If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to
contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous
interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what
different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective
lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find
the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize,
frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various
dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of
the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would
find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would
find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed
before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral
obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In
parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would
also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not
mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on
discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it
was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?
What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of
himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the
men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America,
in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the
pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric
demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the
power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange,
in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his
well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary
to navigation. Alexander _was_ a hero; Archimedes _is_ one.
Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with
him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that
Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to
open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve
to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the
assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his
mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally
for a collateral effect of his existence.
As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon
Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil
engineer.
The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive
intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his
more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The
former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should
scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name
of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so
prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of
sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]
[17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
those left dead on the fields of battle in which
Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
Napoleon.
Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of
mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any
coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western
railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the
Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the
steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services
rendered to mankind by its subjugator.
Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias
the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science
to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England,
in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to
legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of
egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The
introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most
excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of
antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred
only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs,
such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their
country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious
custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to
all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats
of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few
ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time.
Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force
and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without
doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]
[18] Nov. Org. Aph. 29.
The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a
civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the
Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be
ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without,
however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate
the importance of political services, civil or military, or to
exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be
disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent
and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the
benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the
influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and
durable than that of the active politician--if there be any truth in
the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought
by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who
occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are,
during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;--that they
obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the
more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is
the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the
present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were
more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great
extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and
unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of
science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he
plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of
contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for,
prospective than for present good--for benefits secured to their
posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so
distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it
is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the
cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or
appreciation.
Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original
discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those
who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their
results. Men _talk_ of "a million;" how few have ever _counted_ one!
Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think
of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their
way--of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by--of the
separate history, external and internal, of each--each possessing
feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as
the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also,
men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag
with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from
material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without
attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed
talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought--thought,
not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated
lucubration of minds, of which the term _thinking_ is emphatically
predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of
science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have
perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial,
by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added
to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought
are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a
careless, occasional notice--are known but to few of those who daily
reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing
further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can
see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to
deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that
any one could have foreseen such discovery.
There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to
which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be
a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The
most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the _cause_ of
science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not
honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this
contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in
England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.
In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency
to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from
this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly
aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of
lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good
society--the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of
our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other,
only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true,
university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able
to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry
with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift
preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education
does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary
part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those
who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university
distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the
contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed;
it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much
influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad
drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this
fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in
love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as
something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the
attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the
construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same
principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]
[19] Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.
Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the
educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a
country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most
detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific
language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection
in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and
doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in
many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some
confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion
increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs
written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may
be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that
accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of
style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas!
Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the
writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them
any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the
authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal
intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect
arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of
education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental
science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more
accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a
class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false
pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into
the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works
of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and
those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by
advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid
the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered
in another form and in another's name.[20]
[20] In any thing we have above said, we trust it is
unnecessary to disclaim the slightest intention of
discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages
only renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault
not with the uneducated for cultivating science, but
with the educated for neglecting it.
While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily
unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few
nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly
opposite cause--from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown
in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of
philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated
the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion
upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy
labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined
many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to
take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical
analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental
research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired
in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in
his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my
landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness,
and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the
results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this
subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end,
have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical
labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon
conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can
see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of
which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their
influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress
of Physics."[21]
[21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.
The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have,
like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in
number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized
SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much
good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out
their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries
of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable
communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will
not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by
the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to
the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_,
which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral
discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the
collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus
accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would
have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their
institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the
other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish
speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to
lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please
the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the
impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The
ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science,
giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her
to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of
such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate,
collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand
his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can,
and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and
class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert
science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed
to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick
furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.
It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or
some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent
upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of
such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and
not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and
advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies
generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year
sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to
government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of
politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes
for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the
government should establish and support one academy as a head and
front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who
would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage
of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up
with all government appointments in England: their influence is at
present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an
introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy
certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental _savans_;
but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by
government, without any permanent connexion with it?
If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of
our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the
balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset
House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings,
a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse
scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no
observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation
given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members
generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to
leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of
such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom,
reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the
_archives of the Society_, according to the judgment of the unknown
irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the
proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the
public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early
attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and
passing interest is brought before it--comments, such as occur at the
time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other
member who likes to make an observation--the more elaborate memoirs
are read by the authors themselves, and if any _quaere_ or suggestion
occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered.
The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly
mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read
in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it.
Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and
circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the
public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the
French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting;
that there is as much unseen man[oe]uvring and petty tyranny in this
as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the
effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its
proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable
that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest
or value.
[22] Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of
the Society, take with him two friends.
[23] An anonymous author, who has attracted some
attention in France, in commenting on the rejection of
Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says--that
nothing could be more natural or proper, as the senility
and feebleness of the Academie made it more in want of a
physician than a poet.
The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of
prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of
character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression,
which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and
surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be
entirely lost.
In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we
must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for
scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of
these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase,
although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the
advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high
character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily
engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate
and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly
interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more
especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity,
the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is
requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on
this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the
most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others--the
different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to
different minds--the unwillingness which the mind experiences in
renouncing published but erroneous opinions--are points of human
weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care.
Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of
roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to
the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants
on the arenae of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim
of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate,
unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination,
seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of
professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand
of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a
spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public
controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never
going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there
exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the
outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.
Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of
physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the
_Patent_ law--a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the
practical working of it be useful, either to science or its
cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of
patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by
far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the
question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by
miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we
shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of
their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief
reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it
takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the
statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country
familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes
patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of
the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other
essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold
to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the
time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its
construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real
value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to
such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must
the first expense of a patent be incurred--no inconsiderable one
either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape
litigation--but a large sum of money must be invested in
advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the
most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific
importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their
inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a
boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no
inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an
encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision,
that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be
carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of
myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating
themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at
present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent
provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the
community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own
activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the
scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path
barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.
According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable
whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue
his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the
threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional
England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work
out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for, as far
as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the
mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a
use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a
patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous
experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent
another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it;
and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the
advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been
previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional
privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding
with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for
the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own
benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of
profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if
prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for
instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre.
Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private
individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or
portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific
investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of
physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the
licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources
of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and
similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that
to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may
say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified,
that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific
discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their
utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of
science, which is the point of view in which we here principally
regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or
to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their
various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their
time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would
thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries
and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might
be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If
parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for
fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes
no debt.
We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean
scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We
blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we
cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
Review_, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's
patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype
redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal
Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish
its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the
people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us
great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's)
photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal
Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the
Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]
[24] _Edin. Rev._ No. 159.
The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a
remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every
subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded,
the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however,
against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is
that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the
processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even
read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such
description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of
knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made
the subject of a patent--but it certainly should not bestow an
honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal
Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes
he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his
invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same
invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his
paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have
published his paper and not awarded him a medal.
Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some
features in which England differs not from other countries; there are
others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with
all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A
learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in
reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other
countries:--"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity,
blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy;
when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the
conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign
lands?"[25]
[25] Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.
This, to be sure, is somewhat "_tumultuous_." We do not, however, cite
it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very
prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding _quaere_ is
open to doubt--England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict
there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are
the soldiers of _science militant_ less honoured or rewarded. It is no
uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to
the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general
truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a
republican or constitutional government, politics are the
all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme
of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are
prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few
restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of
absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may
divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as
existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality
of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in
the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are
rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most
prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so
gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual
energies of a people.
We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also
transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the
present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have
influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient
thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of
our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate
and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a
promoter of physical science.
In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to
place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied
mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the
independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results;
researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate,
instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally
estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than
any other European nation; the aesthetical power which enables them to
seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception
and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators.
The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have
undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding
the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of
the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much
_selon les regles_; there are too many minutiae; the reader is tempted
to exclaim with Jacques--"I think of as many matters as he; but I give
Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently
degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper
in the _Annales de Chimie_, containing some chemical researches, in
which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put
together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given
to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next,
is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English
scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of
filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to
think a _paper per annum_, good or bad, necessary to indicate their
philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a
discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still,
in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition,
if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions;
and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in
original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.
Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark--for their
population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy--in Italy
science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to
feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit--in which
laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention;
America and Russia come next--the former state is zealous, ready at
practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet
has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed
in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native
philosophers--her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but
the emperor's zeal and _patronage_ (a word which we scarcely like to
apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the
mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the
national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each
country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for
though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to
shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it
were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general
character of each people than to classify them according as they may
happen to be the birthplace of those
"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."
A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent
scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of
considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with
physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This
contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance
of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of
Mr Carlyle:--"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form,
is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire
of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about
it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it?
Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]
[26] Carlyle on Hero Worship.
However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that _in
themselves_ theories are nothing--that they are but collations of
phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it
groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these
imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of
facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still
less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How
could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they
constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond
of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists
converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the
theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a
nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect
grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect,
all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or
attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.
If not theory but hypothesis be objected to--not the imperfect
generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake
of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more
cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely
separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two
_fluids_ of electricity, we should not now possess many of the
discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not,
and probably never shall, know what electricity is.
On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great
abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon
regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should
require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end,
which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their
mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become
partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.
Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present
day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the
world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no
exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science
immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their
career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of
their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena,
enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a
comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with
theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good--they do not
always end with experiment.
As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to
propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong
tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of
England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the
stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * *
the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and
make it current here."[27]
[27] Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.
As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so
generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the
kings of science--those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable
authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been
sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare
occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of
new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.
"Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."
But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint;
and although their several coins do not pass current very generally,
yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some
standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in
these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific
position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a
word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance,
"_idiopts_," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons
to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the
Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more
numerous and more unfortunate class--the word _physicists_, where four
sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many
from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors
of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We
may take, as an instance, _platinode_, Spanish-American joined to
ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate
of ammonia--oxi-sulphion of ammonium--sulphat-oxide of ammonium--three
names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England.
In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following
passage:--"It should be remarked that some chemists designate
artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville
calls it bihydrochlorate of terebene, and Souberaine and Capelaine
call it hydrochlorate of pencylene."
So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names
of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous
words might be cited which are names for non-existences--mere
hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it
seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for
things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the
scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final;
otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in
framing _ad libitum_ a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect
will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a
confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which
occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.
Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this
paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress
of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of
its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once
considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds
the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of
possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary,
aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable--perhaps, indeed, it
_will_ be so, give but the time _proportionably_ requisite to master
its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this
should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt
that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public
discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that
direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities
for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar
honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an
infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulae of
an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally
high with the critical knowledge of the _digamma_ or the _a priori_
philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled
to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic?
Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate
outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline;
but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning,
could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford,
instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.
Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should
like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims
to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because
they are attached to science."
It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy.
The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish
for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes
more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought
before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by
those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present
defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the
more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a
sure prelude to its extirpation.