Notes

Abstract

IN the second of a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette “On Vain Discourse,” in the quaint and leisurely style of our remote forefathers, the writer speaks of “the talker who thinketh he hath a vocation to popularise science, not as some of our masters come forth to stir up interest in these matters, but from folly and emptiness.” He then proceeds to define him:—“He is a great breeder of vain discourses, for he deemeth that the strong meat of knowledge will sit ill on dainty stomachs, and so sets himself to save them the digesting. He watereth first to the consistency of a small fact to the page, and sweeteneth with many a line of poetry; and if there be a tough morsel of reasoning or a sharp fragment of logical defining that he carefully throweth aside, ‘et pondera rerum minutissimis verbis frangit.’ For seasoning there are divers sorts of lights or colours or smells to wonder at, and pictures and tales, and praise of the wonderful nineteenth century, and of science and of such as study it. And so there is made a thin and limpid pabulum, or extractum scientice dilutum, which will not harm the delicatest, nor indeed do them any good, though it be sweet to the taste and pleasant to the eyes, and have the savour of wisdom. For knowledge that is worthy of being attained needeth faithful striving and endeavour, and skill cometh not but by assiduity in act and exercise—χαλεπα τα καλα.” The lecture season is now beginning, and it would be well that those who attend science lectures should learn to distinguish between the true and the false, and this they can easily do by applying the test given by the Pall Mall. The spread of efficient education, in science will either extinguish the popular lecture or greatly alter its character. We are glad to see the growth of outside opinion on the subject, as may be inferred from the article alluded to.