has its perils for those who succeed. The 

 "people who fail" take their revenge, as we have 

 recently had occasion to observe, by ignoring all 

 the rest of a man's work and glibly labelling him a 

 mere populariser. If the falsehood were not too 

 glaring, they would say the same of Faraday and 

 Helmholtz and Kelvin. 



Of the affliction caused by persons who think that 

 what they have picked up from popular exposition 

 qualifies them for discussing the great problems of 

 science, it may be said, as the Radical toast said of 

 the power of the Crcwn in bygone days, that it 

 "has increased, is increasing, and ought to be 

 diminished." The oddities of "English as she is 

 spoke" might be abundantly paralleled by those 

 of " Science as she is misunderstood " in the sermon, 

 the novel, and the leading article ; and a collection 

 of the grotesque travesties of scientific conceptions, 

 in the shape of essays on such trifles as " the Nature 

 of Life" and the "Origin of All Things," which 

 reach me, from time to time, might well be bound 

 up with them. 



CLXXXVIII 



The essay on Geological Reform unfortunately 

 brought me, I will not say into collision, but into 

 a position of critical remonstrance with regard 

 to some charges of physical heterodoxy, brought 

 by my distinguished friend Lord Kelvin, against 

 British Geology. As President of the Geological 



