; 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 popularization 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 more
popularizer. If the falsehood were not too glaring, they would say the
same of Fa