uneducated, are ignorant of what scientific method is, they will look on scientific men, as the middle age looked on necromancers, as a privileged, but awful and uncanny caste, possessed of mighty secrets; who may do them great good, but may also do them great harm.  Which belief on the part of the masses will enable these persons to instal themselves as the critics of science, though not scientific men themselves:  and—­as Shakespeare has it—­to talk of Robin Hood, though they never shot in his bow.  Thus they become mediators to the masses between the scientific and the unscientific worlds.  They tell them—­You are not to trust the conclusions of men of science at first hand.  You are not fit judges of their facts or of their methods.  It is we who will, by a cautious eclecticism, choose out for you such of their conclusions as are safe for you; and them we will advise you to believe.  To the scientific man, on the other hand, as often as anything is discovered unpleasing to them, they will say, imperiously and e cathedra—­Your new theory contradicts the established facts of science.  For they will know well that whatever the men of science think of their assertion, the masses will believe it; totally unaware that the speakers are by their very terms showing their ignorance of science; and that what they call established facts scientific men call merely provisional conclusions, which they would throw away to-morrow without a pang were the known facts explained better by a fresh theory, or did fresh facts require one.

This has happened too often.  It is in the interest of superstition that it should happen again; and the best way to prevent it surely is to tell the masses—­Scientific method is no peculiar mystery, requiring a peculiar initiation.  It is simply common sense, combined with uncommon courage, which includes uncommon honesty and uncommon patience; and if you will be brave, honest, patient, and rational, you will need no mystagogues to tell you what in science to believe and what not to believe; for you will be just as good judges of scientific facts and theories as those who assume the right of guiding your convictions.  You are men and women:  and more than that you need not be.

And let me say that the man of our days whose writings exemplify most thoroughly what I am going to say is the justly revered Mr. Thomas Carlyle.

As far as I know he has never written on any scientific subject.  For aught I am aware of, he may know nothing of mathematics or chemistry, of comparative anatomy or geology.  For aught I am aware of, he may know a great deal about them all, and, like a wise man, hold his tongue, and give the world merely the results in the form of general thought.  But this I know:  that his writings are instinct with the very spirit of science; that he has taught men, more than any living man, the meaning and end of science; that he has taught men moral and intellectual courage; to face facts boldly, while they confess