s
of popularisation do not conform to the modern ideal of historical
exposition; we frequently find in them survivals of the ancient ideal,
that of antiquity, the Renaissance, and the romantic school.

The explanation is easy. The defects of the historical works designed
for the general public--defects which are sometimes enormous, and have,
with many able minds, discredited popular works as a class--are the
consequences of the insufficient preparation or of the inferior literary
education of the "popularisers."

A populariser is excused from original research; but he ought to know
everything of importance that has been published on his subject, he
ought to be up to date, and to have thought out for himself the
conclusions reached by the specialists. If he has not personally made a
special study of the subject he proposes to treat, he must obviously
read it up, and the task is long. For the professional populariser there
is a strong temptation to study superficially a few recent monographs,
to hastily string together or combine extracts from them, and, in order
to render this medley more attractive, to deck it out, as far as is
possible, with "general ideas" and external graces. The temptation is
all the stronger from the circumstance that most specialists take no
interest in works of popularisation, that these works are, in general,
lucrative, and that the public at large is not in a position to
distinguish clearly between honest and sham popularisation. In short,
there are some, absurd as it may seem, who do not hesitate to summarise
for others what they have not taken the trouble to learn for themselves,
and to teach that of which they are ignorant. Hence, in most works of
historical popularisation, there inevitably appear blemishes of every
kind, which the well-informed always note with pleasure, but with a
pleasure in which there is some touch of bitterness, because they alone
can see these faults: unacknowledged borrowings, inexact references,
mutilated names and texts, second-hand quotations, worthless hypotheses,
imprudent assertions, puerile generalisations, and, in the enunciation
of the most false or the most debatable opinions, an air of tranquil
authority.[229]

On the other hand, men whose information is all that could be desired,
whose monographs intended for specialists are full of merit, sometimes
show themselves capable, when they write for the public, of grave
offences against scientific method. Th