The advocates of the diffusion of useful knowledge among the great
body of the people, found one of their greatest difficulties to lie in
an inability on the part of the people themselves to see what benefit
they were to derive from the knowledge proposed to be imparted. This
knowledge consisted of such a huge mass of facts of all kinds, that
few could overcome a sense of hopelessness as attending every
endeavour to acquire it. Take botany alone, it was said. You have a
hundred thousand species of plants to become acquainted with--to learn
their names, and to what genera and orders they belong, besides
everything like a knowledge of their habitats, their properties, and
their physiology. Seeing that this is but one of the sciences, there
might well be a pause before admitting that the moral and intellectual
regeneration of our people was to be brought about by the
useful-knowledge movement.
There was here, however, a mistake on both hands, and one which we are
only now beginning to appreciate. It was not observed at first, that
there is a great distinction to be drawn between the relations of
science to its cultivators or investigators, and those which it bears
to the community at large. It is most important that a scientific
zoologist like Mr Waterhouse, or a profound physiologist like
Professor Owen, should determine and describe every species with the
minutest care, even to the slightest peculiarities in the markings of
a shell or the arrangements of a joint, because that exactness of
description is necessary in the foundations of the science. But it is
not necessary that every member of the public should follow the man of
science into all these minutiæ. It is not required of him, that he
should have the names of even the seventy families of plants at his
finger-ends, though that is not beyond the reach of most people. Some
summation of the facts, some adroit generalisation, if such be
attainable, is enough for him. The man of science is, as it were, a
workman employed in rearing up a structure for the man of the world to
look at or live in. The latter has no more necessary concern with the
processes of investigation and compilation, than a gentleman has with
the making of the mortar and hewing of the stones used in a house
which he has ordered to be built for his residence.
Were the facts of science thus generalised, it is surprising how
comprehensive a knowledge of the whole system of the universe every
person might have. Only generalise enough, and no one need to be
ignorant. Just in proportion as a man has little time to bestow on
learning, condense the more what you wish to impart, and the result,
where there is any fair degree of preparedness, will be all the
better. In the very last degree of exigency, explain that nature is a
system of fixed method and order, standing in a beneficial relation to
us, but requiring a harmonious conformity on our part, in order that
good may be realised and evil avoided, and you have taken your pupil
by one flight to the very summit of practical wisdom. The most
illustrious _savant_, while knowing some of the intermediate steps by
which that wisdom was attained, and having many delightful subjects of
reflection in the various phenomena involved in the generalisation,
cannot go an inch further.
This is putting the matter in its extreme form. We are entitled to
suppose that the bulk of mankind have some time to spend on the
acquirement of a knowledge of the natural system of things into which
their Maker has thrown them. Grant a little time to such a science,
for example, as botany; we would never attempt impressing a vast
nomenclature upon them. We would give them at once more pleasure and
more instruction in shewing some of the phenomena of vegetable
physiology: fundamental and profoundly interesting matters, of which
specific distinctions and external characters of all kinds are only
accidental results--that is, results determined by the outer phenomena
affecting the existence of plants. A single lesson on the profound
wonders of morphology would go further, we verily believe, in making
our pupil a man of science, than the committing of the whole Linnæan
system to memory. In zoology, again, we would leave the endless
details of minute description to the tomes of the scientific
naturalist, and be content to sketch animals in broad masses--first,
in regard to grades of organisation; and, second, in regard to family
types. The Feline Animal, we say, is one idea of the Creator--a
destructive creature of wonderful strength in comparison with its
bulk--of immense agility, furtive in its movements, furnished with
great powers for the destruction of others. Lion, tiger, panther,
ounce, lynx, jaguar, cat, are all essentially one creature--not the
slightest difference can be traced in their osteological structure,
hardly any in their habits. Why dwell, then, on minutiæ of external
appearances, if time presses, and there be much of more importance to
be learned? So, also, is the Cirrhopode one idea of the author of
nature. You may find a very respectable quarto account of the family,
tracing them in all their varieties; but a page might inform you of
all that is essential about the barnacle, curious as its history has
been, and you need not ponder on the quarto unless you have some
particular curiosity to gratify. The Types of nature, both in her
vegetable and animal departments are, after all, few. Describe each
comprehensively, group them all in correct relations to each other,
and display their various destinies and connections with the rest of
creation, and you enable your pupil to learn in a few weeks more than
Pliny mastered in a lifetime.
It appears to us that the reason why science is so coldly received in
ordinary society is, that either by reason of its unripeness for
generalisation, or of the tendency of its cultivators to keep
continually analysing and multiplying facts, it has not in general
been presented in propositions which the ordinary mind can comprehend
or make use of. We should be loath to urge it into generalisations for
which it was not prepared; but while this is duly avoided, we would
have it to be somewhat more vigilant than it usually is, in taking
opportunities of proceeding with those synthetical clumpings of facts
which we conceive to be so essential, on mere grounds of convenience,
to its success with the multitude. Better be a little dogmatical, than
insupportably tedious. Better have your knowledge in some order,
though not perhaps beyond correction, than in no order at all. It is
to be feared, however, that the thing wanting is not the sufficiency
of particulars out of which to make general or comprehensive truths,
but that of the requisite intellectual power and habit on the part of
the men of science. The constant working towards separate facts seems
to disqualify the mind for grouping or clustering them. Hundreds can
detect a new sphinx or butterfly in the fauna of a country or a
county, and are content with such small results, for one who can lay a
few facts together, and make one truth out of all. One could almost
believe, that there is a greater want of comprehensive intellect in
the walks of science, than in some other fields of labour which make
less pretension to an exertion of the mental faculties: for example,
merchandise. And does not that very appearance of continual peddling
amongst trifles, in some degree prevent the highest kind of minds from
going into the fields of science? There is here, it appears to us, a
great error to be corrected.
Another cause why science makes little way with the multitude is, that
there is too little connection to be observed between the ordinary
proceedings of the scientific and learned, and the practical good of
the community. The British Association meets, and has its week of
notoriety, and when we look into the resulting volume, what do we
find? Doubtless, many ingenious speculations and many curious
investigations, which may in the long-run prove beneficial in some
indirect way. But it must be admitted, that there is hardly anything
bearing directly upon the great interests of contemporary humanity.
The crying social evils of our time and country obtain no notice from
the recognised students of science. To all appearance, the political
error which legitimated scarcity would have never been put an end to
by them. The sanitary evils which press so severely upon the health
and morals of the common people, would apparently go on for ever, for
anything that philosophers have to say to the contrary. What concern
have they taken in the question of education, either in promoting its
extension to the masses, or improving its quality? Our national
councils, and every deliberative public body throughout the country,
spend one half their time in wrangling about the most contemptible
puerilities, without drawing one word of indignant comment, or one
effort at correction, from the learned. The studious are like stars,
and dwell apart. Busying themselves in a world of their own,
exercising no visible influence on the current of ordinary things, is
it to be wondered at that the common people of the world put them and
their pursuits almost as entirely out of account as they do the
proceedings at Melton Mowbray? We grant it is not desirable that the
_cui bono_ should be the ruling consideration in matters of science;
but we at the same time feel, that it would be well for it if it gave
a little more attention to the social and moral questions affecting
living interests, or at least endeavoured to bring its results to
account in practical improvements of general utility.[1]
We must recur after all to the maxim which it is mainly the object of
this paper to impress--that judicious generalisation is the
indispensable pre-requisite to a more general diffusion of knowledge.
To bring it to an apothegm--Let the man of science in seeking to
enlighten himself, pursue analysis; in seeking to enlighten the outer
public, he has no chance but in synthesis.