ABSTRACT
The popular scientific books which I used to read as a child were mainly concerned with displaying the wonders of nature and the glorious achievements of science. They dwelt on the enormous distances between the stars and on the laws governing their motion; on the crowd of living creatures made visible in a drop of water under the microscope. Among the best-sellers of the time was Darwin's Origin of Species and every new discovery throwing light on the process of evolution roused a wide, popular curiosity. Such were the topics and interests that came first to the mind in connection with science at that time. It was not forgotten of course that science provided also a store of most useful knowledge; but this was not considered as its principal justification. New practical inventions like the electromotor or the wireless telegraph were regarded as merely occasional off-shoots of advancing scientific knowledge.
