The curious contrast of character presented by these two eminent men,
and the very different course of their lives, conveys a striking
lesson to all those superficial thinkers and unthinking talkers who
make sweeping generalizations concerning human character; who assume
as a matter of course that any man who writes poetry must be merely a
dreamer of day-dreams, incapable of transacting any practical daily
business, and not at all reliable in money matters; whose eyes are
always “in a fine frenzy rolling”; that he is, in short, a sort of
amiable, harmless lunatic. All actors, according to such people, are
dissipated spendthrifts; and if Sims Reeves, or any other public
performer, is prevented by delicate larynx or other indisposition from
appearing, they look knowing, shrug their shoulders, wink wisely, and
assume, without the faintest shadow of evidence, that he is drunk.
In like manner they set up a typical philosopher of their own
manufacture, and attribute his imaginary character to all who devote
themselves to science. Their philosopher is a musty, dried-up,
absent-minded pedant, whose ordinary conversation is conducted in
words of seven syllables, who is always lost in profound abstractions;
takes no interest in common things; regards music, dancing,
play-acting, poetry, and every cheerful pursuit as frivolous and
contemptible—a creature who never makes a joke, seldom laughs, and who
in matters of business is even more incapable than the poet.
The singular contrast of character presented by Babbage and Murchison
affords at once a most complete refutation of such generalizations.
Here were two men, both philosophers, one the very type of amiability,
suavity, and all conceivable polish, the very perfection of a courtier,
but differing from the vulgar courtier of the Court in this respect,
that his high-toned courtesy was not bestowed upon kings only, but also
upon all his human brethren, and with especial gracefulness upon those
whose rank was below his own.
I doubt whether there is any man now living, or has lived during this
generation, that could equal Sir Roderick Murchison in the art of
distributing showers of compliments upon a large number of different
people in succession, and making each recipient delightfully satisfied
with himself. In his position as Chairman to the Geological Section of
the British Association, he did this with marvelous tact, without the
least fulsomeness or repetition, or any display of patronizing. Every
man who read a paper before that section was better than ever satisfied
with the great merits and vast importance of his communication, after
hearing the Chairman’s comments upon it. None but a most detestably
strong-minded and logical brute could resist the insinuating flattery
of Sir Roderick.
How different was poor Babbage! Who that attends any sort of scientific
gatherings has not seen Sir Roderick? but who in the world, excepting
the organ-grinders and the police magistrate has ever seen Babbage, or
even his portrait? What a contrast between the seclusion and the public
existence; between the hedgehog bristles and the velvet softness, of
the one and the other!
Those who were on intimate terms with Babbage (I have never met
or heard of such a person) could probably tell us that all his
irritability and roughness were outside, and that, in the absence
of organ-grinders, he was a kind and amiable gentleman; but, even
admitting this, the contrast between the two philosophers is as great
as could well be found between any two men following the most widely
divergent studies or professions.
Those who would reply that mathematics and geology are such different
studies have only to go a little further back on the death-roll, and
they will find the name of De Morgan, a pure mathematician, like
Babbage. He was a man of exuberant fun and humor, and so far from
hating music of either a humble or pretentious character, was a highly
accomplished musician, both theoretical and practical, and if we are to
believe confidential communications, one of his favorite instruments
was the penny whistle, on which he was a most original and peculiar
performer.
I had not intended to reprint the above, which was written just after
the death of Murchison and Babbage, but the comments that have recently
followed the death of Darwin induce me to do so.
Many have expressed their surprise at the unanimous expressions of
Darwin’s friends concerning the geniality of his disposition, his
gentleness, cheerfulness; his _genuine_ humility and simplicity of
character.
A third type of character is here presented, and that which corresponds
most correctly with the true ideal of a modern philosopher, also
represented by that great master of experimental science, Faraday. In
both of these there was the full measure of Murchison’s amiability, but
without the courtly polish of the ex-soldier. Philosophic meditation
and close application to original research may, and often does, induce
a certain degree of shyness due to a consciousness of the social
disqualification which arises from that inability to fulfil all the
demands for small attentions which constitute conventional politeness;
a disability due to habits of consecutive thought and mental
abstraction.
A sensitive and amiable man would suffer much pain on finding that he
had neglected to supply the small wants of the lady sitting next to
him at a dinner party, and would withdraw himself from the risk of
repeating such unwitting rudeness. This holding back from ordinary
society, though really due to a conscientious sense of social duty and
tender regard for the feelings of others, is too often referred to a
churlish unsociality or arrogant assumption of superiority.
If Newton really did mistake the lady’s finger for a tobacco-stopper,
depend upon it the pain he suffered was far more acute than that
which he inflicted, and was suffered over and over again whenever the
incident was recollected.
ATMOSPHERE _versus_ ETHER.
One of the most remarkable meteors of which we have a reliable record
appeared on February 6, 1818. Several accounts of it were published,
the fullest being that in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ of the time. (I
may here add, parenthetically, that one reason why I have especial
pleasure in writing these notes is that they contribute something
towards the restoration of the ancient status of this magazine, which
was at one time the only English serial that ventured upon any notable
degree of exposition of _popular_ science.)
Upon the data supplied by this account, Mr. Joule has calculated the
height of the meteor to have been 61 miles above the surface of the
earth, and he states that “this meteor is one of the few that have been
seen in the daytime, and is also interesting as having been one of the
first whose observation afforded materials for the estimation of its
altitude.” It was seen in the neighborhood of Cambridge at 2 P.M.,
also at Swaffham in Norfolk, and at Middleton Cheney near Banbury.
The distance between this and Cambridge is sufficient to afford a
measurement of its height, provided its position above the horizon at
both places was determined with tolerable accuracy.
According to the orthodox text-books, the atmosphere of this earth
terminates at a height of about 45 or 50 miles, or, if not absolutely
ended there, it ceases to be of appreciable density anywhere above this
elevation.
But here we have a fact which flatly contradicts the calculation. At
61 miles above the earth’s surface there must be atmospheric matter of
sufficient density to offer to the passage of this meteor through it an
amount of resistance which produced an intense white heat, visible by
its luminosity in broad daylight.
In the above-quoted paper, read by Mr. Joule before the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society on December 1, 1863, he refers to
subsequent observations and estimates 116 miles as “the elevation
at which meteors in general are first observed”—_i.e._, where our
atmosphere is sufficiently dense to generate a white-heat by the
resistance it offers to the rapidly flying meteor.
It is curious to observe how, in dealing with actual physical facts,
a mathematician of the solid practical character of Joule becomes
compelled to practically throw overboard the orthodox theory of
limited atmospheric extension. Here, in making his calculations of the
resistance of atmospheric matter at this elevation, he bases them on
the assumption of a decrease of density at the rate of “one quarter for
every seven miles,” and indicates no limit at which this rate shall
vary. Very simple arithmetic is sufficient to show that this leads us
to the unlimited atmospheric extension, for which I have contended we
may go on for ever taking off a quarter at every seven miles, and there
will still remain the three quarters of the quantity upon which we last
operated, or, more practically stated, we shall thus go on seven after
seven until we reach the boundaries of the atmospheric grasp of the
gravitation of some other sphere.
Surely the time has arrived for the full reconsideration of this
fundamental question of whether the universe is filled with atmospheric
matter or is the vacuum of the molecular mathematicians plus the
imaginary “ether,” which has been invented by its mathematical creators
only to extricate them from the absurd dilemma into which they are
plunged when they attempt to explain the transmission of light and heat
by undulations traveling through space containing nothing to undulate.
They have filled it with immaterial matter evolved entirely from their
own consciousness, which they have gratuitously endowed with whatever
properties are required for the fitting of their theories—properties
that are self-contradictory and without any counterpart in anything
seen or known outside of the fertile imagination of these reckless
theorists.
We know of nothing that can penetrate every form of matter without
adding either to its weight or its bulk; we know of nothing that
can communicate motion to ponderable matter without itself being
ponderable—_i.e._, having the primary property of matter, viz., mass,
or weight, and consequent _vis viva_ when moving; we know of nothing
that can set bodies in motion without proportionally resisting the
motion of bodies through it; and if the waving of the ether is (as
Tyndall describes it) “as real and as truly mechanical as the breaking
of sea-waves upon the shore,” the material of the breakers must be
like the “jelly” to which he compares it, and have some viscosity, or
resistance to penetration, or pushing aside.
We have not a shadow of direct evidence of the existence of the
“interatomic” spaces occupied by the other, and in the midst of which
the atoms are made to theoretically swing, nor even of the existence of
the atoms themselves.
The “ether” of to-day, with its imaginary penetration and its material
action without material properties, has merely taken the place of the
equally imaginary phlogiston, caloric, electric, and magnetic fluids,
the “imponderables” of the past. I have little doubt that ere long
the modern modification of these physical superstitions will share
their fate, and we shall all adopt the simple conception that heat,
light, end electricity are, like sound, merely transmissible states or
affections of matter itself regarded bodily, as it is seen and felt to
exist.
This may possibly throw a good many mathematicians out of work—or into
more useful work; but, however that may be, it will certainly aid the
general diffusion of science as the intellectual inheritance of every
human being. At present the explanations of the simple phenomena of
light and heat are incomparably more difficult to understand and to
account for than the facts which they attempt to elucidate.