Page:Educational Review Volume 23.djvu/51

 acceptance of explanations of interpretations of facts—is frequently the more vital and instructive. Ingenious and successful lying is doubtless a fine art: yet the more difficult part of it is the gaining of credence for one’s inventions. That depends largely upon the belief-attitude of the public and upon the psychological climate in which they live. It is quite obvious that the conscienceless prevaricator or charlatan must play upon the prejudices and vanities and ignorance and cupidities of his clientèle. He presents what they wish to believe, appeals to their passions and emotional weaknesses, and when necessary berates his opponents with no gentle hand, and indulges in what Huxley speaks of as “varnishing the fair face of truth with that pestilent cosmetic, rhetoric.” But the psychologist’s interest is predominantly on the other side, with the duped rather than with the knave; especially if it be a case in which contagion has a fair field and all judgment becomes lost in a psychic epidemic of credulity. Such we are apt to associate with dark ages and ignorant communities, with isolated cultures and inhospitable mental climates. A few instances from the days of the telegraph and the omnipresent daily paper may accordingly be the more instructive.

The name of Leo Taxil—a pseudonym for Gabriel Jorgand—may be unknown to many readers; it should not remain so, for the judgment which has been pronounced upon Mme.