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 Faraday and Helmholtz and Kelvin.

On the other hand, of the affliction caused by persons who think that
what they have picked up from popular exposition qualifies them for
discussing the great problems of science, it may be said, as the Radical
toast said of the power of the Crown in bygone days, that it "has
increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." The oddities of
"English as she is spoke" might be abundantly paralleled by those of
"Science as she is misunderstood" in the sermon, the novel, and the
leading article; and a collection of the grotesque travesties of