SCIENCE AND DEMOCRATIC CULTURE
Education is the oversight and guidance of the development of the
immature with certain ethical and social ends in view. Pedagogy,
therefore, is based partly on psychology--which, as we have seen in the
preceding chapter, is closely related to the biological sciences--and
partly on ethics, or the study of morals, closely related to the social
sciences. These two aspects of education, the psychological and the
sociological, were treated respectively in Rousseau's _Emile_ and
Plato's _Republic_. The former ill-understood work, definitely referring
its readers to the latter for the social aspect of education, applies
itself as exclusively as possible to the study of the physical and
mental development of the individual child. Rousseau consciously set
aside the problem of nationality or citizenship; he was cosmopolitan,
and explicitly renounced the idea of planning the education of a
Frenchman or a Swiss. Neither did he desire to set forth the education
of a wild man, free and unrestrained. He wished rather to depict the
development of a natural man in a state of society; but he emphasized
the native hereditary endowment, while expressing his admiration for
Plato's _Republic_ as the great classic of social pedagogy. The titles
of the two works, one from the name of an individual child, the other
from a form of government, should serve to remind us of the purpose and
limitations of each.
Plato's thought was centered on the educational and moral needs of the
city-state of Athens. He was apprehensive that the city was becoming
corrupted through the wantonness and lack of principle of the Athenian
youth. He strove to rebuild on reasoned foundations the sense of social
obligation and responsibility which had in the earlier days of Athens
rested upon faith in the existence of the gods. As a conservative he
hoped to restore the ancient Athenian feeling for duty and moral worth,
and he even envied some of the educational practices of the rival
city-state Sparta, by which the citizen was subordinated to the state.
The novel feature of Plato's pedagogy was the plan to educate the
directing classes, men disciplined in his own philosophical and ethical
conceptions. He was, in fact, an intellectual aristocrat, and spoke of
democracy in very ironical terms, as the following sentences will
show:--
"And thus democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their
opponents.... And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a
government have they? For as the government is, such will be the man....
In the first place, are they not free? and the city is full of freedom
and frankness--a man may do as he likes.... And where freedom is, the
individual is clearly able to order his own life as he pleases?... Then
in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human
natures?... This then will be the fairest of States, and will appear the
fairest, being spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, like
an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And
just as women and children think variety charming, so there are many
men who will deem this to be the fairest of States.... And is not the
equanimity of the condemned often charming? Under such a government
there are men who, when they have been sentenced to death or exile, stay
where they are and walk about the world; the gentleman [convict] parades
like a hero, as though nobody saw or cared.... See too ... the forgiving
spirit of democracy and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the
disregard of all the fine principles which we solemnly affirmed ... how
grandly does she trample our words under her feet, never giving a
thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honor
anyone who professes to be the people's friend.... These and other
kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming
form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing
equality to equals and unequals alike.... Consider now ... what manner
of man the individual is ... he lives through the day indulging the
appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of
the flute; then he is for total abstinence, and tries to get thin; then,
again, he is at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything,
then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is in
politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into
his head; and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is in
that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has
neither order nor law; so he goes on continually, and he terms this joy
and freedom and happiness. Yes, his life is all liberty and equality.
Yes, ... and multiform, and full of the most various characters; ... he
answers to the State, which we described as fair and spangled.... Let
him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the
democratic man."
In spite of the satirical tone of this passage much of it may be
accepted as the unwilling tribute of a hostile critic. Democracy is the
triumph of the masses over the oligarchs. It is merciful in the
administration of justice. It shows a magnanimous spirit and does not
magnify the importance of trifles. It prefers the rule of its friends to
the rule of a despot. Under its government people feel themselves
blessed by happiness, liberty, and equality. The culture of the
democratic man is above all characterized by adaptability.
In the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold, the apostle of culture,
discussing the civilization of a democratic nation of many millions,
unconsciously confirmed the views of Plato in some respects, while
showing interesting points of difference. He expressed his admiration of
the institutions, solid social conditions, freedom and equality, power,
energy, and wealth of the people of the United States. In the daintiness
of American house-architecture, and in the natural manners of the free
and happy American women he saw a real note of civilization. He felt
that his own country had a good deal to learn from America, though he
did not close his eyes to the real dangers to which all democratic
nations are exposed. Arnold failed in his analysis of American
civilization to confirm Plato's judgment concerning the variety of
natures to be found in the democratic State, as well as the Greek
philosopher's censure that democracy shows disregard of ethical
principles. In fact, Arnold considered the people of the United States
singularly homogeneous, singularly free from the distinctions of class;
"we [the English] are so little homogeneous, we are living with a system
of classes so intense, that the whole action of our minds is hampered
and falsened by it; we are in consequence wanting in lucidity, we do not
see clear or think straight, and the Americans have here much the
advantage of us." As for the second point of difference between Arnold
and Plato, the English critic recognized that the American people
belonged to the great class in society in which the sense of conduct and
regard for ethical principles are particularly developed.
Nearly all the old charges against American democracy can be
summarized in one general censure,--the lack of calm and reasoned
self-criticism,--and this general defect is rapidly being made good. It
is partly owing to charity and good-will, and it includes the toleration
of the mediocre or inferior, as, for example, in the theater; the
failure to recognize distinction, and to pay deference to things
deserving it; the glorification of the average man, and the _hustler_,
and the lack of special educational opportunities for the exceptionally
gifted child. That criticism as an art is still somewhat behindhand in
America seems to be confirmed by comparing French and American literary
criticism. In France it is a profession practiced by a corps of experts;
in America only a very few of the best periodicals can be relied on to
give reviews based on critical principles, of works in verse or prose.
(One American reviewer confesses that in a single day he has written
notices of twenty new works of fiction, his work bringing him, as
remuneration, seventy-five cents a volume.)
There is no evidence, however, that Americans as individuals are wanting
in the self-critical spirit. And for Arnold this is vital, seeing that
the watchword of the culture he proclaims is Know Thyself. It is not a
question of gaining a social advantage by a smattering of foreign
languages. It is more than intellectual curiosity. "Culture is more
properly described as having its origin in the love of perfection. It
moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion
for pure knowledge, but also of the passion for doing good." Human
perfection, the essence of culture, is an internal condition, but the
will to do good must be guided by the knowledge of what is good to do;
"acting and instituting are of little use unless we know how and what we
ought to act and institute." Moreover, "because men are all members of
one great whole, and the sympathy which is human nature will not allow
one member to be indifferent to the rest, the expansion of our humanity,
to suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be a _general_
expansion."
For Arnold's contemporary Nietzsche, the German exponent of Aristocracy,
the _expansion_ of education entailed its diminution. For him ancient
Greece was the only home of culture, and such culture was not for all
comers. The rights of genius are not to be democratized; not the
education of the masses, but rather the education of a few picked men
must be the aim. The one purpose which education should most zealously
strive to achieve is the suppression of all ridiculous claims to
independent judgment, and the inculcation upon young men of obedience to
the scepter of genius. The scientific man and the cultured man belong to
two different spheres which, though coming together at times in the same
individual, are never fully reconciled.
In order to appreciate the full perverseness, from the democratic
standpoint, of Nietzsche's view of culture, it is necessary to glance
at his political ideals as explained by one of his sponsors.
Nietzsche repudiates the usual conception of morality, which he calls
slave-morality, in favor of a morality of masters. The former according
to him encourages the deterioration of humanity; the latter promotes
advancement. He favors a true aristocracy as the best means of producing
a race of supermen. "Instead of advocating 'equal and inalienable rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' for which there is at
present such an outcry (a régime which necessarily elevates fools and
knaves, and lowers the honest and intelligent), Nietzsche advocates
simple _justice_--to individuals and families according to their
_merits_, according to their worth to society; _not_ equal rights,
therefore, but unequal rights, and inequality in advantages generally,
approximately proportionate to deserts; consequently, therefore, a
genuinely superior ruling class at one end of the social scale, and an
actually inferior ruled class, with slaves at its basis, at the opposite
social extreme."
Since it is the view of this aristocratic philosopher that science is
the ally of democracy--a view that every chapter of the history of
science serves to demonstrate--it is of interest to review his opinion
of the character of the scientist. For Nietzsche the scientist is not a
heroic superman, but a commonplace type of man, with commonplace
virtues. He lacks domination, authority, self-sufficiency; he is rather
in need of recognition from others and is characterized by the
self-distrust innate in all dependent men and gregarious animals. He is
industrious, patiently adaptable to rank and file, equable and moderate
in capacity and requirement. He has a natural feeling for people like
himself, and for that which they require: A fair competence and the
green meadow without which there is no rest from labor. The scientist
shows no rapture for exalted views; in fact, with an instinct for
mediocrity, he is envious and strives for the destruction of the
exceptional man.
A training in natural science tends to make one objective. But the
objective man, in Nietzsche's opinion, distrusts his own personality and
regards it as something to be set aside as accidental, and a detriment
to calm judgment. The temperamental philosopher thinks the scientist
serene, but that his serenity springs not from lack of trouble, but from
incapacity to grasp and deal with his own private grief. His is merely
disinterested knowledge, according to Nietzsche. The scientist is
emotionally impoverished. His love is constrained, and his hatred
artificial; he is less interesting to women than the warrior. "His
mirroring and externally self-polished soul no longer knows how to
affirm, no longer how to deny; he does not command; neither does he
destroy." As we see in the case of Leibnitz, the scientist contemns
scarcely anything (_Je ne méprise presque rien_). The scientist is an
instrument, but not a goal; he is something of a slave, nothing in
himself--_presque rien!_ There is in the scientist nothing bold,
powerful, self-centered, that wants to be master. He is for the most
part a man without content and definite outline, a selfless man.
This educational product, which the builders of modern aristocracy
reject, and describe after their fashion, we accept as the ally of the
masses of the people, and we term it democratic culture.
The objective man, at the same time, may find even in the vehement pages
of Nietzsche warnings and criticisms which the friends of democracy
should not disregard. Extreme, almost insane, as his doctrine
undoubtedly is, it may have value as a corrective influence, an antidote
for other extreme views. It serves to remind us that democracy may be
misled by feelings in themselves noble, and may, by grasping what seems
good, miss what is best. For example, there are in the United States
about three hundred thousand persons, defective or subnormal mentally;
there is a smaller number of persons exceptionally gifted mentally. It
is a poor form of social service that would exhaust the resources of
science and philanthropy to care for the former without making any
special provision for the latter. Genius is too great an asset to be
wasted or misapplied. All culture would have suffered if Newton had been
held, in his early life, to exacting administrative work; or if Darwin
had devoted his years to alleviating the conditions of the miners of
Peru whose misery touched him so profoundly; or if Pasteur had been
taken from the laboratory and pure science to make a country doctor. Nor
can democracy rest satisfied with any substitute for culture which would
disregard what is great in literature, in art, and in philosophy, or
which would ignore history, and the languages and civilizations of the
past, as if culture had its beginning yesterday.
In this chapter we have considered democracy and democratic culture from
the standpoint of three writers on education, a Greek aristocrat, a
German advocate of the domination of the classes over the masses, and an
Oxford professor, all by training and temperament more or less hostile
critics. A more direct procedure might have been employed to establish
the claim of science to afford a basis of intellectual and social
homogeneity. A brilliant literary man of the present day considers that
places in the first ranks of literature are reserved for the doctrinally
heterodox. None of the great writers of Europe, he asserts, have been
the adherents of the traditional faith. (He makes an exception in favor
of Racine: but this is a needless concession, for Racine owed his early
education to the Port Royalists, became alienated from them and wrote
under the inspiration of the idea of the moral sufficiency of worldly
honor; then, after an experience that shook his faith in his own code,
he returned to the early religious influences in his life and composed
his _Esther_ and _Athalie_.) But, unlike literature, the study of
science is not exclusive. In the front ranks of science stand the devout
Roman Catholic Pasteur, the Anglican Darwin, the Unitarian Priestley,
the Calvinist Faraday, the Quakers Dalton, Young, and Lister, Huxley
the Agnostic, and Aristotle the pagan biologist. Science has no Test
Acts.
That the cultivation of the sciences tends to promote a type of culture
that is democratic rather than aristocratic, sympathetic rather than
austere, inclusive rather than exclusive, is further witnessed by the
fact that the tradesman and artisan, as well as the dissenter, play a
large part in their development. We have seen that Pasteur was the son
of a tanner, Priestley of a cloth-maker, Dalton of a weaver, Lambert of
a tailor, Kant of a saddler, Watt of a shipbuilder, Smith of a farmer.
John Ray was, like Faraday, the son of a blacksmith. Joule was a brewer.
Davy, Scheele, Dumas, Balard, Liebig, Wöhler, and a number of other
distinguished chemists, were apothecaries' apprentices. Franklin was a
printer. At the same time other ranks of society are represented in the
history of science by Boyle, Cavendish, Lavoisier. The physicians and
the sons of physicians have borne a particularly honorable part in the
advancement of physical as well as mental science. The instinctive
craving for power, the will to dominate, of which Nietzsche was the
lyricist, was in these men subdued to patience, industry, and
philanthropy. The beneficent effect of their activities on the health
and general welfare of the masses of the people bears witness to the
sanity and worth of the culture that prompted these activities.
As was stated at the outset of this chapter, education is the oversight
and guidance of the development of the immature with certain ethical and
social ends in view. The material of instruction, the method of
instruction, and the type of educational institution, will vary with
the hereditary endowment, age, and probable social destiny of the child.
In a democratic country likely to become more, rather than less,
democratic, those subjects will naturally be taught which have vital
connection with the people's welfare and progress in civilization. At
the same time the method of instruction will be less dogmatic and more
inclined (under a free than under an absolute government) to evoke the
child's powers of individual judgment; arbitrary discipline must yield
gradually to self-discipline. The changes here indicated as desirable
are already well under way in America. As regards types of educational
institution, it is significant that America about the middle of the
eighteenth century introduced the Miltonic, nonconformist Academy, with
its science curriculum, in place of the traditional Latin grammar
school. Later the American high school, institutions of which type now
have over a million pupils, and teach science by the heuristic
laboratory method, became the popular form of secondary school. It is,
likewise, not without social significance that the Kindergarten was
suppressed in Prussia after the revolt of the people in the middle of
the nineteenth century, and that it found a more congenial home in a
democratic country. Its educational ideal of developing self-activity
without losing sight of the need of social adaptation finds its
corollary in systematic teaching of the sciences in relation both to the
daily work and to their historical and cultural antecedents.
REFERENCES
Matthew Arnold, _Essays in Criticism_, and _Culture and Anarchy_.
Matthew Arnold, _Civilization in the United States_.
Friedrich Nietzsche, _On the Future of our Educational Institutions_,
vol. VI. of the _Complete Works_; translation edited by Dr. Oscar
Levy.
Friedrich Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_, vol. V, chap. VI. of the
_Complete Works_.
Plato, _Republic_, Book VIII; vol. III. of Benjamin Jowett's
translation of the _Dialogues of Plato_, 1875.
INDEX
Académie des Sciences, 111, 112.
Academy, at Athens, 19;
Milton's plan, 102;
Defoe's, 116;
Franklin's, 125;
type of secondary school, 282.
Adams, John Couch, 188 _et seq._
Aerodynamics, 233.
Agricola, George, 129.
Agriculture, 12, 38, 107, 126, 137.
Air, 157.
Air craft, 71, 126, 231 _et seq._
Air-pump, 96.
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 113.
Albertus Magnus, 53.
Alchemy, 50, 252.
Alcuin, 52.
Alexandria, 19, 44 _et seq._
Algebra, 49.
Alkaline earths, 179.
American Philosophical Society, 121.
Anatomy, 6, 8, 38, 50, 78.
Anemometer, 107, 235.
Anthrax, 224 _et seq._
Antipodes, 37, 48.
Antiseptic surgery, 220, 231.
Application, 30 _et seq._
_Aqua regia_, 51, 132.
Aqueducts, 33.
Aqueous vapor, 157 _et seq._
Arago, 184.
Archimedes, 27.
Architecture, 30 _et seq._
Archytas, 18.
Aristotle, 20 _et seq._, 49, 51, 53, 266.
Arithmetic, 6, 11, 48.
Arnold, Matthew, 273.
Astrology, 10.
Astronomy, (Egyptian and Babylonian) 2 _et seq._;
(Greek) 16;
(Roman) 34;
(Alexandrian) 45;
(Hindu) 48;
(Arabian) 49, 50;
(Copernican) 55;
(Tycho Brahe and Kepler) 87 _et seq._;
(Newton) 110 _et seq._;
(nebular hypothesis) 142 _et seq._;
(discovery of Neptune) 184 _et seq._
Atmosphere, 157.
Atomic Theory, 158 _et seq._, 250.
Atoms, 17, 148, 158, 253.
Augustus Cæsar, 36.
Averroës, 51 _et seq._
Avicenna, 51.
Avogadro, 165.
Babylonia, 1 _et seq._
Bacon, Francis, 57 _et seq._, 80 _et seq._, 105;
Baconian principles, 211.
Bacon, Roger, 54.
Bacteria, 93.
Bacteriology, 213 _et seq._
Bagdad, 49.
Barbarians, 46.
Barometer, 94 _et seq._
Basalt, 131, 132, 136, 137, 201.
Becquerel, 233, 246 _et seq._
Beddoes, 173.
Beer, 223, 226.
Berzelius, 162.
Bessel, 187.
Biology, 6, 7, 23 _et seq._, 37, 53, 78, 109, 197 _et seq._, 213.
Biot, 215 _et seq._
Black, 129, 133.
_Bode's Law_, 189.
Botany, 6, 26, 37, 39, 53, 231 _et seq._
Bouvard, Alexis, 185.
Bouvard, Eugène, 187.
Boyle, 96, 107.
Buffon, 130, 135.
Building material, 32.
Cabanis, 258.
Cairo, 49.
Calendar, 9, 36.
Carbonic acid, 138, 155, 157, 217.
Carlisle, 177.
Cato, 35, 38.
Challis, 189.
Charlemagne, 52.
Charles II, 105.
Chemical affinity, 159, 253.
Chemistry, 6, 8, 50, 51, 155 _et seq._, 170 _et seq._, 245 _et seq._
Chicken cholera, 225.
Chlorine, 180.
Clocks, 89, 94.
Collinson, 123.
Columbus, 26, 54.
Columella, 38.
Comenius, 100.
Comets, 10, 40, 149.
Conservation of energy, 168.
Constantine, 37.
Copernicus, 55.
Coral reefs, 203.
Cordova, 50.
Counting, 6, 11, 34, 49, 86.
Cowley, 104 _et seq._
Cronstedt, 130.
Curie, P. and S., 247 _et seq._
D'Alembert, 58.
Dalton, 155, 157 _et seq._
Darwin, Charles, 198 _et seq._
Darwin, Erasmus, 199.
Davy, 122, 163, 170 _et seq._
Deduction, 82.
Defoe, 116.
Democratic culture, 44, 270 _et seq._
Democritus, 17, 48, 148.
Descartes, 57, 72, 82 _et seq._
Desmarest, 132.
_Dialogues_ of Plato, 19.
Diderot, 58.
Dioscorides, 39.
Dyes, 24, 33, 71, 181.
Earthquakes, 40, 137.
Ebers papyrus, 7.
Eclipses, 10, 16, 49.
Education, 19, 35, 36, 40, 44, 52, 53, 100 _et seq._, 116, 122, 123,
171-72, 198, 213, 214, 216, 270 _et seq._
Egypt, 1 _et seq._
Electricity, 75, 123 _et seq._, 177, 231.
Electrolysis, 178.
Elements, 17, 20, 22, 155.
Ellipse, 20.
Embalmers, 7.
Empedocles, 17, 40.
_Encyclopaedia_, 58.
Ethics, 21, 40, 41.
Euclid, 18, 19.
Evelyn, 109.
Experiment, 72 _et seq._
Extinction, 206.
Faraday, 181.
Fermentation, 216 _et seq._
Fitzroy, 198.
Flacherie, 221.
Flamsteed, 110, 111, 184.
Fossils, 140.
Franklin, 15, 114.
Galen, 38, 79.
Galileo, 75 _et seq._, 95.
Galapagos Archipelago, 208 _et seq._
Galle, 193.
Galton, 258.
Galvani, 177.
Gascoigne, 93.
Gassendi, 99.
Gay-Lussac, 164, 181.
Geber, 177.
Geology, 129 _et seq._
Geometry, 4, 15, 18, 19, 84, 264.
Gerbert, 53.
Gilbert, 72, 74, 76.
Glen Tilt, 136.
Gnomon, 13, 33.
Granite, 131.
Graunt, 105, 109.
Gravity, 110 _et seq._
Greece, 15 _et seq._
Gresham College, 101, 106.
Grew, 109.
Guericke, 96.
Hall, Sir James, 129, 137 _et seq._
Halley, 110, 112, 186.
Hammurabi, 12.
Hartley, 172, 258.
Hartlib, 99.
Harun Al-Rashid, 48.
Heat, 82, 155, 156, 166, 168, 173.
Heliacal rising, 4.
Helmholtz, 168, 258.
Henry, 238.
Heraclitus, 17.
Herschel, Sir John, 192.
Herschel, Sir William, 152 _et seq._, 184.
Hindu arithmetic and astronomy, 48, 49.
Hipparchus, 27, 45.
Hippocrates, 27.
Hobbes, 99.
Homology, 26.
Hooke, 107, 109.
Hope, 138.
Horrocks, 109.
Horse, 204.
Horticulture, 40.
Hugo of St. Victor, 60.
Humboldt, 131, 201.
Hussey, 186.
Hutton, 132 _et seq._
Huygens, 94, 111.
Hydrophobia, 207, 227 _et seq._
Hypatia, 46, 48.
Hypothesis, 147, 150, 245 _et seq._
I-em-hetep, 6.
Ilu-bani, 12.
Induction, 81, 177.
Industries, 8, 27, 68 _et seq._, 173, 182, 220, 223, 226.
Inoculation, 126.
Inventions, 107, 233 _et seq._
Invisible College, 103.
Iodine, 181.
Iron, 8, 13, 182.
Isidore of Seville, 60.
James, William, 258, 261, 268.
Joule, 155, 167 _et seq._
Julius Cæsar, 36.
Kant, 142, 145 _et seq._
Kepler, 90 _et seq._, 110.
Kindergarten, 281.
Kircher, 93.
Lactantius, 48.
Lambert, 142, 149 _et seq._
Langley, 231 _et seq._
Laplace, 112, 150 _et seq._
Laurium, 27.
Lava, 138.
Lavoisier, 156, 172.
Leeuwenhoek, 93.
Leibnitz, 106, 112, 277.
Lenses, 40, 50.
Leonardo da Vinci, 72.
Leverrier, 190 _et seq._
Libraries, 46, 48, 121.
Lincoln, 43 _et seq._
Linnæus, 130.
Lippershey, 92.
Lister, 213, 220, 223.
Locke, 116, 172, 258.
Logarithms, 91.
Logic, 21, 53.
Lucretius, 40.
Lyell, 197, 201.
Magnetism, 75, 127.
Magnifiers, 40.
Malpighi, 93, 106, 109.
Malthus, 121, 211.
Manchester, 157.
Marble, 139.
Mars, 10, 91.
Marsh gas, 126, 163, 182.
Materia medica, 39, 51.
Mathematics, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 34, 48, 49, 55,
87 _et seq._, 110 _et seq._, 184 _et seq._, 264.
Maupertuis, 145.
Mayow, 156.
Measuring, 5, 10, 86 _et seq._
Mechanics, 18, 77, 231 _et seq._
Medicine, 6, 11, 27, 34, 126, 173 _et seq._, 207, 216 _et seq._
Mensuration, 5, 92.
Mental imagery, 263.
Mercury, 50, 51, 156.
Mersenne, 99, 112.
Metallurgy, 8, 13, 23, 50.
Meteorology, 122, 133, 158.
Microscope, 93.
Milky Way, 144.
Mill, John Stuart, 256.
Milton, 102, 213.
Mineralogy, 130.
Minute and second, 46.
Monochord, 17.
Monte Cassino, 52.
Moray, 104, 112.
Murex, 24, 33.
Napier, 91.
Napoleon I, 151, 177, 214.
Napoleon III, 221.
Natural history, 23, 37, 52, 61.
Navigation, 3, 16, 26, 54, 126, 231.
Nebular hypothesis, 147, 150.
Neptune, 184 _et seq._
Neptunist, 131.
_New Atlantis_, 71, 100, 183.
Newton, 110, 135, 158.
Nicholson, 177.
Nietzsche, 277 _et seq._
Nitric oxide, 156, 161.
Nitrous oxide, 174.
_Novum Organum_, 70, 72.
Numerals, 6, 11, 34, 49, 87, 231.
Observatories, 4, 49.
Occupations, 12, 51, 58, 68 _et seq._, 107.
Optics, 50, 54, 93.
Organic remains, 126, 140.
Origin of the sciences, 1 _et seq._
_Origin of Species_, 201.
Pansophy, 100.
Pascal, 95, 117.
Pasteur, 213 _et seq._
Pearson, Karl, 60.
Peirce, 195.
Pepys, 110.
Petty, 103, 122.
Peurbach, 55.
_Philosophical Transactions_, 109.
Philosophy, 15 _et seq._, 134.
Physics, 21, 28, 31, 32, 50, 54, 74 _et seq._, 94 _et seq._,
110 _et seq._, 128, 155 _et seq._, 170 _et seq._, 231 _et seq._,
245 _et seq._
Physiology, 6, 21, 38, 78, 173 _et seq._, 225 _et seq._
Picard, 111.
Plato, 18, 270 _et seq._
Playfair, 133, 137.
Pliny, 37.
Pneumatic Institution, 173.
Poincaré, Henri, 255, 267.
Port Royal, 116, 279.
Potash, 23, 51, 179.
Potassium, 179.
Precession of the equinoxes, 10, 112.
Priestley, 126, 156.
Primitive man, 206.
_Principia_, 110, 114.
Prism, 40.
_Protyl_, 254.
Psychology, 23, 256 _et seq._
Ptolemy, 45, 55.
Pythagoras, 17.
Quadrants, 50, 86.
Quintilian, 39.
Rabies, 227 _et seq._
Racemic acid, 215.
Radioactivity, 245 _et seq._
Ramsay, 246.
Ray, 110.
Regiomontanus, 55.
Religion, 3, 8, 10, 40, 43 _et seq._, 142 _et seq._
Rey, 94.
Rhind papyrus, 6.
Röntgen rays, 231.
Rousseau, 270.
Royal Institution, 176.
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 133.
Royal Society of London, 99 _et seq._
Rumford, 166.
Rutherford, 247 _et seq._
St. Benedict, 52.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 53.
Saturn, 2, 92, 145.
Saussure, 133.
Scheele, 156, 180.
Scientific apparatus, 17, 49, 86 _et seq._
Scotus Erigena, 53.
Seneca, 40.
Shaftesbury, 117.
Signs of zodiac, 9, 33.
Silkworm, 109, 221 _et seq._
Siphon, 95.
Sirius, 4.
Smith, Adam, 121, 133, 256.
Smith, William, 139 _et seq._
Smithsonian Institution, 195, 233, 238.
Socrates, 44, 117.
Soda, 8, 51, 179.
Soddy, 248 _et seq._
Sodium, 179.
Sosigenes, 36.
Sound, 33.
Species, 24, 197 _et seq._
Specific gravity, 28, 36, 50.
Spectrum analysis, 153, 231.
Sphericity of the earth, 26, 37.
Spontaneous generation, 25, 218.
Sprat, 105, 109.
Steel, 8, 23.
Sundial, 13.
Survival, 206.
_Syntaxis_, 45.
Tables, astronomical, 49, 50, 91, 185 _et seq._
Tanning, 177.
Technology, 5, 16, 20, 27, 30 _et seq._, 50, 68 _et seq._, 86 _et seq._,
103, 107, 126, 129, 130, 139-41, 156, 160, 167, 177, 182, 231.
Thales, 15.
Theology, 47, 62, 172.
Theon, 46.
Theophrastus, 26, 39.
Theory, 30, 41; _T. of the Earth_, 133.
Tides, 38, 112.
Torricelli, 95.
Trade and trades, 12, 51, 68 _et seq._, 107, 115, 118.
Transformation Theory, 249 _et seq._
Trigonometry, 46, 49, 55.
Turgot, 121.
Tycho Brahe, 87 _et seq._
Tyndall, 260-61.
Uranus, 184 _et seq._
Vacuum, 95.
Varro, 38.
Vesalius, 78.
Vitruvius, 30 _et seq._
Viviani, 94.
Vivisection, 38, 71, 80.
Volcanoes, 40, 136.
Volta, 177.
Vulcanist, 131, 137.
Wadham College, 104.
Walker, 195.
Wallace, 211, 231.
Wallis, 103.
War, 46, 178, 213 _et seq._
War-engines, 28, 34.
Watch, 94.
Water, 157, 177.
Water-clocks, 13, 94.
Watt, Gregory, 172.
Watt, James, 133, 156, 157.
Wedgwoods, 138, 173, 199.
Weighing, 7, 10, 86.
Werner, 129 _et seq._
Wilkins, 101, 104.
Willis, 104.
Willughby, 109, 110.
Wine, 220, 226.
Wollaston, 119.
Wool, 226.
Wren, 104, 107.
Wright, 143 _et seq._
Wundt, 258, 259.
Xenophon, 117.
Young, 258, 279.
Zacharias, 92.
Zodiac, 9, 33.
Zoölogy, 7, 12, 21, 24, 25, 37, 53, 66, 109, 110, 197 _et seq._
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
The following is a list of changes made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
parabola, hyperbola--play a large part in the subsequent
parabola, the hyperbola--play a large part in the subsequent
Seneca, _Physcial Science_; translated by John Clarke.
Seneca, _Physical Science_; translated by John Clarke.
College by 1558 it was the custom to remain for discussion
College by 1658 it was the custom to remain for discussion
slowly with the result that it had a stony, rather a
slowly with the result that it had a stony, rather than a
This would correspond to 325° January 1, 1847.
This would correspond to 325° on January 1, 1847.
sometimes, in the case of the γ rays with velocity
sometimes, in the case of the γ rays, with velocity
positively and negatively chasged particles. Rutherford
positively and negatively charged particles. Rutherford