I have not been one of those fortunate persons who are able to regard
a popular lecture as a mere _hors d'oeuvre_, unworthy of being ranked
among the serious efforts of a philosopher; and who keep their fame as
scientific hierophants unsullied by attempts--at least of the successful
sort--to be understanded of the people.
On the contrary, I found that the task of putting the truths learned in
the field, the laboratory and the museum, into language which, without
bating a jot of scientific accuracy shall be generally intelligible,
taxed such scientific and literary faculty as I possessed to the
uttermost; indeed my experience has furnished me with no better
corrective of the tendency to scholastic pedantry which besets all those
who are absorbed in pursuits remote from the common ways of men, and
become habituated to think and speak in the technical dialect of their
own little world, as if there were no other.
If the popular lecture thus, as I believe, finds one moiety of its
justification in the self-discipline of the lecturer, it surely finds
the other half in its effect on the auditory. For though various sadly
comical experiences of the results of my own efforts have led me to
entertain a very moderate estimate of the purely intellectual value of
lectures; though I venture to doubt if more than one in ten of an average
audience carries away an accurate notion of what the speaker has been
driving at; yet is that not equally true of the oratory of the hustings,
of the House of Commons, and even of the pulpit?
Yet the children of this world are wise in their generation; and both
the politician and the priest are justified by results. The living
voice has an influence over human action altogether independent of the
intellectual worth of that which it utters. Many years ago, I was a
guest at a great City dinner. A famous orator, endowed with a voice
of rare flexibility and power; a born actor, ranging with ease through
every part, from refined comedy to tragic unction, was called upon
to reply to a toast. The orator was a very busy man, a charming
conversationalist and by no means despised a good dinner; and, I
imagine, rose without having given a thought to what he was going to
say. The rhythmic roll of sound was admirable, the gestures perfect,
the earnestness impressive; nothing was lacking save sense and,
occasionally, grammar. When the speaker sat down the applause was
terrific and one of my neighbours was especially enthusiastic. So when
he had quieted down, I asked him what the orator had said. And he could
not tell me.
That sagacious person John Wesley is reported to have replied to some
one who questioned the propriety of his adaptation of sacred words to
extremely secular airs, that he did not see why the Devil should be left
in possession of all the best tunes. And I do not see why science should
not turn to account the peculiarities of human nature thus exploited
by other agencies: all the more because science, by the nature of its
being, cannot desire to stir the passions, or profit by the weaknesses,
of human nature. The most zealous of popular lecturers can aim at
nothing more than the awakening of a sympathy for abstract truth, in
those who do not really follow his arguments; 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
department 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.