August 15, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



147 



sonal impartiality, and even on a controverted 

 question lie would scorn to win a victory over 

 an opponent by misstating or understating 

 that opponent's position or evading any of the 

 evidence for it. The public, on the other 

 hand, demands cocksureness, especially on all 

 the consequences which a discovery suggests 

 to the imagination. It is intensely personal, 

 and inquires first what use it can make of the 

 discovery, or whether it confirms or opposes 

 its prejudices. It undervalues accuracy, over- 

 values vivid picturesqueness, and does not 

 understand impersonality or impartiality at 

 all. It jumps at conclusions, and refuses to 

 take " I don't know " for an answer. How 

 shall the scientific man condescend to such a 

 rabble without losing his soul? 



The public, on its side, is as little ready to 

 appreciate the scientist. Personally, it re- 

 gards him as a freak. If he happen to have 

 the personality that would be valuable to a 

 business man — an impressive presence, an 

 aggressive, decisive manner and the executive 

 temperament which decides everything in- 

 stantly and positively and sees that it is done 

 — ^he may be respected for these qualities. 

 But if, as is usually the case, he is not chiefly 

 notable for these qualities, he is regarded as 

 an " impractical dreamer," who may, by some 

 hocus pocus, produce miracles from his magic 

 box, but is personally entitled to no consider- 

 ation. Then there is the persistent illusion of 

 "book lamin'." Because most of the ele- 

 mentary education with which the public is 

 familiar is derived from books, it is assumed 

 that higher learning is also derived from 

 books, and that a "professor" is merely a 

 man who has stuffed his brain with many 

 books. The books themselves are taken as 

 ultimate facts, and the question, Who wrote 

 the books? or. Where did he find out the 

 things in them? never occurs to the mind. 

 Even the great classics of science, like the 

 "Origin of Species," are conceived after the 

 analogy of the classics of theology, and Dar- 

 win may be assumed to have propounded his 

 alleged dogma that "man descended from the 

 monkey" much as Calvin propounded pre- 

 destination or Wesley the direct conviction of 



salvation. And if there come rmnors that 

 some one — de Vries, for instance — has " dis- 

 proved Darwinism," it is at once assumed that 

 he is merely the leader of a new sect with a 

 different creed. As to the strange jargon in 

 which scientists are wont to express them- 

 selves, that is merely funny. Anyhow, scien- 

 tists are a rather contemptible tribe. For if 

 there is anything more contemptible than not 

 Imowing the particular thing I know, it is 

 knowing something else that I do not know. 

 It is by this compensatory contempt for the 

 knowledge of others that we retain our self- 

 respect in the face of our ignorance. 



And I may suggest that the breaking down 

 even of this merely personal barrier between 

 the scientist and the layman is of i mm ense 

 importance to our American democracy. For 

 our most grievous lack, as a people, is our 

 ignoring of experts, and our fiction that " any 

 man is fit for any job." The one Crerman 

 lesson which we must not permit the war to 

 unteach us, but which it must rather empha- 

 size a thousand fold, is the lesson of valuing 

 and trusting the expert. It was by the mis- 

 use of the efficiency which this lesson taught 

 her that Germany was able to stand off the 

 world for four years, and nearly succeeded in 

 destroying the civilization which her science 

 had helped upbuild. If we should jump at 

 the mad conclusion that the things which 

 proved dangerous in the hands of autocracy 

 for the destruction of civilization shall there- 

 fore not be used by democracy for its up- 

 building, we might inflict on the world an 

 even greater damage than that wrought by 

 German arms. It is therefore the duty of the 

 American expert, even at the cost of some 

 repugnant self-exploitation, to make himself 

 personally respected by the democracy. And 

 he can not do that in his laboratory and 

 through the scientific journals alone. 



For any large-scale contact with the general 

 public, the popular press is indispensable. 

 This press may be divided into three groups 

 ■ — the daily newspapers the Sunday news- 

 papers and the popular magazines. 



By far the most efficient organ of publicity 

 is the daily newspaper. Everybody reads the 



