The Power of the Charlatan by Grete de FrancescoReview by: M. F. Ashley MontaguIsis, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1940), pp. 406-408Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226284 .

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406 ISIS, XXXII, 2

charge." In the present volume Professor FURNAS is concerned with demonstrating how we can bring about a more effective production and distribution of goods and services than with all our great means we are able to do to-day. To this end he deals first with the raw materials with which man has to work, and then goes on to show what he does with them both technologically and sociologically.

Written in a lively stvle, with the text assisted by a number ot verv clear and informative graphical illustrations by Mr. CHARLES F. SPRAY, Professor FURNAs' sound and authoritative book is an extremely important contribution towards the intelligent education of the citizen. If, as we expect, the quality of the further volumes which are to appear in this Series is maintained at the level set by Professor FuRNAS' notable volume, the Series cannot fail to become an important influence in American education. Since the book is intended for teachers and others living in the United States the author has naturally limited himself to the discussion of his subject with reference to the individual who is confronted with the problem of living intelligently in the United States. The book is a liberal education in itself, and fortunate is the citizen who will be taught from it. It is, let us hope, a happy augury that a volume such as this can make its appearance at this time when, more than eNer, an understanding of what it means to be a social human being is so necessary. We have gone a long way from the time ot the Govenor of Virginia SirWILLIAM BERKELEY whom Professor FuRNAs quotes with hearty dis- approval, who could exclaim " I thank God there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best govern- ment." The surest way to render ineffectual the Sir WILLIAM BERKEEYS of this age is to make such volumes as that produced by Professor FuRNAS available to the growing citizen. In the teaching of basic living science a book such as this represents a major and welcome innovation.

The references, distributed in tootnotes, are a valuable feature of the book, and there is a full index.

Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU.

Philadelphia.

Grete de Francesco.-The Power of the Charlatan. VII+288 p. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1939. ($3.75).

A charlatan is defined by GRETE DE FRANcEsco as one who " talks fluently about subjects which he understands no more than his hearers, and... he therefore finds it advantageous to restrict his audience to those with a minimum of knowledge; he must be intolerant toward all who

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REVIEWS 407

can spoil his business by bringing new insight and knowledge to the masses. Always and in everv age, the angry intolerance of the quack is directed against true science, the power most hostile to his influence." The charlatan, we may go on to say, is a prating boaster who knows, moreover, that he does not know whereof he speaks, although like most hardened liars he may later become convinced of the truth of some of his lies. He lives by deceit. It is not for nothing that the publishers of this volume remark on the dust jacket that " curiously enough " the book, which was published originally in German in Switzerland, had excellent reviews in Germany. Why not'? Charlatans have ever been distinguished by their ready willingness to condemn other charlatans, and thus raise themselves higher upon the benches which they have mounted to sell their wares. What, after all, are our modem Dictators if not mountebanks? Among the first to realize this truth was Mr. LEONARD WOOLF who, in I935, published a book on the madem Dictators entitled " Quack, Quack ! " (The Hogarth Press, London), in which he showed that the quackery of the Dictators merely represented the abandonment of and the contempt for reason as a means to truth and the substitution for it of so-called intuition, magic, and mysticism, and all the other practical paraphernalia that has always been associated with the charlatan. Furthermore, GRETE DE FRANcEsco, who is a news- paper writer, is quite bloodthirsty. With undue pleasure she narrates the details of the executions of some of the charlatans of whom she writes, and she is always glad to be able to say of any one of her subjects that he came to a bad end. She is too ready to read into the countenances of her subjects the qualities which a fortiori she already knows to have characterized them. Nowhere does she exhibit the slightest sympathy for these pathetically unfortunate and misguided men, and not once does she make more than a surface judgment of them. It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why this volume " had excellent reviews in Germany." What it is necessary to understand in discussing the charlatan is that he is as much a victim of circumstances as are the individuals upon whom he imposes, and while there can never be anything but condemnation for his activities, it is very desirable that an attempt should be made to understand why particular individuals adopted the career of the charlaten. There are plenty of indications in this volume, and they need further exploration. GRErE DE FRANCESCO does turn over the social soil in which the charlatan flourished, and here we may see that the forms which charlatanry took were calculated to meet the demands of the age; States needed gold for their coffers, individuals needed health, men needed strength, and women needed beauty and fertility, and these the charlatan was, for a consideration, ever readv to provide; but the

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408 ISIS, XXXII, 2

causes which bring forth the charlatan and the motives which drive him remain the same in all ages.

There has never been an age in which so many varieties of charlatans have flourished as in our own, and every case which GRETE DE FRANCESCO discusses, from the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century, can be paralelled and far exceeded in variety by examples from our own time. The great slogan of our own day is, of course, that a sucker is born every second throughout the day and the night. Practically everyone with anything to sell is ready to fill the gull's horn book with the vacuous nourishment upon which he battens. In this goldforsaken land the prevailing religion has become more than ever moneytheism, and anyone who can persuade anyone else that he is able to impart the secret of transmuting base metal into gold, does so. The cries of the charlatans fill the air; they break in upon one from one's neighbours radio, the magazine and the newspaper, the bill-hoarrdings which obscure the face of the countryside, and inescapably through the mail. Hocus- pocus never flourished so well as in this most gullible of ages. Why? There are many reasons, but one of the most definite, surely, is that we live in an age of the half-educated. A half-educated person may be defined as a person with some information and no organization. Unequipped to analyse in a rational manner the value of what he ex- periences, and accepting what conforms to the beliefs which were early implanted in him. He has faith in the substance of things to come, and anyone who can talk persuasively about a substance and present it wrapped up in cellophane, is a priest in the church-which he will follow.

The critical-minded person who has been taught to think is not gullible. But we do not teach our growing children to think. We give them information, and with that information they are left to do what they will. So long as our educators fail to realize that their chief function should be to teach their children how to think, confusion in thought and behaviour will continue to characterize the adults into which they will develop. And the charlatan will continue to flourish.

G. DE FRANCESCO's book makes no claim to be an erudite work or a history of the charlatan. What the author does in this book, and does well, is to demonstrate by means of a number of well chosen cases, the methods utilized by the charlatan in acquiring and maintaining his peculiar power. The modern reader has but to look about him to have a full realization of the nature of these methods.

The book has been ably tranmlated by MIRIAM BEARD, is well illustrated, and contains a good bibliography.

Hahnemann Mledical College and Hospital, M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU.

Philadelphia, Pa.

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