Gentlemen: When I accepted the honour of lecturing here, I took for
granted that so select an audience would expect from me not mere
amusement, but somewhat of instruction; or, if that be too ambitious
a word for me to use, at least some fresh hint--if I were able to
give one--as to how they should fulfil the ideal of military men in
such an age as this.
To touch on military matters, even had I been conversant with them,
seemed to me an impertinence. I am bound to take for granted that
every man knows his own business best; and I incline more and more
to the opinion that military men should be left to work out the
problems of their art for themselves, without the advice or
criticism of civilians. But I hold--and I am sure that you will
agree with me--that if the soldier is to be thus trusted by the
nation, and left to himself to do his own work his own way, he must
be educated in all practical matters as highly as the average of
educated civilians. He must know all that they know, and his own
art besides. Just as a clergyman, being a man plus a priest, is
bound to be a man, and a good man; over and above his priesthood, so
is the soldier bound to be a civilian, and a highly-educated
civilian, plus his soldierly qualities and acquirements.
It seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without impertinence, ask
you to consider a branch of knowledge which is becoming yearly more
and more important in the eyes of well-educated civilians; of which,
therefore, the soldier ought at least to know something, in order to
put him on a par with the general intelligence of the nation. I do
not say that he is to devote much time to it, or to follow it up
into specialities: but that he ought to be well grounded in its
principles and methods; that he ought to be aware of its importance
and its usefulness; that so, if he comes into contact--as he will
more and more--with scientific men, he may understand them, respect
them, befriend them, and be befriended by them in turn; and how
desirable this last result is, I shall tell you hereafter.
There are those, I doubt not, among my audience who do not need the
advice which I shall presume to give to-night; who belong to that
fast-increasing class among officers of whom I have often said--and
I have found scientific men cordially agree with me--that they are
the most modest and the most teachable of men. But even in their
case there can be no harm in going over deliberately a question of
such importance; in putting it, as it were, into shape; and
insisting on arguments which may perhaps not have occurred to some
of them.
Let me, in the first place, reassure those--if any such there be--
who may suppose, from the title of my lecture, that I am only going
to recommend them to collect weeds and butterflies, "rats and mice,
and such small deer." Far from it. The honourable title of Natural
History has, and unwisely, been restricted too much of late years to
the mere study of plants and animals. I desire to restore the words
to their original and proper meaning--the History of Nature; that
is, of all that is born, and grows in time; in short, of all natural
objects.
If any one shall say--By that definition you make not only geology
and chemistry branches of natural history, but meteorology and
astronomy likewise--I cannot deny it. They deal each of them, with
realms of Nature. Geology is, literally, the natural history of
soils and lands; chemistry the natural history of compounds, organic
and inorganic; meteorology the natural history of climates;
astronomy the natural history of planetary and solar bodies. And
more, you cannot now study deeply any branch of what is popularly
called Natural History--that is, plants and animals--without finding
it necessary to learn something, and more and more as you go deeper,
of those very sciences. As the marvellous interdependence of all
natural objects and forces unfolds itself more and more, so the once
separate sciences, which treated of different classes of natural
objects, are forced to interpenetrate, as it were; and to supplement
themselves by knowledge borrowed from each other. Thus--to give a
single instance--no man can now be a first-rate botanist unless he
be also no mean meteorologist, no mean geologist, and--as Mr. Darwin
has shown in his extraordinary discoveries about the fertilisation
of plants by insects--no mean entomologist likewise.
It is difficult, therefore, and indeed somewhat unwise and unfair,
to put any limit to the term Natural History, save that it shall
deal only with nature and with matter; and shall not pretend--as
some would have it to do just now--to go out of its own sphere to
meddle with moral and spiritual matters. But, for practical
purposes, we may define the natural history of the causes which have
made it what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it
holds. And if any one would know how to study the natural history
of any given spot as the history of the causes which have made it
what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it holds.
And if any one would know how to study the natural history of a
place, and how to write it, let him read--and if he has read its
delightful pages in youth, read once again--that hitherto unrivalled
little monograph, White's "Natural History of Selborne;" and let him
then try, by the light of improved science, to do for any district
where he may be stationed, what White did for Selborne nearly one
hundred years ago. Let him study its plants, its animals, its soils
and rocks; and last, but not least, its scenery, as the total
outcome of what the soils, and plants, and animals, have made it. I
say, have made it. How far the nature of the soils, and the rocks
will affect the scenery of a district may be well learnt from a very
clever and interesting little book of Professor Geikie's, on "The
Scenery of Scotland as affected by its Geological Structure." How
far the plants, and trees affect not merely the general beauty, the
richness or barrenness of a country, but also its very shape; the
rate at which the hills are destroyed and washed into the lowland;
the rate at which the seaboard is being removed by the action of
waves--all these are branches of study which is becoming more and
more important.
And even in the study of animals and their effects on the
vegetation, questions of really deep interest will arise. You will
find that certain plants and trees cannot thrive in a district,
while others can, because the former are browsed down by cattle, or
their seeds eaten by birds, and the latter are not; that certain
seeds are carried in the coats of animals, or wafted abroad by
winds--others are not; certain trees destroyed wholesale by insects,
while others are not; that in a hundred ways the animal and
vegetable life of a district act and react upon each other, and that
the climate, the average temperature, the maximum and minimum
temperatures, the rainfall, act on them, and in the case of the
vegetation, are reacted on again by them. The diminution of
rainfall by the destruction of forests, its increase by replanting
them, and the effect of both on the healthiness or unhealthiness of
a place--as in the case of the Mauritius, where a once healthy
island has become pestilential, seemingly from the clearing away of
the vegetation on the banks of streams--all this, though to study it
deeply requires a fair knowledge of meteorology, and even of a
science or two more, is surely well worth the attention of any
educated man who is put in charge of the health and lives of human
beings.
You will surely agree with me that the habit of mind required for
such a study as this, is the very same as is required for successful
military study. In fact, I should say that the same intellect which
would develop into a great military man, would develop also into a
great naturalist. I say, intellect. The military man would
require--what the naturalist would not--over and above his
intellect, a special force of will, in order to translate his
theories into fact, and make his campaigns in the field and not
merely on paper. But I am speaking only of the habit of mind
required for study; of that inductive habit of mind which works,
steadily and by rule, from the known to the unknown; that habit of
mind of which it has been said: "The habit of seeing; the habit of
knowing what we see; the habit of discerning differences and
likenesses; the habit of classifying accordingly; the habit of
searching for hypotheses which shall connect and explain those
classified facts; the habit of verifying these hypotheses by
applying them to fresh facts; the habit of throwing them away
bravely if they will not fit; the habit of general patience,
diligence, accuracy, reverence for facts for their own sake, and
love of truth for its own sake; in one word, the habit of reverent
and implicit obedience to the laws of Nature, whatever they may be--
these are not merely intellectual, but also moral habits, which will
stand men in practical good stead in every affair of life, and in
every question, even the most awful, which may come before them as
rational and social beings." And specially valuable are they,
surely, to the military man, the very essence of whose study, to be
successful, lies first in continuous and accurate observation, and
then in calm and judicious arrangement.
Therefore it is that I hold, and hold strongly, that the study of
physical science, far from interfering with an officer's studies,
much less unfitting for them, must assist him in them, by keeping
his mind always in the very attitude and the very temper which they
require.
If any smile at this theory of mine, let them recollect one curious
fact: that perhaps the greatest captain of the old world was
trained by perhaps the greatest philosopher of the old world--the
father of Natural History; that Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander
of Macedon. I do not fancy, of course, that Aristotle taught
Alexander any Natural History. But this we know, that he taught him
to use those very faculties by which Aristotle became a natural
historian, and many things besides; that he called out in his pupil
somewhat of his own extraordinary powers of observation,
extraordinary powers of arrangement. He helped to make him a great
general: but he helped to make him more--a great politician,
coloniser, discoverer. He instilled into him such a sense of the
importance of Natural History, that Alexander helped him nobly in
his researches; and, if Athenaeus is to be believed, gave him eight
hundred talents towards perfecting his history of animals. Surely
it is not too much to say that this close friendship between the
natural philosopher and the soldier has changed the whole course of
civilisation to this very day. Do not consider me Utopian when I
tell you, that I should like to see the study of physical science an
integral part of the curriculum of every military school. I would
train the mind of the lad who was to become hereafter an officer in
the army--and in the navy likewise--by accustoming him to careful
observation of, and sound thought about, the face of nature; of the
commonest objects under his feet, just as much as the stars above
his head; provided always that he learnt, not at second-hand from
books, but where alone ho can really learn either war or nature--in
the field; by actual observation, actual experiment. A laboratory
for chemical experiment is a good thing, it is true, as far as it
goes; but I should prefer to the laboratory a naturalists' field-
club, such as are prospering now at several of the best public
schools, certain that the boys would get more of sound inductive
habits of mind, as well as more health, manliness, and cheerfulness,
amid scenes to remember which will be a joy for ever, than they ever
can by bending over retorts and crucibles, amid smells even to
remember which is a pain for ever.
But I would, whether a field-club existed or not, require of every
young man entering the army or navy--indeed of every young man
entering any liberal profession whatsoever--a fair knowledge, such
as would enable him to pass an examination, in what the Germans call
Erd-kunde--earth-lore--in that knowledge of the face of the earth
and of its products, for which we English have as yet cared so
little that we have actually no English name for it, save the clumsy
and questionable one of physical geography; and, I am sorry to say,
hardly any readable school books about it, save Keith Johnston's
"Physical Atlas"--an acquaintance with which last I should certainly
require of young men.
It does seem most strange--or rather will seem most strange a
hundred years hence--that we, the nation of colonists, the nation of
sailors, the nation of foreign commerce, the nation of foreign
military stations, the nation of travellers for travelling's sake,
the nation of which one man here and another there--as Schleiden
sets forth in his book, "The Plant," in a charming ideal
conversation at the Travellers' Club--has seen and enjoyed more of
the wonders and beauties of this planet than the men of any nation,
not even excepting the Germans--that this nation, I say, should as
yet have done nothing, or all but nothing, to teach in her schools a
knowledge of that planet, of which she needs to know more, and can
if she will know more, than any other nation upon it.
As for the practical utility of such studies to a soldier, I only
need, I trust, to hint at it to such an assembly as this. All must
see of what advantage a rough knowledge of the botany of a district
would be to an officer leading an exploring party, or engaged in
bush warfare. To know what plants are poisonous; what plants, too,
are eatable--and many more are eatable than is usually supposed;
what plants yield oleaginous substances, whether for food or for
other uses; what plants yield vegetable acids, as preventives of
scurvy; what timbers are available for each of many different
purposes; what will resist wet, salt-water, and the attacks of
insects; what, again, can be used, at a pinch, for medicine or for
styptics--and be sure, as a wise West Indian doctor once said to me,
that there is more good medicine wild in the bush than there is in
all the druggists' shops--surely all this is a knowledge not beneath
the notice of any enterprising officer, above all of an officer of
engineers. I only ask any one who thinks that I may be in the
right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products
given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom"--a miracle of learning--and
see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man,
even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he
should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a
distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity. So
strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see some
knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's excellent little "First Book of
Indian Botany" required of all officers going to our Indian Empire:
but as that will not be, at least for many a year to come, I
recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, and while
away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge which
will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then
of profit, to them during their stay abroad.
And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any
of you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent
"Monograph of the Bamboos" is an honour to British botanists, and a
proof of the scientific power which is to be found here and there
among British officers: so I do not expect you to become such
geologists as Sir Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand
chapter to the history of extinct animals as Major Cautley did by
his discoveries in the Sewalik Hills. Nevertheless, you can learn--
and I should earnestly advise you to learn--geology and mineralogy
enough to be of great use to you in your profession, and of use,
too, should you relinquish your profession hereafter. It must be
profitable for any man, and specially for you, to know how and where
to find good limestone, building stone, road metal; it must be good
to be able to distinguish ores and mineral products; it must be good
to know--as a geologist will usually know, even in a country which
he sees for the first time--where water is likely to be found, and
at what probable depth; it must be good to know whether the water is
fit for drinking or not, whether it is unwholesome or merely muddy;
it must be good to know what spots are likely to be healthy, and
what unhealthy, for encamping. The two last questions depend,
doubtless, on meteorological as well as geological accidents: but
the answers to them will be most surely found out by the scientific
man, because the facts connected with them are, like all other
facts, determined by natural laws. After what one has heard, in
past years, of barracks built in spots plainly pestilential; of
soldiers encamped in ruined cities, reeking with the dirt and poison
of centuries; of--but it is not my place to find fault; all I will
say is, that the wise and humane officer, when once his eyes are
opened to the practical value of physical science, will surely try
to acquaint himself somewhat with those laws of drainage and of
climate, geological, meteorological, chemical, which influence,
often with terrible suddenness and fury, the health of whole armies.
He will not find it beyond his province to ascertain the amount and
period of rainfalls, the maxima of heat and of cold which his troops
may have to endure, and many another point on which their health and
efficiency--nay, their very life may depend, but which are now too
exclusively delegated to the doctor, to whose province they do not
really belong. For cure, I take the liberty of believing, is the
duty of the medical officer; prevention, that of the military.
Thus much I can say just now--and there is much more to be said--on
the practical uses of the study of Natural History. But let me
remind you, on the other side, if Natural History will help you, you
in return can help her; and would, I doubt not, help her and help
scientific men at home, if once you looked fairly and steadily at
the immense importance of Natural History--of the knowledge of the
"face of the earth." I believe that all will one day feel, more or
less, that to know the earth ON which we live, and the laws of it BY
which we live, is a sacred duty to ourselves, to our children after
us, and to all whom we may have to command and to influence; ay, and
a duty to God likewise. For is it not a duty of common reverence
and faith towards Him, if He has put us into a beautiful and
wonderful place, and given us faculties by which we can see, and
enjoy, and use that place--is it not a duty of reverence and faith
towards Him to use these faculties, and to learn the lessons which
He has laid open for us? If you feel that, as I think you all will
some day feel, then you will surely feel likewise that it will be a
good deed--I do not say a necessary duty, but still a good deed and
praiseworthy--to help physical science forward; and to add your
contributions, however small, to our general knowledge of the earth.
And how much may be done for science by British officers, especially
on foreign stations, I need not point out. I know that much has
been done, chivalrously and well, by officers; and that men of
science owe them and give them hearty thanks for their labours. But
I should like, I confess, to see more done still. I should like to
see every foreign station what one or two highly-educated officers
might easily make it, an advanced post of physical science, in
regular communication with our scientific societies at home, sending
to them accurate and methodic details of the natural history of each
district--details ninety-nine hundredths of which might seem
worthless in the eyes of the public, but which would all be precious
in the eyes of scientific men, who know that no fact is really
unimportant; and more, that while plodding patiently through
seemingly unimportant facts, you may stumble on one of infinite
importance, both scientific and practical. For the student of
nature, gentlemen, if he will be but patient, diligent, methodical,
is liable at any moment to the same good fortune as befell Saul of
old, when he went out to seek his father's asses, and found a
kingdom.
There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the
technicalities and nice distinctions of formal Natural History; who
enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of
science. Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not
suppose that in following it they can do nothing towards enlarging
our knowledge of Nature, especially when on foreign stations. So
far from it, drawings ought always to be valuable, whether of
plants, animals, or scenery, provided only they are accurate; and
the more spirited and full of genius they are, the more accurate
they are certain to be; for Nature being alive, a lifeless copy of
her is necessarily an untrue copy. Most thankful to any officer for
a mere sight of sketches will be the closest botanist, who, to his
own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only from dried
specimens; or the closest zoologist, who knows his animals from
skins and bones. And if any one answers--But I cannot draw. I
rejoin. You can at least photograph. If a young officer, going out
to foreign parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science,
did me the honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should
tell him--Learn to photograph; take photographs of every strange bit
of rock-formation which strikes your fancy, and of every widely-
extended view which may give a notion of the general lie of the
country. Append, if you can, a note or two, saying whether a plain
is rich or barren; whether the rock is sandstone, limestone,
granitic, metamorphic, or volcanic lava; and if there be more rocks
than one, which of them lies on the other; and send them to be
exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society. I doubt not that
the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable
hint or two, for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for
instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons from
mere glances at drawings--I believe from photographs--of the
Abyssinian ranges about Magdala.
Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble
himself with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply
photograph every strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a
general notion of its species, its look; let him append, where he
can, a photograph of its leafage, flower, fruit; and send them to
Dr. Hooker, or any distinguished botanist: and he will find that,
though he may know nothing of botany, he will have pretty certainly
increased the knowledge of those who do know.
The sportsman, again--I mean the sportsman of that type which seems
peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own
sakes; he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it
not. He has those very habits of keen observation on which all
sound knowledge of nature is based; and he, if he will--as he may do
without interfering with his sport--can study the habits of the
animals among whom he spends wholesome and exciting days. You have
only to look over such good old books as Williams's "Wild Sports of
the East," Campbell's "Old Forest Ranger," Lloyd's "Scandinavian
Adventures," and last, but not least, Waterton's "Wanderings," to
see what valuable additions to true zoology--the knowledge of live
creatures, not merely dead ones--British sportsmen have made, and
still can make. And as for the employment of time, which often
hangs so heavily on a soldier's hands, really I am ready to say, if
you are neither men of science, nor draughtsmen, nor sportsmen, why,
go and collect beetles. It is not very dignified, I know, nor
exciting: but it will be something to do. It cannot harm you, if
you take, as beetle-hunters do, an indiarubber sheet to lie on; and
it will certainly benefit science. Moreover, there will be a noble
humility in the act. You will confess to the public that you
consider yourself only fit to catch beetles; by which very
confession you will prove yourself fit for much finer things than
catching beetles; and meanwhile, as I said before, you will be at
least out of harm's way. At a foreign barrack once, the happiest
officer I met, because the most regularly employed, was one who
spent his time in collecting butterflies. He knew nothing about
them scientifically--not even their names. He took them simply for
their wonderful beauty and variety; and in the hope, too--in which
he was really scientific--that if he carefully kept every form which
he saw, his collection might be of use some day to entomologists at
home. A most pleasant gentleman he was; and, I doubt not, none the
worse soldier for his butterfly catching. Commendable, also, in my
eyes, was another officer--whom I have not the pleasure of knowing--
who, on a remote foreign station, used wisely to escape from the
temptations of the world into an entirely original and most pleasant
hermitage. For finding--so the story went--that many of the finest
insects kept to the tree-tops, and never came to ground at all, he
used to settle himself among the boughs of some tree in the tropic
forests, with a long-handled net and plenty of cigars, and pass his
hours in that airy flower-garden, making dashes every now and then
at some splendid monster as it fluttered round his head. His
example need not be followed by every one; but it must be allowed
that--at least as long as he was in his tree--he was neither
dawdling, grumbling, spending money, nor otherwise harming himself,
and perhaps his fellow-creatures, from sheer want of employment.
One word more, and I have done. If I was allowed to give one
special piece of advice to a young officer, whether of the army or
navy, I would say: Respect scientific men; associate with them;
learn from them; find them to be, as you will usually, the most
pleasant and instructive of companions--but always respect them.
Allow them chivalrously, you who have an acknowledged rank, their
yet unacknowledged rank; and treat them as all the world will treat
them in a higher and truer state of civilisation. They do not yet
wear the Queen's uniform; they are not yet accepted servants of the
State; as they will be in some more perfectly organised and
civilised land: but they are soldiers nevertheless, and good
soldiers and chivalrous, fighting their nation's battle, often on
even less pay than you, and with still less chance of promotion and
of fame, against most real and fatal enemies--against ignorance of
the laws of this planet, and all the miseries which that ignorance
begets. Honour them for their work; sympathise in it; give them a
helping hand in it whenever you have an opportunity--and what
opportunities you have, I have been trying to sketch for you to-
night; and more, work at it yourselves whenever and wherever you
can. Show them that the spirit which animates them--the hatred of
ignorance and disorder, and of their bestial consequences--animates
you likewise; show them that the habit of mind which they value in
themselves--the habit of accurate observation and careful judgment--
is your habit likewise; show them that you value science, not merely
because it gives better weapons of destruction and of defence, but
because it helps you to become clear-headed, large-minded, able to
take a just and accurate view of any subject which comes before you,
and to cast away every old prejudice and every hasty judgment in the
face of truth and of duty: and it will be better for you and for
them.
But why? What need for the soldier and the man of science to
fraternise just now? This need: the two classes which will have an
increasing, it may be a preponderating, influence on the fate of the
human race for some time, will be the pupils of Aristotle and those
of Alexander--the men of science and the soldiers. In spite of all
appearances, and all declamations to the contrary, that is my firm
conviction. They, and they alone, will be left to rule; because
they alone, each in his own sphere, have learnt to obey. It is
therefore most needful for the welfare of society that they should
pull with, and not against each other; that they should understand
each other, respect each other, take counsel with each other,
supplement each other's defects, bring out each other's higher
tendencies, counteract each other's lower ones. The scientific man
has something to learn of you, gentlemen, which I doubt not that he
will learn in good time. You, again, have--as I have been hinting
to you to-night--something to learn of him, which you, I doubt not,
will learn in good time likewise. Repeat, each of you according to
his powers, the old friendship between Aristotle and Alexander; and
so, from your mutual sympathy and co-operation, a class of thinkers
and actors may yet arise which can save this nation, and the other
civilised nations of the world, from that of which I had rather not
speak, and wish that I did not think too often and too earnestly.
I may be a dreamer; and I may consider, in my turn, as wilder
dreamers than myself, certain persons who fancy that their only
business in life is to make money, the scientific man's only
business is to show them how to make money, and the soldier's only
business to guard their money for them. Be that as it may, the
finest type of civilised man which we are likely to see for some
generations to come, will be produced by a combination of the truly
military with the truly scientific man. I say--I may be a dreamer;
but you at least, as well as my scientific friends, will bear with
me; for my dream is to your honour.