The Fifteenth Maudsley Lecture: The Professional Mind

Extract

In devoting to the foundation of a memorial lectureship a portion of Dr. Maudsley's bequest, the learned Society which I have this afternoon the honour to address made an indulgent concession to the laity in prescribing that the lecture to be delivered should in alternate years be of a scientific and of a popular character. This year it is the turn of the popular lecturer—a rôle which I have assumed with some trepidation. The distinction drawn is an ominous one. It seems to suggest that to be scientific you must be unpopular, and to be popular you must be unscientific. But is there necessarily so absolute a dividing line between the two domains? I hazard the view that it is possible to be at once both popular and scientific. No doubt there is still a tendency in learned circles to deride what is known as popular science, but that is an inheritance from the days of the cheap and inaccurate manuals which used to be written by imperfectly informed persons, pretentiously professing to enlighten the masses on the truths of science. Nowadays, science has become more condescending, indeed almost affable, to democracy. The approach has come from both sides, for democracy is now better educated, and science is now more expert in the art of exposition. The advent of the internal combustion engine, of wireless telegraphy and of many other practical applications of science to daily life has created a new and widespread interest and aptitude on the part of the general public in the acquisition of accurate scientific knowledge, particularly among the younger generation. At the same time the physicist, the chemist and the biologist have found it possible and worth while to impart much of their learning to wider audiences. Science is daily entering more and more into the lives of the people, with the consequence that its social, economic and political implications are being more and more realized by its professors. The President of the Royal Society has reminded us that we live in an age when the advance and development of scientific knowledge are continually creating new social and economic problems of the utmost importance, and has emphasized the necessity of bridging the gap between the scientist and the layman by every possible means. The British Science Guild, now doing such excellent work, was founded some thirty years ago by Sir Norman Lockyer for the express purpose of promoting the application of scientific method and results to social problems and public affairs. The market-place can doubtless never supersede the laboratory, but the scientist no longer disdains to take his wares to market.