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man to lead others to that which he has found to be true 

 and light, there will be in every friend of natural science 

 a strong motive to share in such work, in the rcllcction 

 that the further development of these sciences themselves, 

 the unfolding of their influence on human education, 

 and, so far as they are a necessary element of this edu- 

 cation, the healthiness of the future mental development 

 of the people, depend on an insight being afforded to 

 the educated classes, into the nature and the results of 

 scientific investigation, such as is generally possible, with- 

 out a personal engrossing occupation with these subjects. 



And in proof that the need of such an insight is felt 

 even by those who have grown up under the predominant 

 linguistic and literary instruction, may be cited the large 

 number of popular books of natural science annually 

 published, and the eagerness with which lectures of a 

 popular character on subjects in natural science are 

 attended. 



It lies in the nature of the case, however, that the es- 

 sential part of this want, owing to the depth of its roots, 

 is not easily satisfied. It is true that what science may 

 have established and wrought out in solid results can, by 

 inielligent compilers, be put together and brought into 

 suitable form, so that a reader without previous know- 

 lege of the subject may, with some perseverance and 

 patience, understand it. But such a knowledge, limited 

 to the actual results, is not properly that which we have 

 in view. These books, indeed, compiled with the best 

 intentions, often lead into devious paths. To prevent 

 weariness, they must seek to rivet the attention of the 

 reader by an accumulation of curiosities, whereby the 

 image of science is rendered quite false. One often feels 

 this when the reader begins from his own impulse to tell 

 what he has considered important. Then there arc the 

 further objections that the book can give only word- 

 descriptions, or, at the most, drawings representing more 

 or less imperfectly the things and processes of which it 

 treats ; and that the reader's power of imagination is 

 thereby subjected to a much greater strain, with much 

 less satisfactory results, than that of the investigator or 

 student who, in museum collections and laboratories, sees 

 the things before him in their living reality. A portion of 

 the difficulties named may readily be obviated in popular 

 lectures, if, at least, some objects or experiments can be 

 shown : the opportunities of doing so in Germany, hitherto, 

 have been mostly very limited. 



It appears to me, however, that it is not so much 

 a knowledge of results of scientific investigations in 

 themselves, that the most intelligent and well-educated 

 of the laity ask, but rather a perception of the mental 

 activity of the investigator, of the individuality of his 

 scientific procedure, of the aims at which he strives, of 

 the fresh point of view which his work affords in refer- 

 ence to the great problems of human existence. There 

 can hardly be anything of all this in the properly scientific 

 treatment of scientific objects ; on the contrary, the 

 severe discipline of the exact method requires that, in 

 scientific treatises, only that be spoken of which is 

 surely ascertained, hypotheses only where equivalent 

 to the proposal of questions for further investigation, a 

 certain answer to these appearing probable from the 

 next progress of the research. A natural prudence 

 recommends great rigour in this connection. For it is 



pretty much the same to the greater number even of the 

 instructed hearers whether a man of science says " I 

 know," or " I suppose ; " they only ask after the result 

 and the authority by which it is supported, not the 

 grounds or the doubts. It is thus not to be wondered at 

 if earnest investigators do not willingly shock the con 

 fidence of their readers in what the former may think true 

 and demonstrable, by the enumeration of ideas of the 

 correctness of which they do not feel themselves quite 

 secure. These may be very probable, and may be ex- 

 pressed with ever so much prudence and careful guarded- 

 ness ; they still expose him who utters them to the danger 

 of vexatious misrepresentation. 



It is, further, not to be overlooked, that the peculiar 

 discipline of scientific thought which is necessary for the 

 most abstract and rigorous grasp possible of newly- 

 found ideas and laws, and for the purification from all 

 accidents of the sensuous order of phenomena, along 

 with the habitual residence of the mind among a circle of 

 ideas far removed from general interest, are not quite 

 favourable preparatives for a popular intelligible expo- 

 sition of the insights obtained, to hearers wno have not 

 had the like discipline. For this task there is rather 

 required an artistic talent of exposition, a certain kind of 

 eloquence. The lecturer or writer must find generally 

 accessible stanipomts from which he may call torch 

 new representations with the most vivid distinctness, 

 and then allow the abstract principle, which he seeks to 

 make intelligible, to derive from these concrete life. This 

 is almost an opposite mode of treatment to that which 

 obtains in scientific treatises, and it can readily be under- 

 stood that the men are rare who are equally fitted for 

 both these kinds of intellectual labour. 



Owing to all these circumstances a sort of dividing 

 wall is raised between the men of science and the laity 

 who might obtain instruction and guidance from them. 

 That man>-, and indeed some of the most able, investi- 

 gators have the qualities and peculiarities belonging to 

 abstract work is natural, and will, m each individual case, 

 be at once willingly excused. I have here merely to 

 guard against the reversal of this relation, as if the 

 defects named were necessary, or at all constituted a 

 prerogative. 



The compilers can give no help in those directions 

 where the original thinkers have neglected or avoided 

 expressing themselves. So much the more gratifying is 

 it, I consider, in such a state of things, when, among those 

 who have shown the highest ability for original scientific 

 work, there is found, at times, a man like Tyndall, full of 

 enthusiasm for the problem of making the newly-acquired 

 insights and outlooks of his science available for the 

 wider circle of the people, and, at the same time, endowed 

 with other qualities which are the necessary conditions of 

 success towards this end, eloquence and the gift of lucid 

 exposition. 



In England the custom of popular scientific lectures 

 has been much longer in existence than in Germany. 

 Since the constitution of the English Universities is 

 very different from ours, fewer individuals are there 

 in a position to prosecute scientific research, or give 

 scientific instruction to regularly prepared scholars, as 

 their life-calling. This generally makes it much more 

 dilTicult for individuals to go deeply into a special depart- 



