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* * * * *
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS
OF
NATIONAL PROGRESS,
INCLUDING THAT OF MORALITY.
G. GORE, L.L.D., F.R.S.,
_Author of "The Art of Scientific Discovery;"
"The Principles and Practice of Electro-deposition;"
"The Art of Electro-metallurgy;" &c._
[Illustration]
NATIONS ADVANCE BY NEW KNOWLEDGE.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1882.
* * * * *
To the President (the Rev. N. Watson, F.R.S.), the Vice Presidents, the
Council and Members of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, I dedicate the
following small treatise, in appreciation of the fact, that although only a
young Society, they have certified in a substantial manner the views
persistently advocated by me respecting the National importance of
Scientific Investigation, and have shown so intelligent an example of
devotion to public welfare by establishing a Fund for the Endowment of
original Scientific Research.
GEORGE GORE.
_The Institute of Scientific Research,_
_Birmingham._
* * * * *
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.
------
CONTENTS.
------
PREFACE.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS 1
CHAPTER II.
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MENTAL AND MORAL PROGRESS 83
CHAPTER III.
NEW TRUTH, AND ITS GENERAL RELATION TO HUMAN PROGRESS 157
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROMOTION OF ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 170
* * * * *
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.
------
NEW KNOWLEDGE IMPARTS NEW POWER.
------
PREFACE.
As there exists at the present time in this country a considerable degree
of uneasiness in the public mind respecting our ability to maintain our
position in the race of progress, and as our future success as a nation
depends largely upon science, it is desirable to call attention to the
great public importance of _new_ scientific knowledge, and to the means of
promoting its development.
Although the illustrations given in this book of the importance of such
knowledge to mankind, constitute but a small fraction of the number which
might be adduced, they are sufficient to show that by the neglect of
scientific investigation, we are sacrificing our welfare as a nation to an
enormous extent.
The greatest obstacle to the discovery of new knowledge in this country,
lies in a wide spread ignorance of the dependence of human welfare upon
scientific research. I propose therefore to show in a brief manner, that
the essential starting-point of human progress, lies in scientific
discovery; also that new truths are evolved by original research made in
accordance with scientific methods; and to illustrate these statements by
examples; also to point out how such research can be encouraged.
The book is divided into four chapters, viz.: _1st._ The Scientific basis
of Material progress: _2nd._ The Scientific basis of Mental and Moral
progress: _3rd._ New truth and its relation to Human progress: and _4th._
The Promotion of original Scientific Research. As the object of the book is
only to call attention to the vast importance of _new_ truth, as as a
fundamental source of advance, and how to promote the discovery of it, the
essay is written as briefly as possible, and is not offered in any sense as
a complete exposition of the subject, especially the section relating to
the Scientific basis of Morality.
The leading idea of the Book is that present knowledge only enables us to
maintain our present state, that national _progress_ is the result of _new_
ideas, and that the chief source of new ideas is original research.[1] That
as _advance_ has its origin in _new_ knowledge; unless new discoveries are
made, new inventions and improvements must sooner or later cease. Another
prominent idea is, that truth is essentially the same in all divisions of
knowledge, and that the mental powers and processes employed in detecting
it are the same in all subjects.
For reasons stated in the text, the influence of scientific discovery upon
mental and moral progress are treated together. Notwithstanding the far
greater importance of the mental and moral advantages of new truths, the
book treats chiefly of the pecuniary and material gains to mankind; mainly
because the latter are more easily understood and appreciated, the chapter
however on "The Scientific Basis of Mental and Moral progress," indicates
in a very brief and imperfect manner, the vast importance of new scientific
knowledge to mankind, as a source of mental and moral advancement.
The chief object of this book is to disseminate more correct ideas
respecting the importance of _new_ positive knowledge, and the duties of
society in relation to it; and a further object is to assist in maintaining
Birmingham in the front rank of intellectual, social and moral advance, in
accordance with its motto "Forward."
* * * * *
{1}
CHAPTER I.
------
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS.
During the last one hundred years this nation has advanced with unexampled
speed. More wealth has been accumulated by Englishmen since the
commencement of the present century, than in all preceding time since the
period of Julius Caesar; one of the causes of this has been the discovery of
new truths of science, and their subservience to useful purposes by means
of invention. The great manufacturing success of this country has been
largely due to those applications of science, which have enabled us to
utilise our abundant stores of coal and iron-ore, in steam engines,
machinery, and a multitude of mechanical, physical, and chemical processes;
also to the discovery of electro-magnetism and its application in the
electric-telegraph, etc. And had it not been for these and other
adaptations of scientific knowledge, we should have competed in vain with
the cheaper labour and longer days of toil of continental nations. Other
great causes, such as our insular position, suitable climate, freedom, {2}
geographical position, etc., etc. have, however, also contributed to the
result. Commerce also in its turn has done vast things for mankind.
The purely scientific knowledge we possess was discovered almost entirely
by means of original research, and to only a small extent by persons
engaged in industrial occupations. Probably not two per cent. of all the
important discoveries in pure science were made in manufactories; the
scientific experiments which are made in such establishments are usually of
the nature of invention, not of discovery, and are not often published,
because it is a usual object with men of business to retain as much as
possible of the pecuniary benefit of their labours to themselves. Whilst it
is the object of a business man to monopolise special knowledge; that of
the scientific man is to diffuse it, in order that all mankind may be
benefited and helped to improve.
Discoveries in science are, however, occasionally made by practical men
engaged in technical employments. The hydro-electric machine originated in
this way, a man at Newcastle was attending to a steam boiler, and found
that he received electric shocks when he touched the boiler. This
circumstance was investigated by his employer, Mr. Armstrong, a scientific
man, and led him to construct the hydro-electric machine. The accumulation
of electricity in submarine telegraph cables was first observed at the
Gutta-Percha Company's works {3} London. It was noticed on testing a cable
by means of a voltaic battery (the cable being submerged in water) that
discharges of electricity flowed from the cable after the battery was
removed; this circumstance was investigated by Faraday, and led to
improvements in submarine telegraphy. In each of these instances the same
general method as that used by scientific discoverers was however employed,
viz., new experiments were made (though not intentionally) by putting
matter and its forces under new conditions, and new results were observed.
Nearly all great modern scientific discoveries have been made by teachers
of science and others, who spend a large portion of their lives in
experimental investigation, searching for new truths, and not by persons
who have hit upon them by accident. The greatest discoveries in physics and
chemistry in modern times, were made chiefly by such men as Newton,
Cavendish, Scheele, Priestley, Oersted, Volta, Davy and Faraday: all great
workers in science.
It is either by observing matter and its forces under new conditions or
from a new aspect, that nearly all discoveries are made; thus Priestley
placed some oxide of mercury in an inverted glass vessel, and heated it by
means of the Sun's rays and a lens, and discovered Oxygen. This substance
was nearly discovered by Eck de Sulsbach three hundred years before; he
heated six pounds of an amalgam {4} of silver and mercury, and converted
the latter metal into a red oxide like cinnabar, and he remarked, "a spirit
is united with the metal, and what proves it is this, that this artificial
cinnabar submitted to distillation, disengages that spirit." The "spirit"
was evidently oxygen.
Some discoveries are made by observing the phenomena of bodies placed under
special conditions by those operations of nature over which we have little
or no control. All our knowledge of Astronomy, and much of that of geology
and physiology, was acquired in this way.
Nearly all modern discoveries of importance in physics or chemistry require
long and difficult investigations to be made in order to completely
establish their truth. When Crookes discovered Thallium, he saw the first
sign of its existence in a momentary flash of green light in a
spectroscope, but he had to expend upon the subject several years of most
difficult labour, and a considerable sum of money, in order to prove the
correctness of his suspicion that he had discovered a new metal. M. Lecocq
de Boisbaudran discovered the metal Gallium and Bunsen discovered Rubidium
and Caesium in a similar manner.
Discoveries in science, are usually made, not by trying to obtain some
valuable commercial or technical result, but by making new, reliable, and
systematic investigations. By investigating the chemical action of
electricity upon saline bodies, {5} Sir Humphrey Davy isolated sodium and
magnesium, which has led to the establishment at Patricroft near
Manchester, of the manufactures of those metals. By the abstract researches
of Hofmann and others upon Coal-tar, many new compounds were discovered,
and the extremely profitable manufacture of the splendid coal-tar dyes was
originated.
Scientific discovery is the most valuable in its ultimate practical results
when it is pursued from a love of truth as the ruling motive, and any
attempt to make it more directly and quickly remunerative by trying to
direct it to immediately practical objects, decreases the importance of its
results, diminishes the spirit of inquiry, and sooner or later reduces it
to the character of invention. The greatest practical realities of this age
had their origin in a search after important truths entirely irrespective
of what utilities they might lead to.
I do not intend by these remarks to imply that any new trades or
improvements in manufactures have been or can be effected without the
labours of inventors and practical men, but that there should be a more
judicious division of labour: one man to discover new truths, another to
put them into the form of practical inventions, and the business man to
work them; because it is proved by experience, that in nearly all cases
these different kinds of labour require men of widely different habits of
mind, and {6} that the faculties of discovery, invention, and practical
working are very rarely united in one man.
Scientific investigations however, made in a manufactory, for the purpose
of ascertaining the various sources of loss of materials, the circumstances
which affect the amount or quality of the product; or made with the object
of substituting cheaper or more suitable materials, or for varying their
proportions, or for many other kindred objects, have in many cases resulted
in great benefit to the manufacturer, and have formed the basis of
successful patents. Some of the large brewers, chemical manufacturers,
candle companies, and many others, constantly employ scientific men in this
way to examine their materials, processes and products, and keep them
acquainted with the progress of discovery and invention in relation to
their own particular trades.
No art or manufacture is so perfect as to be exempt from the influence of
discovery and invention, and no man can produce so perfect an article but
that, by the aid of science, a better may be produced. Science and trade
are mutually dependent, without the assistance of science, trade would be
unable to supply our daily increasing wants, and without the pecuniary
support of trade, science would languish and decay.
"As long as arts and manufactures are left to be directed and improved by
simple experience, their progress is extremely slow, but directly
scientific knowledge is successfully applied to them, they {7} bound
forward with astonishing speed." Look at the art of taking portraits; for
hundreds of years it remained entirely in the hands of oil and water-colour
painters with but little progress in rapidity of production, but directly
science was applied to it in the form of photography, its advance in this
respect became amazing. Fifty years ago photography was almost unknown, but
immediately Messrs. Daguerre and Talbot, in 1844, made known their
processes, the new art began to advance, and so rapid has been its
progress, that at the present time many thousand persons are employed in
its exercise, and millions of portraits have been taken with an accuracy
and at a cost quite beyond the reach of the old method.
Many persons hardly know the difference between science and art; a still
greater number cannot readily distinguish between a concrete science and a
pure one; and nearly all persons confound discovery with invention. A
science may be conveniently defined as a collection of facts and general
principles which are to be learned; an art as a collection of rules which
are to be followed:--Art therefore is applied science; and every art also
has a basis in science, whether that basis has been discovered or not.
Scientific principles underlie not only manufacturing processes, but also
sculpture, music, poetry and painting.
Discoveries differ also from inventions: a scientific discovery is a newly
found truth in science, which in the great majority of cases is not in the
form of {8} applied knowledge. An invention is usually a combination and
application to some desired purpose, of scientific truths which have been
previously discovered. When Oersted first observed a magnetic needle move
by means of a current of electricity, he made a scientific discovery; but
when Wheatstone and Cooke applied Oersted's discovery in their telegraph
from Paddington to Slough, they made an invention. The success of the
electro-plating process was dependent upon knowledge previously discovered.
Mr. Wright, a surgeon in Birmingham, was led to the invention of the use of
cyanide of potassium in electro-plating and gilding, by reading in
Scheele's "Chemical Essay" (p.p. 405 and 406), that "if after these calces"
(_i.e._, the cyanides of gold and silver) "have been precipitated, a
sufficient quantity of precipitating liquor be added, in order to
redissolve them, the solution remains clear in the open air, and in this
state the aerial acid" (_i.e._, carbonic acid of the air) "does not
reprecipitate the metallic calx."
Immediately a discovery is effected it is made public, and is afterwards
incorporated in the ordinary text books of science, ready for the use of
inventors; and in this way such books have become filled with valuable
knowledge acquired by researches in past times. All this knowledge (which
has cost millions of pounds and a vast amount of intellect and labour) has
been given by its discoverers freely to the nation. Some idea of the number
of scientific {9} researches which have been made since the year 1800, may
be obtained from the fact, that a mere list of their titles, with the names
of the authors, occupies eight large quarto volumes, of about one thousand
pages each, compiled and published at a cost of about ten thousand pounds,
by the British Government and the Royal Society.
In discovery we search for new phenomena, their causes and relations; in
invention we seek to produce new effects, or to produce known effects in an
improved manner. The objects of the scientific discoverer are, new truth
and greater accuracy; whereas those of the inventor, are increased
usefulness and economy of results. The ancients classed inventors with the
gods, because they considered them great benefactors to the human race.
Discoverers may properly be viewed as priests and prophets of truth,
because they both reveal new knowledge to mankind, and predict with
certainty coming events.
A man cannot usually invent an improvement unless he possesses scientific
knowledge, and, for that knowledge he must in nearly all cases resort to a
scientific book or teacher. The great practical value of new scientific
knowledge is proved by the fact, that when scientific discoveries are
published, there are numerous inventors and practical men, who immediately
endeavour to apply them to useful purposes. Since the first application of
coal-tar to the production of dyes, every discovery in that {10} branch of
chemistry has been closely watched for a similar purpose.
A complete account of the growth and development of scientific discoveries
and inventions would form an extensive history, and would include numerous
instances of experiments attended by results which, sooner or later,
affected all mankind. Take that of phosphorus, for example. The first
evidence of the existence of that substance was obtained by the Saracens in
the eighth century. Achild Bechil distilled a powdered mixture of charcoal,
clay, lime, and dried extract of urine, and obtained a substance which
shone in the dark "like a good moon;" that substance was phosphorus. The
discovery contained in the results of that little dirty and stinking
experiment was the germ or seed of all the subsequent developments and
applications of phosphorus. About the year 1669 Bechil's experiment was
further developed by Brandt, a merchant of Hamburg, and the publication of
the wonderful properties of the substance produced a great sensation in his
fellow-citizens. "There was then cried nothing but triumph and victory
among the chymists. Those good people erected already in their thoughts so
many hospitals and poor-houses that no beggar should more molest any man in
the streets, made great legacies, and pious causes, and what not else."
"Besides, the other alchymists did encourage him yet more, and desisted not
to make him believe how this was the same fiery ghost of {11} Moses that in
the beginning moved upon the water, yea, his splendid shining face: the
fiery pillar in the desert, that secret fire of the altar wherewith Moses
burned the golden calf before he strewed it upon the fire and made it
potable."
The experiment of Brandt was repeated by Kunckel before the courts of
Saxony and Brandenburg, although it was not a very delicate or agreeable
exhibition, "because the anctuous and daubing oyliness was not yet
accurately separated from it, and without doubt it was very stinking."
Brandt's process was further developed by Boyle, and published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in the year 1692-3; and
phosphorus was afterwards obtained in larger quantity and in a purer state
by Hanckwitz, a chemist in Southampton Street, Strand, and sold by him at
three pounds sterling per ounce. Its price at present is less than three
shillings per pound.
Margraaf, Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and Dr. Slare also extended our knowledge of
the substance; Gahn, in 1769, made the important discovery of phosphorus in
bones, and Scheele immediately devised the process now in use by our
manufacturers for extracting it from that substance. The commencement of
the use of phosphorus for the purpose of getting a light occurred about the
year 1803, but it was not until the year 1833 that the invention of
phosphorus matches became commercially successful. The use of such matches
is now universal, and it has {12} been estimated that the daily consumption
of them in Great Britain alone amounts to two hundred and fifty millions,
or more than eight matches per day for each individual in the kingdom.
"There is nothing on the Earth so small that it may not produce great
things." The most abstract and apparently trivial experiments in original
research have in some cases led to inventions and results of national and
even world-wide importance. The contractions of a frog's leg in the
experiments of Galvani, and the movements of a magnetic needle in those of
Oersted, have already led to the expenditure of hundreds of millions of
pounds in laying telegraph wires all over the earth, and to an immense
extension of international intercourse. But the original experiment of
Oersted was not discovered without labour, it was only arrived at after
many years of research.
The saying that "all great things have had small beginnings," is true, not
only of electric telegraphs, but also of the great trade of
electro-plating, and of the magneto-electric machine which is now largely
used instead of the voltaic battery. After Volta had made his small and
apparently unimportant experiments on the electricity produced by metals
and liquids, various persons tried the effect of that electricity upon
metallic solutions. Brugnatelli, in 1805, found that two silver medals
became gilded in a solution of gold by passing the electricity through
them. Mr. Henry Bessemer, in 1834, coated various {13} lead ornaments with
copper by using a solution of copper in a similar manner. And in 1836 Mr.
De la Rue found that copies might be taken in copper of engraved
copper-plates by the electro-depositing process. Faraday discovered
magneto-electricity in the year 1831, by rotating a disc of copper between
the poles of a magnet, and he has stated that the first successful result
he obtained was so small that he could hardly detect it. This simple
experiment was the origin of the magneto-electric machine, and many of
these machines are now used for producing the electric light, and for
depositing nickel, copper, silver, and gold, instead of by the voltaic
battery. These, and other engines, thermic, magnetic, electric, &c, will
probably, ere long, be constructed on as large a scale, and as many in
number, as the present steam engine.
The discovery in olden times of the attractive properties of a fragment of
iron ore, was the basis of the invention of the mariner's compass, which
greatly improved navigation, and led to nearly all the chief maritime
discoveries which have since been made. The sciences of magnetism and
geometry form the basis of the art of navigation, and have thus made our
great foreign commerce possible. The discovery of magnetism enabled sailing
vessels to venture freely out of sight of land, and to traverse the wide
ocean with even greater safety than to sail near the shore. By its means
Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. By its {14}
means also, Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and discovered
a new route to India; and in the year 1500, another Portuguese Captain,
Cabral, was driven across the Atlantic, discovered Brazil, and was enabled
by the aid of the magnet, to send back a ship to Lisbon with news of the
discovery. By its assistance also Magellan discovered Patagonia and the
South Pacific Ocean; and by the completion of that voyage the Earth was
first circumnavigated and proved to be a globe.
The geographical discoveries of the Portuguese, made by means of the
magnet, produced great national results; they profoundly changed the
balance of power and wealth among European nations, by changing the
direction of navigation and of the great streams of commerce between Europe
and the East. They gave a mortal blow to Italy and the cities of the
Mediterranean, by transferring Eastern commerce to Spain and Portugal: and
Egypt ceased to be the greatest route of commerce from Europe to India.
A singular contract relating to geographical research was made in the
fifteenth century, between King Alphonso, of Portugal, and Ferdinand Gomez,
of Lisbon, by which the latter engaged to navigate a ship and explore the
coast of Africa, and to discover not less than three hundred miles of coast
every year, the measurement to be made from Sierra Leone. {15}
Scientific discovery has in all ages been a most powerful agent of
civilization and human progress. The discovery of the black liquid which a
solution of nutgalls produces when mixed with green vitriol, led to the
invention of writing ink; and a knowledge of the properties of ink and
paper prepared the way for the invention of printing, by means of which
truth and learning have spread all over the earth.
The apparently insignificant property possessed by amber, of attracting
feathers immediately after it has been rubbed, was known twenty-four
hundred years ago, and afterwards led to the discovery of electricity. In
later times, Dr. Franklin, by means of a kite, charged a bottle with
lightning, examined it, and proved lightning and electricity to be
identical. This knowledge, joined to the further discovery, that
electricity would pass freely through metals, led to the modern invention
of the lightning conductor, by means of which all our great buildings,
ships, lighthouses, arsenals, and powder magazines are protected from
lightning.
"Coming events cast their shadows before them:" the discovery of the
instant transmission of electricity along wires by Stephen Gray and
Wheeler, about the year 1729, fore-shadowed the invention of the electric
telegraph. About the year 1819, Oersted, a Danish philosopher, after
fifteen years of study and experiment, to ascertain the relation of
electricity to magnetism, discovered that if a freely suspended magnetic
needle was supported parallel and near to {16} a wire, and an electric
current then passed through the wire, the needle moved and placed itself at
right angles to the current. This discovery, coupled with the previous one
of the electric conductivity of metals, formed the indispensable basis of
all our electric telegraphs.
Original research is very productive of new industries and inventions. The
discoveries made by Volta, Faraday, and many other investigators, have led
to the process of electro-plating, the use of electric lights for
lighthouses, and for ocean steamships, and the great system of telegraphs.
Those of Davy, Wedgwood, and others, respecting the action of light upon
salts of silver, have resulted in the modern processes of photography,
which are now in use almost everywhere. The discovery of zinc, by
Paracelsus, has been followed by the use of that metal in galvanic
batteries, and the great use of "galvanized" iron for telegraph wires, for
roofing, and many other purposes. The discovery of nickel, by Cronstedt,
has led to the great modern use of that metal in electro-plating, and to
that of German silver in the construction of electro-plated and other
articles. The discovery of chlorine, by Scheele, formed the basis of nearly
all our modern processes of bleaching cotton and other fabrics. The
discovery of gun-cotton and nitro-glycerine has led to the use of those
substances in blasting rocks and in warfare. The discovery of oxygen, by
Priestley, has enabled us to understand and improve in a great number of
{17} ways the numerous manufacturing, agricultural, and other processes in
which that substance operates. Priestley made many experiments also on the
absorption of gases by water, and proposed the resulting liquids as
beverages; and those apparently trifling experiments have since expanded
into the large manufactures of aerated waters. The discoveries of
gutta-percha and india-rubber were indispensible to the great applications
of those substances in telegraph cables, and in a multitude of useful
articles. The discovery of chloroform and anaesthetics has led to their use
for the purpose of alleviating human suffering. The discovery, by Sir Isaac
Newton, of the decomposition of light by means of a prism, has led in
recent times to the invention of the spectroscope; to the use of that
instrument in the Bessemer steel process; to the discovery of a number of
new metals, thallium, rubidium, caesium, indium, and several others, and to
the most wonderful discovery of the composition of the Sun and distant
heavenly bodies.
Even the invention of the steam-engine was partly a consequence of previous
researches made by scientific discoverers. Watt, himself, stated in his
pamphlet, entitled "A plain Story," that he could not have perfected his
engine had not Dr. Black and others previously discovered what amount of
heat was rendered latent by the conversion of water into steam. "Each
mechanical advance in the steam-engine has been preceded by and the result
of the {18} discovery of some physical law or property of steam." "The
first step in the invention of the steam-engine was the experimental
research and the discoveries of the properties of steam by Hooke, Boyle,
and Papin."[2] Had not the steam-engine been developed, it is clear that
railways, steamships, machinery, and all the other numerous uses to which
that instrument is now applied, would have been almost unknown. The
introduction of the steam-engine enabled abandoned Cornish mines to be
relieved of water, and to be worked to much greater depths. The discoveries
of nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, oil of vitriol, and washing soda, by the
alchemists and early chemists in their researches, led to the erection of
the numerous great manufactories of those substances which now exist in
England and in other civilized countries. There is probably not an art,
manufacture, or process, which is not largely due to scientific discovery,
and if we trace them back to their source we nearly always find them
originate in scientific research.
So far has scientific discovery, and its practical applications to human
benefit by invention, now progressed, that every one considers this to be,
_par excellence_, the scientific age. And as discovery and invention
continue to progress with accelerated speed, we are encouraged to hope, not
only that scientific principles will ultimately be universally recognised
as {19} the regulators of all technical industry, but also as a fundamental
basis of morality.[3]
"It is true that some processes of manufacture have not been consequences
of abstract scientific discovery--that they originally resulted from
alterations made in the rudest appliances, and that they have been directed
and improved by the results of simple experience. For ages past we derived
the benefit of scientific principles without a knowledge of their
existence. We trod in the beaten paths of experience ignorant of the truth
that we were acting in unison with fixed and certain laws. Numerous arts
and processes were in extensive operation long before the principles
involved in them were at all understood. The arts of enamelling and of iron
smelting were known hundreds of years before we were acquainted with the
principles of chemistry. In some rare instances also the recorded results
of daily experience in practical matters, tabulated and studied, have
ultimately led to the discovery of scientific laws; but all this is merely
the making use of our ordinary experience for the advancement of knowledge,
instead of making _special experiments_ for the purpose."
Many of our processes and manufactures, those of glass and copper for
example, are of such great antiquity, it is impossible to ascertain with
certainty the special circumstances under which they originated; but after
we have fully considered the ways in which {20} various modern trades and
manufactures have first arisen, we shall come to the conclusion that all
manufactures and improvements in manufacturing processes, must have been
first produced by the same general means, viz., new observations, although
the special circumstances connected with the origin of each were different.
Let us consider German-silver and its manufacture. That substance is an
alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel; it owes its peculiar whiteness or
"silver-like" appearance to the latter metal, and cannot be made without
it; it is certain, therefore, that by whatever means that metal or the
alloy was discovered, the discovery was the origin of the German-silver
manufacture, and was essential to all manufactures, processes, or
appliances in which German-silver, nickel, or any of its compounds are
used. Nickel was discovered by Cronstedt during the year 1751, and its
compounds were chiefly investigated by English and foreign chemists.
Cronstedt found it as a peculiar metal in the mineral called kupfernickel,
whilst chemically examining the properties of that substance. The general
method by which he discovered it was careful experiment, observation, and
study of the properties of matter.
It is stated that the Chinese and other nations made alloys of nickel long
before nickel itself was known to be a distinct metal; they had found, by
experiment, that when ores of copper and zinc were mixed with a particular
kind of mineral and smelted, {21} a white alloy was obtained; but this also
proves the general statement already made, that the German-silver
manufacture was originated by means of new observations. It was by a more
skilful, but similar mode of procedure that Cronstedt isolated the metal
itself, and thus laid a definite basis of improvements in the manufacture
of its alloys.
No art is probably more antique, or remained longer exempt from the
influence of science, than that of match making and obtaining a light. Many
adult persons can remember the primitive and old-fashioned tinder-box,
which had passed, with its flint and steel, from one generation to another
without any material improvement. Phosphorus, it is true, was definitely
discovered at least as early as the year 1669, but it was not applied to
match making till about 1833. Since then the progress of invention has been
so rapid that there are now numerous manufactories which produce many
millions per day of phosphorus matches; for instance, those of M. Pollak,
at Vienna, and of M. Fuerth, in Bohemia, consume together more than 20 tons
of phosphorus annually, and give employment to about 6,000 persons, and as
one pound of phosphorus suffices for about one million German matches (or
600,000 English ones), those two makers alone produce the astonishing
number of 44,800 millions of matches yearly.
Judging by means of the experience already acquired, we cannot reasonably
expect that {22} discoveries fraught with such momentous consequences as
those of magnetism or of galvanism and electro-magnetism, will be made very
often. The progress of scientific discovery is gradual; we have at present
but mere glimpses of the new world of truth which is being revealed to us
by means of research; we are only at the very commencement of a knowledge
of the inherent properties of matter and its forces, and consequently the
methods we employ to utilize them are extremely imperfect. Matter has a
general property of subdividing and transmuting forces; if we apply one
force to a substance or machine, it produces many effects, not only those
we want, but those also we do not want; when we heat a piece of iron, the
heat produces a number of changes, mechanical, electric, magnetic, and
chemical, and it is partly by means of what is termed the "internal
resistance" of bodies that these effects are produced, and we know but
little of that property. The explosive action in a gas engine produces not
only the mechanical force we desire, but also a quantity of heat we do not
want, and at a cost of a portion of the gas. In a similar manner, in the
steam-engine the largest portion of the heat of the coal is converted into
forces which are lost; a large amount of it is uselessly expended in
warming the machine itself and the surrounding atmosphere; much also is
lost by friction.
That "knowledge is power" is an old maxim, but that _new knowledge is new
power_ is a new maxim {23} which scientific discovery has impressed upon
us. By means of discoveries we have acquired new powers; by those of
electricity we have acquired the ability of conversing with each other at
unlimited distances, and by means of those in optics we are enabled to
analyse the composition, and perceive some of the physical changes of the
most distant heavenly bodies. As our ignorance is probably much greater
than our knowledge, more inventions also, and extensions of human power,
must ultimately result from discovering new qualities of bodies, than by
applying to useful purposes their already known properties.
Experience in science has already shown that it is by means of invention
based upon _new_ discoveries that the greatest utilities are obtained,
rather than by the exercise of invention upon knowledge acquired long ago.
The information obtained by research in former times has been largely
exhausted for the purposes of invention by modern inventors, and what we
very greatly require now is _new_ knowledge. Experience in science also
leads us to believe that the extent of possible discovery is as boundless
as Nature, and that an immense amount of new knowledge may yet be
discovered. Every discoverer of repute could supply a copious list of
investigations yet to be made.
An infinite number of questions in pure science remain to be decided by
means of research. Is Electricity decomposible like radiant heat or light?
{24} Are the "elementary substances" really compound bodies? Are they all
compounds of Hydrogen? Are they all decomposed by very high temperatures,
as compound substances are "disassociated" by less elevated temperatures?
Under what conditions is Fluorine isolated? Do gases transmit heat by
conduction? Under what circumstances is Light converted into Electricity?
and into Magnetism? What is the actual size of an atom of Hydrogen? Does
Light (without heat) expand bodies? What is the actual molecular
arrangement of the atoms of Hydrogen at 60 Fahrenheit? What is the cause of
the absence of metalloids in the Sun? What are the properties of Fluorine?
What is the vapour density of Caesium? Under what circumstances is heat
wholly converted into mechanical power? &c., &c. All these discoveries when
made, will probably, sooner or later, be productive of practical benefits
to mankind.
Nearly every manufacturer in this country is deriving, from scientific
discoveries, advantages for which there has been little or no payment made
to the discoverers. The makers of coal-tar-dyes, and dyers of wool and
silk, are using Mitscherlich's discovery of nitro-benzine. Manufacturers of
picric acid and "French purple" have enjoyed the fruits of the labours of
Dr. Stenhouse. Makers of chlorate of potash and cyanide of potassium are
profiting largely by the discoveries of Scheele, Gay-Lussac, and others.
All the percussion cap makers {25} are indebted to Howard and Brugnatelli
for fulminating silver. Railway-contractors, quarry-proprietors, and
others, use nitro-glycerine discovered by Sobrero. Iron smelters are
benefiting by the discovery of Bunsen, that 42 per cent. of the heat of the
fuel was lost as combustible gases--these gases are now utilized.
Telegraphists and electro-platers are also indebted to him for his voltaic
battery. The producers of metallic magnesium owe the origin of their
process to him as being the first to convert it into wire and make known
its great light giving power. Multitudes of persons now use his well-known
"Bunsen's burner" for heating, cooking, and other operations. The various
telegraph companies, copper smelters, and makers of copper telegraph wire,
are using Dr. Matthiessen's discovery of the influence of impurities on the
electric conducting power of copper. Phosphorus-makers are reaping the
reward of the labours of Gahn and Scheele. The makers of electro-plate and
German silver are deriving profits from the labours of Faraday, who
investigated electrolysis; of Gay Lussac, who discovered cyanogen; and of
Cronstedt, who discovered nickel. Makers of Bessemer steel enjoy advantages
derived from the spectrum discoveries of Kirchoff. Iron and copper
smelters, metallurgists in general, dyers, calico printers, bleachers,
brewers, makers of vinegar, red lead, varnishes, colours, soaps, green
vitriol, phosphorus, oil-of-vitriol, and many others, are deriving benefit
from the discoveries of Priestley and {26} Scheele. Physicians and their
patients are receiving the reward of the labours of Soubeiran, Liebig, and
Dumas, in the discovery of chloroform; of the researches of Fourcroy,
Vauquelin, Pelletier, and others, in the discovery of quinine; and of many
other chemists who discovered numerous remedial substances. By means of the
discoveries of Oersted and others, embodied in the telegraph, manufacturers
are enabled to anticipate the state of the markets and of the weather, and
editors are enabled to obtain the earliest news.
Suppose that Gay Lussac, in 1815, had not discovered cyanide of potassium,
and that it had never been discovered, it is highly probable that the
manufacturing returns of Birmingham and Sheffield would be much less in
amount at the present time than they are, simply because there is no other
known substance with which the electro-plating of base metals with gold and
silver can be satisfactorily effected. Or suppose that sal-ammoniac,
chloride of zinc, or other soldering agents had not been discovered, the
extensive and so-called "galvanizing" process could not have been effected,
because without those substances the iron articles immersed in the melted
zinc would not have received an adhesive metallic coating.
On the other hand, science has in various cases rendered obsolete some
manufactures and superseded old customs, comforts and conveniences. We have
ceased, or almost so, to use tinder-boxes, snuffers, {27} sulphur matches,
rush-lights, tallow candles, sedan chairs, stage coaches, the ancient
water-bucket and well, and even the comparatively modern pump; coal fires
also are gradually being superseded by fires of gas, and articles formed of
solid silver are now being replaced by those of electro-plate; canals have
also to some extent been supplanted by railways. But in all these cases
science has supplied us either with something better or more suited to our
present wants.
The great pecuniary benefits arising from the applications of science are
generally reaped in the first instance by the great manufacturers,
agriculturists, merchants, and capitalists. Countless fortunes have been
made by means of processes and manufactures based upon scientific
discovery. The pecuniary benefits of calico printing, bleaching, dyeing; of
the great manufactures of cotton, iron, pottery, beer, sugar, glass,
spirits, vinegar, gutta-percha, india-rubber, gun cotton, the numerous
metals, machinery, electro-plate, washing soda, German silver, brass,
phosphorus, manures, the common acids, numerous chemicals, and a multitude
of other substances and articles, have been extremely great. More than
eighteen hundred million pounds of sulphuric acid alone are manufactured in
Europe yearly. The pecuniary advantages of the use of the electric
telegraph and railways to merchants, the gains of capitalists by monies
invested in railways, telegraphs, steam-ships, cotton-mills, gas-works,
{28} iron shipbuilding, engineering, and other great applications of
science, have been enormous. The annual gas rental of London alone amounts
to more than two millions sterling; and even in Birmingham the produce of
gas is more than twenty-five hundred millions of cubic feet yearly. The
amount of capital expended in the construction of railways only in this
country, has been estimated at more than seven hundred millions of pounds,
and the total receipts upon British railways has reached forty-three
millions per annum. In the year 1875 our railways carried 200 million tons
of goods, and consumed ten million tons of coal; the Great Northern Railway
alone consumes 5,000 tons of coal each week. In the year 1877 there existed
in the entire world about 198,000 miles of railway, the whole having been
constructed since the year 1825. In the year 1880 six hundred millions of
journeys were made by passengers on British railways; and the stock of
those railways included 13,174 locomotives; 369,694 waggons, 28,717
passenger carriages, and 22,712 other vehicles. The London and
North-Western Railway Company alone possessed, in the year 1873, no less
than 1,900 locomotive engines, each of a value of nearly two thousand
pounds; 4,000 carriages and 36,000 waggons; and it has been estimated by
competent authorities, that there are in the world 200,000 steam-engines,
having a total power of twelve million horses, or 100 million men. The
number of cotton spindles on the whole Earth is {29} estimated at about 711/4
millions. In the United States of America there are about five thousand
telegraph stations, and 75,000 miles of line, which transmit yearly about
11,500,000 messages.--The telegrams of Great Britain number about
one-fourth of a million per week. The world's telegrams during the year
1877 numbered nearly 130 millions; and the world's letters about 3,300
millions, or 91/4 millions each day. Even the little phosphorus match is
being manufactured and consumed at a rate estimated at more than ten
thousand millions daily.
Much of the wealth of this country, resulting from science, has been very
easily obtained by its possessors. That acquired by means of our coal has
especially been obtained without commensurate effort. The amount of that
substance raised in Great Britain during the year 1876 was 734 millions of
tons. To draw upon a great stock of that mineral is like drawing money from
a bank, because coal, unlike any other abundant substance (except wood and
petroline), contains in itself an immense store of energy, which is evolved
as heat during combustion, and may be utilized. Each piece of coal contains
sufficient energy to lift its own weight twenty-three hundred miles, but it
costs only a small proportion of that power to extract and raise it from
the mine. I do not mean by these remarks to imply that the wealth accruing
from this great store of power in coal is derived chiefly by the owners of
coal mines. {30}
This acquisition of wealth without commensurate sacrifice is not an
unqualified advantage; it constitutes a debt to nature, which upon the
great principle of causation, and of equivalency of action and reaction,
must sooner or later be repaid. Judging from the infallibility of the
action of those laws, and the signs of the times, this nation is now
beginning to repay in the form of emigration of trade to other lands, and
of relatively less rapid national advance, the debt incurred by undue
pecuniary success. An excess of money or power obtained without equivalent
effort, fails to properly develop the intelligence of its possessors, and
nations have been hastened to ruin in this way. Our great success in
getting money has attracted many from the pursuit of knowledge, and our
love of knowledge has not increased as fast as our wealth. The wealth of
the upper classes has, by decoying from study undisciplined young men at
our old Universities, kept down the general standard of scientific
instruction throughout the country, and, by leading to neglect of
scientific research, is now retarding our progress in arts, manufactures,
commerce, and civilization. The consequent relative poverty of the working
classes is also producing similar effects by retarding education, and
contributing towards the great deficiency of skilled labour, of which our
inventors, manufacturers, and others so strongly complain in the working of
their scientific processes. Had a just share of the great amount of money,
gained by the application of science to useful {31} purposes, been applied
to the payment and maintenance of scientific discoverers and inventors, as
it should have been, the general standard of scientific education would
have been higher, the poor would have had more employment and money, and
the happiness and civilization of all would have been greater.
In a usual way the greatest pecuniary benefits, arising from science,
sooner or later go to enrich the possessors of land. The demand created for
coal, iron, lime, building-stone, and all the metals, by the industrial
applications of science, has greatly increased the value of land under
which those substances lie. The value of cultivated land has been
everywhere increased by the discoveries of agricultural chemistry. Land has
also been required for railways in nearly all parts of the kingdom, and has
thereby been considerably raised in value. Discoveries produce inventions,
inventions give rise to processes and manufactures, the employment of
workmen and others, and the erection of workshops and dwellings, and these
have rapidly increased the value of building ground. In Lancashire the
value of such ground has been greatly increased by the inventions of the
steam-engine and machinery, the discovery of chlorine, and their
application to cotton manufacture. In all the great manufacturing
districts, and in all the chief centres of industry, a similar result has
occurred. Wherever a railway has been constructed, the value of land has
also increased in {32} consequence of the increased facilities of
communication. All these great additions to the value of land are largely
due to the unpaid labours of scientific discoverers, and it may be said
that this nation has largely gained its wealth, and is still living in a
great degree on the products of those labours. Those great additions to the
value of land are also permanent, are continually increasing, and are
largely independent of any exertions on the part of the owners. That many
other influences, besides that of science, have contributed to the
development of our manufacturing and commercial prosperity is also true,
but it would be foreign to the subject of the present chapter to point them
out.
It is a fallacious argument to say that scientific discovery and increased
value of land are only remotely connected together, a cause as certainly
produces its effect, however many connections lie between them, provided
the connections are certain--the number of links in a chain makes no
difference in the transmission of motion from one end of it to the other.
Great causes are frequently distant and wide-spread in their effects.
Persons in general can easily understand that an acorn planted in the
ground will in the course of time become an oak, because it is a palpable
and visible effect; but they cannot so readily perceive that the benefits
resulting from a knowledge of science ramify through all our manufacturing,
artistic, and commercial occupations, our social and moral {33} relations,
and our every-day life, not because the dependence of our welfare upon
science is less real, but partly because the connection between the two is
less understood.
Not only has science benefited manufacturers, but also operatives, because
the extension of science to manufacturing purposes has compelled them to
make themselves acquainted with intellectual subjects. "Instead of
remaining mere machines, mechanically performing the work set before them,
they are obliged to exercise the faculties of observation and judgment in
watching the results and directing the action of mechanical, physical, and
chemical powers. Instead of following the blind path of experience, using
unknown forces to accomplish some definite result, they pursue their
labours with the aid of known and certain laws." It is true that in many
cases artisans who have acquired a little knowledge of science have thereby
been rendered conceited and unfit for their special employment, and this
has made many manufacturers object to technical scientific education for
their servants; but this would not be so much the case if scientific
knowledge were more generally and equally diffused. Arguments are not
unfrequently adduced to support the opinion that ignorance has its
advantages; but, however great the advantages of ignorance may be, those of
knowledge are greater.
In consequence of the labours of scientific discoverers and inventors, the
progress of science is {34} such that in a very few years a knowledge of it
will be indispensible to all persons engaged in superintending or carrying
out manufacturing operations, and in all arts, occupations and appointments
in which man is dealing with matter. Science is fast penetrating into all
our manufactures and occupations, and "those who are unscientific will have
much less employment and will be left behind in the race of life." England
also will be compelled, by the necessities of human progress and the
advance of foreign intellect, to determine and recognize the proper value
of scientific research as a basis of progress. National superiority can
only be maintained by being first in the race, and not by buying inventions
of other nations.
The philosophy of matter is the foundation of all manufacturing arts and
artistic processes; technical education, or the relation of science to
manufactures, &c., can only be properly imparted upon the basis of a
sufficient knowledge of theoretical science. Science tends to abbreviate
mental and bodily labour. The use of our reason saves us the labour of
using our senses, because it enables us to know that under certain
conditions a certain effect must occur. The use of our reason and senses
also saves us using our hands.
The properties of a single substance are so numerous that if a workman was
to thoroughly study the whole of them, he would become a scientific
authority in the subjects of heat, light, electricity, {35} magnetism, and
chemistry. A blacksmith who knew all the physical and chemical properties
and relations of iron and steel would be quite a scientific philosopher.
No man has more occasion to bless the introduction of the steam-engine,
machinery, the galvanic battery, and science in general, than the working
mechanic, because it has mitigated his physical toil by giving him the duty
of simply directing the labour instead of actually performing it; whilst it
has deprived him of one kind of employment it has provided him with
something better. But a few years ago the operatives in the silver-plating
trade had to lay the silver on the articles with their hands, with the aid
of a soldering iron; now they have simply to set their batteries in action
and watch the electricity doing it for them. In a similar manner the
working engineer at his metal-turning lathe has merely to direct the action
of his tools whilst the steam-engine performs the heavy labour of turning.
There is not a man in this kingdom who has not derived some advantage, in
one way or another, from scientific research. The advantages of gas light,
electric light, rapid postal service and transmission of goods, railway
travelling, steam-ships for navigation, cotton apparel, photography, cheap
pottery, improved medicine and surgery, telegraphic forecasts of weather,
Australian preserved meats, &c., &c., have been reaped more or less by
everyone, even the very paupers. Not only has travelling been {36}
considerably cheapened and immensely increased, but also rendered more
safe:--in travelling by diligence in France the average number of persons
injured was 1 to every 30,000 carried; and killed, 1 in every 335,000; but
by railway, notwithstanding the average length of the journey has greatly
increased, the former has been diminished to 1 in 580,000, and the latter
to one in five millions; safety in travelling by sea has also been greatly
increased by means of improved lighthouses. By the rapid transmission of
messages by telegraphs and of commodities by steam-ships and railways, the
horrors of famine have been largely diminished; the health of this nation
has also been improved by greater variety of foods, and the increasing cost
of meat has been restrained. It is well known that in periods of famine,
the great loss of life has arisen, not from universal scarcity of food, but
from the loss of time in ordering and conveying it. Whilst also the
steam-engine has been the means of relieving hundreds of thousands of men
from mere animal toil; it has, with the aid of the printing-press, supplied
them with cheap daily intelligence.
Science has also proved itself to be a great source of employment, as well
as wealth. By developing new processes it has given employment to whole
armies of workmen in numerous arts, manufactures, and occupations. Some of
those employments necessitating scientific training. About 300,000 persons
are employed on railways alone in Great {37} Britain, besides those who
were engaged in their construction; and in the postal department alone of
the telegraph service of this country more than fifteen thousand operatives
are employed. Chemical works also find employment for twenty-six thousand,
and gasworks for ten thousand work people. The telegraphs of the United
States of America alone, provide employment for about 7,000 persons; and
the railways of the world employ about 1,900,000 men.
It may be objected that the extension of science in this country, instead
of increasing employment for workmen has produced an opposite effect, by so
increasing the production of goods by machinery, and by physical and
chemical processes, that we have glutted the markets of the world in years
gone by, and are now suffering the results of over-production. This is a
very limited view of the case; over-production is only true of particular
manufactures, and is a result of ill-directed commercial energy, to which
manufacturing skill is only a servant. The objection also contains its own
reply;--that it is certainly much greater to our advantage to have supplied
other nations with manufactured commodities, than that other nations should
have supplied us, as they would have done had they the manufacturing skill.
At present, however, continental nations are gradually supplanting us in
manufactures; and gradually supplying us with the goods which we {38}
formerly supplied them, and our fear is that this is largely a result of
our neglect of science.
In many cases instead of superseding labour, science has changed its kind,
or its mode of distribution;--in the case of steam-ships, instead of
navigation being conducted entirely by nautical ability, it is partly
effected by the skill of the engineer; conveyance of goods by road and
canal has not been entirely supplanted, but partly supplemented by
conveyance by railways. The diminution of labour which sometimes occurs in
consequence of the progress of science is extremely small compared with its
increase. The number of waggoners and horses now employed, merely to
collect and deliver all the goods for railways, is actually much greater
than the whole of those employed for conveying all the goods of the country
before railways were constructed.
It would be altogether a false argument to say that the practical benefits
derived from the labour of scientific discoverers by the different classes
of the community are uncertain or imaginary, because the discoveries and
the practical benefits are not in all cases immediately connected. We know
that the consumers of tea in this country derive benefit from the grower of
that herb in China through the hands of a series of intervening agents, as
certainly as if they received the tea direct from his hands. Cause and
effect are inseparable, and the remote effect of a {39} series of connected
causes is not less certain than the immediate ones.
It is a remarkable fact, that of the multitude of rich manufacturers,
merchants, capitalists, and land-owners in this country, who have derived
such great pecuniary benefits from original scientific research, there is
scarcely one who has ever given to a scientific society, institution, or
investigator, a single thousand pounds for the aid of pure research in
experimental physics or chemistry;[4] the nearest approach to exceptions
are a very few wealthy persons who have devoted themselves personally to
scientific discovery. Manufacturers have willingly reaped the advantages of
the labours of unpaid discoverers, but have not adequately sowed the means
of future progress. Many of those manufacturers and others would, however,
willingly give money towards such an object if they understood the value
and the necessity of scientific research.
Whilst also many millions of pounds are annually expended in this country
upon religious, philanthropic and other good objects, there is scarcely a
scientific society or institution (with the exception of the Royal Society
and the British Association) which expends even the small sum of five
hundred pounds a year on pure experimental research in physics or {40}
chemistry. In the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the average annual
expenses relating to experimental research, including salaries to
assistants for research in the laboratory, from the year 1867 to 1871, did
not amount to two hundred and fifty pounds. On the other hand, the "total
net receipts" of the British and Foreign Bible Society alone, amount to
about L213,000 a year. These circumstances strongly indicate extreme
ignorance of the value and necessity of new scientific knowledge, and an
equally strong desire to aid any good object which is understood. The money
given to charitable and religious objects is largely a result of the unpaid
labours of scientific investigators in the manner already described. The
fact that verifiable truth is seriously neglected, whilst millions of
pounds are annually devoted in this country to the support of dogmas and
doctrines, proves that the English nation is even now in a very imperfectly
civilized state.
Considering the multiplicity and variety of philanthropic institutions and
bequests in this country, and the great effect original scientific research
has in ameliorating the condition of mankind, and reducing the amount of
human misery, it is surprising that no wealthy philanthropic individual has
bequeathed funds for the endowment of an institution for pure research in
physics or chemistry.[5] In {41} America, the Smithsonian Institution was
founded at Washington by benevolent and patriotic persons,[6] "for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," and one of the objects of
that institution is "to enlarge the existing stock of knowledge by the
addition of new truths," and a portion of its plan is "to stimulate men of
talent to make original researches by offering suitable rewards for memoirs
containing new truths," and "to appropriate annually a portion of the
income for particular researches."
What is the reason that scientific research is not sufficiently encouraged
in England? It is chiefly ignorance. There are very few good and important
subjects, understood by the public, which are not in this country greatly
assisted, nor many valuable public servants, whose labours are understood,
who do not receive liberal payment and reward; and scientific research and
discoverers therefore are neglected, not wilfully, nor because persons are
unwilling to encourage good objects, but because scientific discovery and
its great value to the nation are so little known. Scarcely a member of our
legislature, or of our Universities, is fully acquainted with the national
importance of scientific discovery,[7] and it {42} would probably be
impossible to find a subject of such great magnitude so little understood.
Comparatively few persons have clear ideas of the essential differences
between scientific instruction and research.