Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/119

Rh must work the deepest and most far reaching revolution in human thought of any truth to which the human mind has ever attained. Therefore we have taken some pains to keep our readers informed about it. And this was the more necessary, as the literary periodicals of large circulation pass the subject by, and the larger the circulation the more carefully is it ignored. They value, prefer, and select that which will "pay," and in so doing they cater, for mercenary purposes, to the caprice frivolity, prejudice, and ignorance of their readers, not troubling them much with the great and serious truths which science is working out for the world. It is gratifying to find that we are not singular in our estimate of the relative moment and significance of these two forms of intellectual occupation. A writer who gives elaborate consideration to President White's "Warfare of Science" in the Westminster Review opens with the following pungent observations:

are asked why we do not discourse of Pleasonton and "blue glass." Why should we? Is it not abundantly considered by the press already? The object of our pages is to treat of subjects that are too generally neglected; to give expression to those great results of discovery and scientific thought which get but a meagre share of attention from the popular press, and we cannot find half room enough to do this work as it should be done. "But, really, what do you think of Pleasonton, and the blue-glass cure?" is now the obtrusive question. Well, we think that the man is a pestilent ignoramus, and his book the ghastliest rubbish that has been printed in a hundred years. He may be entirely honest, but that is no reason why we should give attention to his egregious folly. Pleasonton, however, it must be confessed, serves one important function: he gauges for us the depth and density of American stupidity. De Morgan says, somewhere, that certain men appear occasionally to play the part of "foolometërs" in the community, that is, to measure the number and quality of the fools furnished by any given state of society. Pleasonton has done this for us with an accuracy that leaves nothing to be desired. Our showing in this respect is on a very handsome scale, fully commensurate with the length of the Mississippi, the sweep of the prairies, the glory of the Centennial Exhibition, the grandeur of the national debt, and