The scholar confronted by the fury and stupidity of the mob, and counted a fool for his pains when he strives to induce it to listen to reason, has often turned aside in disgust. Henceforth he will write and speak for the learned few. Let the masses, who think that a scientific demonstration may be satisfactorily refuted with derision and slander, consume themselves in their own ignorance. They have made it clear that learning is not for such as they. In the Theatetus Plato tells us of the discomfiture of the philosopher in the marketplace. As “the rabble” is in all times heedless or hostile to reason, there has often developed the idea that any belief that is popular is thereby shown to be untrue and vulgar. Cato at once became suspicious of himself when any utterance of his met with applause. Among would-be educated minds this suspicion becomes a cult. Anything is “refined” and true to the extent that it is unpopular--and for the reason that it is not shared by the many. Today this attitude--which is really intellectual snobbishness--gains plausibility from the fact that much of the popularization of science is base caricature and misrepresentation. It is obvious that the wider the circulation of pseudo-science, the greater is the need of genuine instruction in the elements of science and of general culture. I can see no other way by which modern learning or modern civilization may be sustained. The man on the street has power to determine which values shall survive in our common life, and which shall perish, to a degree that he never had before. He exercises this influence upon our culture in many ways both direct and indirect, and his sway is not likely to be diminished in an industrial society which increasingly tends to give social power to the various groups which compose it in direct proportion to their numerical strength.