definition of what that Science, to whose service the Association is
devoted, is and means, has, as it naturally must, at all times occupied
the Metaphysician. He has answered the question in various ways, more or
less satisfactorily to himself or others. To me, Science, in its most
general and comprehensive acceptation, means the knowledge of what I
know, the consciousness of human knowledge. Hence, to know is the object
of all Science; and all special knowledge, if brought to our
consciousness in its separate distinctiveness from, and yet in its
recognized relation to the totality of our knowledge, is scientific
knowledge. We require, then, for Science—that is to say, for the
acquisition of scientific knowledge—those two activities of our mind
which are necessary for the acquisition of _any_ knowledge—analysis and
synthesis; the first, to dissect and reduce into its component parts the
object to be investigated, and to render an accurate account to
ourselves of the nature and qualities of these parts by observation; the
second to recompose the observed and understood parts into a unity in
our consciousness, exactly answering to the object of our investigation.
The labours of the man of Science are therefore at once the most humble
and the loftiest which man can undertake. He only does what every little
child does from its first awakening into life, and must do every moment
of its existence; and yet he aims at the gradual approximation to divine
truth itself. If, then, there exists no difference between the work of
the man of Science and that of the merest child, what constitutes the
distinction? Merely the conscious self-determination. The child observes
what accident brings before it, and unconsciously forms its notion of
it; the so-called practical man observes what his special work forces
upon him, and he forms his notions upon it with reference to this
particular work. The man of Science observes what he intends to observe,
and knows why he intends it. The value which the peculiar object has in
his eyes is not determined by accident, nor by an external cause, such
as the mere connection with work to be performed, but by the place which
he knows this object to hold in the general universe of knowledge, by
the relation which it bears to other parts of that general knowledge.
To _arrange_ and _classify_ that universe of knowledge becomes therefore
the first, and perhaps the most important, object and duty of Science.
It is only when brought into a system, by separating the incongruous and
combining those elements in which we have been enabled to discover the
internal connection which the Almighty has implanted in them, that we
can hope to grapple with the boundlessness of His creation, and with the
laws which govern both mind and matter.
The operation of Science then has been, systematically to divide human
knowledge, and raise, as it were, the separate groups of subjects for
scientific consideration, into different and distinct sciences. The
tendency to create new sciences is peculiarly apparent in our present
age, and is perhaps inseparable from so rapid a progress as we have seen
in our days; for the acquaintance with and mastering of distinct
branches of knowledge enables the eye, from the newly gained points of
sight, to see the new ramifications into which they divide themselves in
strict consecutiveness and with logical necessity. But in thus gaining
new centres of light, from which to direct our researches, and new and
powerful means of adding to its ever-increasing treasures, Science
approaches no nearer to the limits of its range, although travelling
further and further from its original point of departure. For God’s
world is infinite; and the boundlessness of the universe, whose confines
appear ever to retreat before our finite minds, strikes us no less with
awe when, prying into the starry crowd of heaven, we find new worlds
revealed to us by every increase in the power of the telescope, than
when the microscope discloses to us in a drop of water, or an atom of
dust, new worlds of life and animation, or the remains of such as have
passed away.
Whilst the tendency to push systematic investigation in every direction
enables the individual mind of man to bring all the power of which he is
capable to bear on the specialities of his study, and enables a greater
number of labourers to take part in the universal work, it may be feared
that that consciousness of its unity which must pervade the whole of
Science if it is not to lose its last and highest point of sight, may
suffer. It has occasionally been given to rare intellects and the
highest genius to follow the various sciences in their divergent roads,
and yet to preserve that point of sight from which alone their totality
can be contemplated and directed. Yet how rare is the appearance of such
gifted intellects! and if they be found at intervals, they remain still
single individuals, with all the imperfections of human nature.
The only mode of supplying with any certainty this want, is to be sought
in the combination of men of Science representing all the specialities,
and working together for the common object of preserving that unity and
presiding over that general direction. This has been to some extent done
in many countries by the establishment of academies embracing the whole
range of the sciences, whether physical or metaphysical, historical or
political. In the absence of such an institution in this country, all
lovers of Science must rejoice at the existence and activity of this
Association, which embraces in its sphere of action, if not the whole
range of the sciences, yet a very large and important section of them,
those known as the _inductive sciences_, excluding all that are not
approached by the inductive method of investigation. It has, for
instance (and, considering its peculiar organization and mode of action,
perhaps not unwisely), eliminated from its consideration and discussions
those which come under the description of moral and political sciences.
This has not been done from undervaluing their importance and denying
their sacred right to the special attention of mankind, but from a
desire to deal with those subjects only which can be reduced to positive
proof, and do not rest on opinion or faith. The subjects of the moral
and political sciences involve not only opinions but feelings; and their
discussion frequently rouses passions. For feelings are “subjective,” as
the German metaphysician has it—they are inseparable from the individual
being—an attack upon them is felt as one upon the person itself; whilst
facts are “objective” and belong to everybody—they remain the same facts
at all times and under all circumstances: they can be proved; they have
to be proved, and, when proved, are finally settled. It is with facts
only that the Association deals. There may for a time exist differences
of opinion on these also, but the process of removing them and resolving
them into agreement is a different one from that in the moral and
political sciences. These are generally approached by the _deductive_
process; but if the reasoning be ever so acute and logically correct,
and the point of departure, which may be arbitrarily selected, is
disputed, no agreement is possible; whilst we proceed here by the
_inductive_ process, taking nothing on trust, nothing for granted, but
reasoning upwards from the meanest fact established, and making every
step sure before going one beyond it, like the engineer in his
approaches to a fortress. We thus gain ultimately a roadway, a ladder by
which even a child may, almost without knowing it, ascend to the summit
of truth and obtain that immensely wide and extensive view which is
spread below the feet of the astonished beholder. This road has been
shown us by the great Bacon; and who can contemplate the prospects which
it opens, without almost falling into a trance similar to that in which
he allowed his imagination to wander over future ages of discovery!
From amongst the political sciences it has been attempted in modern
times to detach one which admits of being severed from individual
political opinions, and of being reduced to abstract laws derived from
well-authenticated facts. I mean Political Economy, based on general
statistics. A new Association has recently been formed, imitating our
perambulating habits, and striving to comprehend in its investigations
and discussions even a still more extended range of subjects, in what is
called “Social Science.” These efforts deserve our warmest approbation
and good will. May they succeed in obtaining a purely and strictly
scientific character! Our own Association has, since its meeting at
Dublin, recognized the growing claims of Political Economy to scientific
brotherhood, and admitted it into its Statistical Section. It could not
have done so under abler guidance and happier auspices than the
presidency of the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately, whose efforts in
this direction are so universally appreciated. But even in this section,
and whilst statistics alone were treated in it, the Association as far
back as 1833 made it a rule that, in order to ensure positive results,
only those classes of facts should be admitted which were capable of
being expressed by numbers, and which promised, when sufficiently
multiplied, to indicate general laws.
If, then, the main object of Science—and I beg to be understood,
henceforth, as speaking only of that section which the Association has
under its special care, viz. Inductive Science—if, I say, the object of
Science is the discovery of the laws which govern natural phænomena, the
primary condition for its success is: accurate observation and
collection of facts in such comprehensiveness and completeness as to
furnish the philosopher with the necessary material from which to draw
safe conclusions.
Science is not of yesterday. We stand on the shoulders of past ages, and
the amount of observations made, and facts ascertained, has been
transmitted to us and carefully preserved in the various storehouses of
Science; other crops have been reaped, but still lie scattered on the
field; many a rich harvest is ripe for cutting, but waits for the
reaper. Economy of labour is the essence of good husbandry, and no less
so in the field of Science. Our Association has felt the importance of
this truth, and may well claim, as one of its principal merits, the
constant endeavour to secure that economy.
One of the latest undertakings of the Association has been, in
conjunction with the Royal Society, to attempt the compilation of a
classified catalogue of scientific memoirs, which, by combining under
one head the titles of all memoirs written on a certain subject, will,
when completed, enable the student who wishes to gain information on
that subject to do so with the greatest ease. It gives him, as it were,
the plan of the house, and the key to the different apartments in which
the treasures relating to his subject are stored, saving him at once a
painful and laborious search, and affording him at the same time an
assurance that what is here offered contains the whole of the treasures
yet acquired.
While this has been one of its latest attempts, the Association has from
its very beginning kept in view that its main sphere of usefulness lay
in that concentrated attention to all scientific operations which a
general gives to the movements of his army, watching and regulating the
progress of his impetuous soldiers in the different directions to which
their ardour may have led them, carefully noting the gaps which may
arise from their independent and eccentric action, and attentively
observing what impediments may have stopped, or may threaten to stop,
the progress of certain columns.
Thus it attempts to fix and record the position and progress of the
different labours, by its Reports on the state of Sciences published
annually in its Transactions;—thus it directs the attention of the
labourers to those gaps which require to be filled up, if the progress
is to be a safe and steady one;—thus it comes forward with a helping
hand in striving to remove those impediments which the unaided efforts
of the individual labourer have been or may be unable to overcome.
Let us follow the activity of the Association in these three different
directions.
The Reports on the state of Science originate in the conviction of the
necessity for fixing, at given intervals, with accuracy and
completeness, the position at which it has arrived. For this object the
General Committee of the Association intrusts to distinguished
individuals in the different branches of Science the charge of becoming,
as it were, the biographers of the period. There are special points in
different Sciences in which it sometimes appears desirable to the
different Sections to have special Reports elaborated; in such cases the
General Committee, in its capacity of the representative assembly of all
the Sciences, reserves to itself the right of judging what may be of
sufficient importance to be thus recorded.
The special subjects which the Association points out for investigation,
in order to supply the gaps which it may have observed, are—either such
as the philosopher alone can successfully investigate, because they
require the close attention of a practised observer, and a thorough
knowledge of the particular subject; or they are such as require the
greatest possible number of facts to be obtained. Here Science often
stands in need of the assistance of the general public, and gratefully
accepts any contributions offered, provided the facts be accurately
observed. In either case the Association points out _what_ is to be
observed, and _how_ it is to be observed.
The first is the result of the same careful sifting process which the
Association employs in directing the issue of special Reports. The
investigations are intrusted to specially-appointed committees, or
selected individuals. They are in most cases not unattended with
considerable expense, and the Association, not content with merely
suggesting and directing, furnishes by special grants the pecuniary
means for defraying the outlay caused by the nature and extent of the
inquiry. If we consider that the income of the Association is solely
derived from the contributions of its members, the fact that no less a
sum than 17,000_l._ has, since its commencement, been thus granted for
scientific purposes, is certainly most gratifying.
The question _how_ to observe, resolves itself into two—that of the
scientific method which is to be employed in approaching a problem or in
making an observation, and that of the philosophical instruments used in
the observation or experiment. The Association brings to bear the
combined knowledge and experience of the scientific men, not only of
this but of other countries, on the discovery of that method which,
while it economizes time and labour, promises the most accurate results.
The method to which, after careful examination, the palm has been
awarded, is then placed at the free disposal and use of all scientific
investigators. The Association also issues, where practicable, printed
forms, merely requiring the different heads to be filled up, which, by
their uniformity, become an important means for assisting the subsequent
reduction of the observations for the abstraction of the laws which they
may indicate.
At the same time most searching tests and inquiries are constantly
carried on in the Observatory at Kew, given to the Association by Her
Majesty, the object of which is practically to test the relative value
of different methods and instruments, and to guide the constantly
progressive improvements in the construction of the latter.
The establishment at Kew has undertaken the further important service of
verifying and correcting to a fixed standard the instruments of any
maker, to enable observations made with them to be reduced to the same
numerical expression. I need hardly remind the inhabitants of Aberdeen
that the Association, in one of the first years of its existence,
undertook the comparative measurement of the Aberdeen standard scale
with that of Greenwich,—a research ably carried out by the late Mr.
Baily.
The impediments to the general progress of Science, the removal of which
I have indicated as one of the tasks which the Association has set for
itself, are of various kinds. If they were only such as direction,
advice, and encouragement would enable the individual, or even combined
efforts of philosophers, to overcome, the exertions of the Association
which I have just alluded to might be sufficient for the purpose. But
they are often such as can only be successfully dealt with by the
powerful arm of the State or the long purse of the nation. These
impediments may be caused either by the social condition of the country
itself, by restrictions arising out of peculiar laws, by the political
separation of different countries, or by the magnitude of the
undertakings being out of all proportion to the means and power of
single individuals, of the Association, or even the voluntary efforts of
the public. In these cases, the Association, together with its sister
society, “The Royal Society,” becomes the spokesman of Science with the
Crown, the Government, or Parliament—sometimes even, through the Home
Government, with foreign Governments. Thus it obtained the
establishment, by the British Government, of magnetic and meteorological
observatories in six different parts of the globe, as the beginning of a
network of stations which we must hope will be so far extended as to
compass by their geographical distribution the whole of the phenomena
which throw light on this important point in our tellurian and even
cosmical existence. The Institute of France, at the recommendation of M.
Arago, whose loss the scientific world must long deplore, cheerfully
co-operated with our Council on this occasion. It was our Association
which, in conjunction with the Royal Society, suggested the Antarctic
Expedition, with a view to further the discovery of the laws of
terrestrial magnetism, and thus led to the discovery of the southern
polar continent. It urged on the Admiralty the prosecution of the tidal
observations, which that department has since fully carried out. It
recommended the establishment, in the British Museum, of the
conchological collection exhibiting present and extinct species, which
has now become an object of the greatest interest.
I will not weary you by further examples, with which most of you are
better acquainted than I am myself, but merely express my satisfaction
that there should exist bodies of men who will bring the well-considered
and understood wants of Science before the public and the Government,
who will even hand round the begging-box and expose themselves to
refusals and rebuffs to which all beggars are liable, with the
certainty, besides, of being considered great bores. Please to recollect
that this species of bore is a most useful animal, well adapted for the
ends for which Nature intended him. He alone, by constantly returning to
the charge, and repeating the same truths and the same requests,
succeeds in awakening attention to the cause which he advocates, and
obtains that hearing which is granted him at last for self-protection,
as the minor evil compared to his importunity, but which is requisite to
make his cause understood. This is more particularly the case in a free,
active, enterprizing, and self-determining people like ours, where every
interest works for itself, considers itself the all-important one, and
makes its way in the world by its own efforts. Is it, then, to be
wondered at, that the interests of Science—abstract as Science appears,
and not immediately showing a return in pounds, shillings, and
pence—should be postponed, at least, to others which promise immediate
tangible results? Is it to be wondered at, that even our public men
require an effort to wean themselves from other subjects in order to
give their attention to Science and men of Science, when it is
remembered that Science, with the exception of mathematics, was until of
late almost systematically excluded from our school and university
education—that the traditions of early life are those which make and
leave the strongest impression on the human mind, and that the subjects
with which we become acquainted, and to which our energies are devoted
in youth, are those for which we retain the liveliest interest in after
years—and that for these reasons the effort required must be both a
mental and a moral one? A deep debt of gratitude is therefore due to
bodies like this Association, which not only urges the wants of Science
on the Government, but furnishes it at once with well-matured plans how
to supply them with the greatest certainty and to the greatest public
advantage.
We may be justified in hoping, however, that by the gradual diffusion of
Science, and its increasing recognition as a principal part of our
national education, the public in general, no less than the Legislature
and the State, will more and more recognize the claims of Science to
their attention; so that it may no longer require the begging-box, but
speak to the State like a favoured child to its parent, sure of his
parental solicitude for its welfare; that the State will recognize in
Science one of its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which
the clearest dictates of self-interest demand.
If the activity of this Association, such as I have endeavoured to
describe it, ever found or could find its personification in one
individual—its incarnation as it were—this had been found in that
distinguished and revered philosopher who has been removed from amongst
us in his ninetieth year, within these last few months. Alexander von
Humboldt incessantly strove after dominion over that universality of
human knowledge which stands in need of thoughtful government and
direction to preserve its integrity; he strove to tie up the _fasces_ of
scientific knowledge, to give them strength in unity. He treated all
scientific men as members of one family, enthusiastically directing,
fostering, and encouraging inquiry, where he saw either the want of, or
the willingness for it. His protection of the young and ardent student
led many to success in their pursuit. His personal influence with the
Courts and Governments of most countries in Europe enabled him to plead
the cause of Science in a manner which made it more difficult for them
to refuse than to grant what he requested. All lovers of Science deeply
mourn for the loss of such a man. Gentlemen, it is a singular
coincidence, that this very day on which we are here assembled, and are
thus giving expression to our admiration of him, should be the
anniversary of his birth.
To return to ourselves, however: one part of the functions of the
Association can receive no personal representation, no incarnation: I
mean the very fact of meetings like that which we are at present
inaugurating. This is not the thoughtful direction of one mind over
acquired knowledge, but the production of new thought by the contact of
many minds, as the spark is produced by the friction of flint and steel;
it is not the action of the monarchy of a paternal Government, but the
republican activity of the Roman Forum. These meetings draw forth the
philosopher from the hidden recesses of his study, call in the wanderer
over the field of science to meet his brethren, to lay before them the
results of his labours, to set forth the deductions at which he has
arrived, to ask for their examination, to maintain in the combat of
debate the truth of his positions and the accuracy of his observations.
These meetings, unlike those of any other Society, throw open the arena
to the cultivators of all sciences, to their mutual advantage: the
geologist learns from the chemist that there are problems for which he
had no clue, but which that science can solve for him; the geographer
receives light from the naturalist, the astronomer from the physicist
and engineer, and so on. And all find a field upon which to meet the
public at large,—invite them to listen to their reports and even to take
part in their discussions,—show to them that philosophers are not vain
theorists, but essentially men of practice—not conceited pedants,
wrapped up in their own mysterious importance, but humble inquirers
after truth, proud only of what they may have achieved or won for the
general use of man. Neither are they daring and presumptuous
unbelievers—a character which ignorance has sometimes affixed to
them—who would, like the Titans, storm heaven by placing mountain upon
mountain, till hurled down from the height attained, by the terrible
thunders of outraged Jove; but rather the pious pilgrims to the Holy
Land, who toil on in search of the sacred shrine, in search of
truth—God’s truth—God’s laws as manifested in His works, in His
creation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE DINNER
ON THE
OPENING OF THE CLOTHWORKERS’ HALL,
IN THE CITY.
[MARCH 27TH, 1860.]
-------
SIR, AND GENTLEMEN,—
I beg to return you my best thanks for your kindness in drinking my
health with such gratifying demonstrations of good will towards me.