Project Gutenberg's The Scientific Basis of National Progress, by George Gore
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Title: The Scientific Basis of National Progress
Including that of Morality
Author: George Gore
Release Date: December 28, 2010 [EBook #34771]
Language: English
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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 Cæsar; 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 ærial 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 aërated 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 anæsthetics 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, cæsium, 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. Fürth, 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 Cæsium? 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 71¼
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 9¼ 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 £213,000 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.
Scientific research can only be successfully pursued by employing the
highest motive--viz., a love of truth in preference to all things; and this
is a condition which very few persons really understand, and a principle
which a still smaller number practise. Men in this country are so
accustomed to be actuated by the less noble motive of immediate
self-interest or of some apparent practical result, that they cannot
perceive that in scientific investigation the most valuable results can
only be obtained by employing the highest motive. However necessary and
effective the motive of immediate self-interest or of apparent practical
result may be in ordinary affairs of life, it will not enable a man to make
many discoveries, because it leads him away from those which are possible
to search for others which may or may not be possible. The beginning of
discoveries are often so very small, that it requires acute senses and
observation in order to perceive them; and if the mind is preoccupied with
a desire to discover some particular practical object, new phenomena are
overlooked. In discovery, man must follow where Nature leads.
Another cause of want of encouragement of research, is the natural
selfishness which exists, {43} though in very different degrees, in all
men. Many wealthy persons wish things to remain as they are. Some
manufacturers would not aid research unless they could monopolize its
advantages. Students also generally prefer those subjects which are best
rewarded, and do not sufficiently consider their intrinsic value. The love
of truth for truth's sake alone is very weak in most men, and but few men
make the greatest good their chief object in life.
The extreme ignorance in this country of the value of scientific research,
is also largely due to the narrowness of the "practical" character of the
English mind; men cannot perceive the deep-seated and universal sources of
their wealth, and they prefer those occupations which yield the most
obviously remunerative results. It is also partly due to scientific
investigators themselves not having pleaded their own cause; such men have
been so absorbed in the more important occupation of discovery, that they
have, probably more than any other class of persons, neglected to enforce
the just claims of their own subject. It is, however, chiefly caused by the
influence of misapplied wealth, operating through the old Universities and
large public schools. The sons of the wealthy are most of them educated at
those institutions, and according to evidence supplied by University
authorities to Royal Commissioners, many persons send their sons to those
places for other purposes than to acquire learning, and allow them too much
money. The considerable wealth of {44} these young men supplies them with
attractions which decoy them from industrious study, and the wishes of the
parents and students have been largely acquiesced in by the tutors and
college authorities. At our old Universities also, physical and chemical
knowledge is very much less rewarded than some other subjects, though
latterly a considerable improvement has been made in this respect, but even
now there is not a University in the kingdom in which a knowledge in
scientific research is necessary in order to obtain the highest scientific
honour.[8] In these various ways physical and chemical science has been
kept very low in our chief seats of learning; and scientific research is
greatly neglected by the governing authorities.
It is reasonable to suppose that Universities should be fountains of new
theoretical scientific knowledge, as well as be the disseminators of it,
and that they (especially the old ones with their rich endowments) would be
certain to promote scientific research, as being especially a part of their
functions; but such is not the case. Our old Universities have not
established any professorships of original research; they make no payment
for such labour, nor reimburse any expenditure incurred in such occupation,
and afford but little facility for the prosecution of pure scientific
inquiry. Further, they discourage scientific discovery by giving the
greatest emoluments, and the {45} highest honours in science they have to
bestow, to young men who have never made a single original research, or
discovered a new fact in science. The money paid in the form of
comparatively sinecure fellowships, or retiring pensions to young men in
Oxford alone, "now amounts to about eighty or ninety thousand pounds a
year." It may be objected that young men are not capable of doing original
research, but as they do it in German Universities, they can also do it in
England, if they are properly disciplined, and are not decoyed from
industry by the possession or expectation of wealth. A man who has never
made a scientific research is not the most worthy recipient of the highest
scientific honours, and in Germany it would not be given to him; he is not
properly disciplined in the detection of error or the discernment of truth
in matters of science; he is deficient in accuracy of scientific judgment,
and in the true spirit of scientific inquiry.
It is unnecessary to speak of what has been done during the last few years
at our old Universities and great public schools, in the erection of
laboratories, and in other ways for the promotion of science, because it
has been for the purposes of instruction, and not of original research. No
amount of ordinary instruction in science will remedy the evils caused by
want of original inquiry, because such instruction does not produce new
knowledge, but only disseminates that already possessed. {46}
Many persons in this country think that all scientific men are
investigators, and that a portion of the funds of scientific institutions
generally are expended upon investigation, but such is rarely the case.
Many also consider that those scientific men who are applying new knowledge
are discovering new truths. And nearly all persons look upon inventors as
the only really practical scientific men, and upon discoverers as
unpractical enthusiasts who spend their lives in pursuit of vague theories.
But whilst the inventor is a great and useful agent of civilization, there
is one behind him who is greater than he, viz., the man who provides him
with the new knowledge upon which all his inventions must be based.
The general aspect in which scientific research is viewed by many persons
in this country, is that of a refined intellectual pursuit, which may be
encouraged and honoured for the purpose of maintaining the tone of society.
The question, however, is not whether this nation shall encourage research
as a refined intellectual occupation, but whether it will contribute
towards its own welfare by aiding scientific discovery.
Many persons also look upon scientific research as a hobby or as
unpractical, and upon discoverers as mere accumulators of knowledge, but
this is simply in consequence of their ignorance of the subject; if
discoveries were commercial commodities, the practical character of
research would be within their {47} comprehension. A man who discovers
knowledge for the use of invention is quite as practical a person as he who
converts that knowledge into inventions fit for practical uses. The men who
thus lead practical men must be practical themselves. Scientific
discoverers may be considered the most practical men in existence, because
their labours give rise to greater and more numerous practical results than
those of any other persons. The discovery of a single substance, such as
oil-of-vitriol, or washing-soda, has led to the formation of many valuable
inventions, patented or otherwise, and to the establishment of thousands of
manufactories. It is well known also that scientific discoverers are ardent
lovers of truth, and are therefore very willing to communicate their
knowledge for the good of mankind, and that manufacturers, men of business,
and others, not unfrequently obtain from them and from their published
researches, information of great value to themselves without even expecting
to pay for it; forgetting that a scientific man may communicate in a
passing remark, information which cost him years of labour to obtain.
Some persons also think that science is changeable and uncertain--that the
discoveries of one generation are disproved by those of another, because
they occasionally see scientific theories altered and superseded. But the
real truth of the case is that the changes in the aspect of science which
we continually witness do not often result from _alterations_ in our {48}
stock of positive knowledge, but from _additions_ made to it. Demonstrable
truth is imperishable. It is true that many theories have been invented and
entertained for a while in the minds of scientific men, and have then
passed away, but we must remember that these are only the scaffolding of
science, and no part of its real fabric. They consist of ideas which,
whilst they assist us in understanding science, and in making discoveries,
form no real part of our positive knowledge.
Other persons seem to think that the laws of matter are different in the
laboratory from what they are in the workshop; that the principles which
regulate a scientific experiment are different from those which govern a
large manufacturing process; but this is a wrong idea. The laws of matter
are universal, substances have nearly the same properties in all places and
in the hands of all men; water boils at the same temperature whether in the
retort of a chemist, the saucepan of a kitchenmaid, or the pan of a
soap-boiler; iron wire is as readily deprived of its rust in a chemist's
acid bottle as in a wire-drawer's pickling tub; a piece of phosphorus will
as readily ignite in the hands of a chemist as in those of a match maker; a
galvanic battery yields the same quantity of electricity whether it be in
the hands of an experimentalist or in those of a working electro-plater.
It is true that many things which have appeared very promising in theory or
in experiment, have {49} failed altogether in practice, but why is this? it
is not that the principles of nature operated in the one case and did not
operate in the other, but that we have imperfectly understood them, that
from some unforeseen circumstances we have been unable to apply them; or
that we have indolently abandoned them without sufficient or proper trial.
In many cases we are unable to obtain the same conditions of success upon
the large scale that we have upon the small one. In other cases a process
fails because of its too great expense; many attempts have been made to
supersede steam as a motive power by means of electro-magnetism, and
engines driven by that force have been constructed of five or ten
horse-power, but the cost of driving them has been found to be at least ten
times the amount of that of the steam-engine of equal strength. And in
other cases we fail because we attempt _at once_ to carry out upon a large
scale that which has only been the subject of limited experiment, instead
of enlarging the process by small degrees, and adapting the apparatus, the
materials and the treatment, to the size of the operation.
That also which appears very simple in the hands of an experimentalist,
almost invariably becomes much more complex when carried into practice in a
manufactory, simply because there is then a greater number of conditions to
be fulfilled. Electro-plating a piece of steel with silver is to a chemist
a very simple matter, because it is of no importance to him {50} whether
the silver adheres firmly, is of good colour, or is deposited at a certain
cost; but with a _manufacturer_ unless _all_ these conditions are
fulfilled, the process is a failure. These matters, however, belong to
invention and not to original discovery.
We should not condemn theoretical science because we are not able, even
with fair and persevering trial, to apply it to any useful purpose, but
wait patiently until circumstances ripen for its application. Many
inventions which are inapplicable in one state of knowledge become
applicable by the progress of scientific research. The idea of an electric
telegraph, attempted by Mr. Ronalds, in the year 1816, with the aid of
frictional electricity, had to wait the development of the galvanic battery
and the discovery of electro-magnetism before it could be successfully
applied.
Many manufacturers seem to think that because some of their operations are
completely routine, and have been handed down to them by their predecessors
in nearly their present state, they are not at all indebted to science; but
there is no manufacture, especially among metals, which has not in some
degree been aided by scientific discovery.
In addition to the great benefits accruing from original research to all
classes of society, our Governments have also derived immense advantages
from the same source. The revenues have been greatly increased by the
universal advantages conferred upon all kinds of industry and commerce by
{51} scientific knowledge. The additional taxes upon increased incomes from
agriculture, arts, manufactures, mines; increased value of land and rents;
investments in railway, telegraph, steam-ship and other companies, have
been extremely great. From the sale of patents alone, a surplus sum of
nearly six hundred thousand pounds has already accumulated. Our Governments
are also indebted to original research for the use of percussion-powder,
gun-cotton, improvements in cannon, projectiles, rifles, armour-plated
ships, the ocean telegraph, field telegraph, the telephone, rapid postal
communication, the speedy transport of troops and war-material, and a
multitude of other advantages. The value of science to Governments in the
prevention of war by means of more ready correspondence through telegraph
is incalculable. Mr. Sumner, of America, at the period when the Atlantic
telegraph was first employed, stated that the use of that telegraph averted
a probable rupture between Great Britain and America. There was a period
when we did not possess such evidence of the great value of science; but
that time has now passed away, and our governing men have had abundant
proof of the national importance of scientific discovery, and of the
essential dependence of the welfare of this country upon scientific
research.
Whilst vast sums of money are spent upon the applications of science in
military and naval affairs, research itself is neglected; the
superstructure is {52} attended to, but the foundations are left to decay.
A very small proportion of the money which is expended upon military
affairs would, if devoted to research, save a great deal of expense in
warfare:--
"Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,--
Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts."--LONGFELLOW.
Our Government has as yet made but little payment for the labour of pure
research in experimental physics or chemistry; it has, however, given four
thousand pounds a year for five years to be distributed by the Royal
Society among scientific investigators, partly as personal payment. Income
tax is deducted from these grants.
Want of recognition of the value of science has been so general in this
country, that it is quite pleasing to quote a somewhat different case from
the _Illustrated London News_, January 4th, 1873, viz., that of the late
Archibald Smith, L.L.D., F.R.S. That gentleman was an investigator in pure
mathematical science, and devoted the latter part of his life to the
_application_ of mathematics in the computation, reduction, and discussion
of the deviation of the mariners' compass in wooden and in iron ships, and
made practical deductions therefrom in the construction of those vessels.
He published those practical applications of his scientific knowledge in
the form of an Admiralty Manual, which was afterwards reprinted in various
languages. Her Majesty's Government {53} subsequently "requested his
acceptance of a gift of two thousand pounds, not as a reward, but as a mark
of appreciation of the value of his researches, and of the influence they
were exercising on the maritime interests of England and the world at
large." The kind of labour rewarded in this case was not scientific
discovery, but the practical application of previously existing scientific
knowledge.
The case of the late Dr. Stenhouse, F.R.S., is one of rather an opposite
kind. That gentleman devoted his life throughout to pure investigations in
organic chemistry, and published several of his researches in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[9] His discoveries are
very numerous, and although not much applied to practical uses by himself,
the result of his researches on Lichens, and the yellow gum of Botany Bay,
have been applied extensively by other persons in the manufacture of
"French purple" and picric acid, and will doubtless continue to be applied
to valuable uses. He held the Government appointment of Assayer to the
Royal Mint, London, an office for several years unprofitable to him, but of
increasing remunerative value, and which would have been subsequently worth
£1,200 a year; but after the decease of his colleague, Dr. Miller, in 1870,
that office, which was then worth to him about £600 a year, was abolished
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he lost the {54} appointment,
receiving, however, £500 as compensation. An application was therefore made
to the Government, and a partial recompense to him was obtained, by Her
Majesty granting him one hundred pounds a year "for eminence in chemical
attainments, and on account of loss by suppression of office in the Mint."
The only difference in these two instances, was, that in the second there
was a very much greater amount of pure research and discovery, and a much
smaller degree of applied knowledge.
These instances illustrate the statement, that however great an amount of
valuable knowledge in pure science a man may discover and publish, or
however freely he may provide others with the materials of invention and
wealth, if he never invents anything, nor applies his knowledge to useful
purposes, he is usually less rewarded even than an inventor. "The more
intrinsically valuable the labour, and the greater the degree of profound
original thought required to direct it, the less is it usually appreciated
by the governing men of a nation." Absorbed in exciting questions relating
to political emergencies, and national matters requiring immediate
attention, even men of great administrative ability fail to appreciate the
less direct though more fundamental sources of a nation's happiness and
wealth. In harmony with these instances also, we find that it is not the
pure sciences, but the concrete and applied ones, such as meteorology,
geology, natural history, &c., in the Meteorological Department, the {55}
Geological Survey, the British and South Kensington Museums, the Geological
Museum, &c., and the National Gallery of Art, which have received the
greatest degree of support from our Governments.
That discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members
of the community is quite clear; either a physician, a judge, divine,
lawyer, or railway superintendent of high ability, obtain from one to many
thousand pounds a year, but a discoverer in pure physics or chemistry is,
in scarcely any case, paid anything for his labour. That most eminent
discoverer, Faraday, received for his scientific lectures at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, only £200 a year and apartments, during many
years, and absolutely nothing for his great discoveries; and during the
remainder of his life he only received a few hundred pounds per annum,
including a pension of £300 pounds a year from Government. In contrast with
this, the general manager of the Midland Railway has £4,000 a year. A
General of our army receives £2,000, and a Field Marshal £4,000 a year (See
"Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 121 and 138). A Head Master of either of
the great public schools obtains from £3,000 a year upwards. An Archbishop
of Canterbury receives £15,000 a year, besides a great amount of influence
and power in the form of patronage to 183 livings, a palatial residence,
and a seat in the House of Peers. A Bishop of London has £10,000, the
patronage of 98 livings, and a seat in the House of Lords. I do not, {56}
however, mean to imply that these large emoluments are not deserved. Whilst
also there are nearly 13,000 church benefices in England (See the "Clergy
List," also "Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 153 and 155, and "Walford's
County Families," 1872, pp. 173 and 610), there is scarcely a single
appointment entirely devoted to scientific discovery, nor a single
professorship in original research in science. I leave my readers to judge
to what extent these instances illustrate the statement that discoverers
are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members of the community.
Partly in consequence of the foregoing neglect, the proportion of persons
wholly devoted to scientific research in this country probably does not
much exceed one in one million of the population.
It is scarcely credible that in a wealthy and civilized country, whilst the
non-productive classes are protected in the enjoyment of titles and
material wealth which in many cases they have not earned, the greatest
scientific benefactors of the nation are constrained to live in straitened
circumstances whilst working for the pecuniary and other advantages of
those classes, and of manufacturers, capitalists, land-owners, and the
nation in general. By these remarks it is not intended to imply that
discoverers are intentionally neglected; but that the injustice they suffer
is a disgrace to this country, and reflects discredit upon the governing
classes, and especially upon those who reap the greatest advantage. {57}
The men who are rewarded highly in this country are not always those who
yield the greatest service to the nation, but frequently those who render
the most immediate or most apparent benefit; to stop short at this cannot
produce the greatest degree of success. The national services of a great
discoverer are probably not equalled by those of any man. Who can estimate
the value of the commercial, social, moral, political, and other great
advantages to the world, of Oersted's discovery of the principle of
electro-magnetism, which enabled the invention of the electric telegraph to
be made? The men we reward the highest are not those who discover
knowledge, but those who use or apply it; physicians, judges, bishops,
lawyers, railway managers, military and naval officers, and head masters of
schools, all of them gentlemen who render great services to the nation, by
using, diffusing, and applying knowledge already possessed.
It requires less rare ability to apply knowledge to new purposes by means
of invention, than to discover it; it is still less difficult to diffuse it
by means of tuition and lectures, because the labours of a teacher consist
largely of a repitition of other men's discoveries and inventions; and to
use scientific knowledge in the ordinary business of every-day life,
requires a still more common degree of ability.
A chief reason why ordinary business capacity is paid for whilst original
research is not, is the fact that research is not considered a necessity;
many {58} persons do not perceive its immense future value. Men perform
those duties first which they feel they must: they are also willing to pay
for the performance of those duties which press most urgently upon them,
and defer all other kinds of labour that they consider will bear
postponement. Most men act upon this rule, until they acquire a habit of
sacrificing the future to the present, of neglecting more important matters
in order to attend to less, and of living too much for money, without
sufficient regard for the more valuable condition, viz., individual and
national improvement. These circumstances also largely explain the fact
that it requires more pressure to induce individuals or governing bodies to
aid original research than to assist any other good object. Other chief
reasons why persons in general cannot perceive the great practical value of
new scientific truth are, because the perception of it requires a
scientifically trained mind. The greatest truths are frequently the least
obvious, and are therefore valued the least.
It may be objected that research is not aided, because it sometimes takes a
long time to acquire a practical shape and make it pay. We do not omit to
plant an acorn because it requires many years to become an oak; we do not
neglect to rear a child because he may not live to become a man; but we
leave scientific discovery to take care of itself. The intense desire which
exists in this country for "quick returns" has shewn itself in the much
greater readiness to aid technical education than to promote {59} permanent
progress by means of original research. But the discoveries made in such a
place as the Royal Institution of Great Britain have had a vastly greater
beneficial effect upon civilization than that of any technical institution
which has ever existed.
In a letter received by me from the Duke of Somerset, and which I have
permission to publish, the true state of things in this country in relation
to pure research is stated with remarkable accuracy and brevity:--
"The hindrances to scientific studies in this country are very many. The
gentry are almost invariably educated by the clergy, and the clergy have
seldom had time or opportunities for any scientific study. They usually
take pupils or become tutors as soon as they have taken their degrees, and
can only teach the Latin and Greek which they have themselves learned. The
commercial classes value what they call practical science; this means some
application of science for the purpose of making money. Competitive
examinations may promote a superficial acquaintance with the elements of
science, but are unfavourable to the development of scientific culture. The
scientific associations tend to degrade science by exhibiting scientific
men as candidates for applause from assemblies which seek amusement and
startling results from lectures and experiments. The advancement of
science, is therefore, left to comparatively few men, who are unregarded
and unrewarded." {60}
To remedy this state of things we require a general encouragement of pure
scientific inquiry by the State and Universities. It is thought by some
persons who have given special attention to the subject, that the State
ought to encourage such research and science in general, by appointing a
Minister of Science possessing scientific knowledge and good administrative
ability; a Scientific Council to advise our Governments in all important
matters relating to science; and by establishing State laboratories for
pure scientific inquiry, with discoverers of repute in them wholly engaged
in research in their respective subjects.
There are also many new experiments, investigations, and explorations,
which neither private individuals, nor even corporate bodies, such as the
Royal Society, the British Association, Geographical Society, can
effectually make, and which only a Government can carry out, such as Arctic
expeditions, trigonometrical surveys, deep sea dredging operations,
magnetic observations, determinations of longitude, meteorological and
astronomical observations, researches on tides, observations of
earthquakes, determinations of the height of mountains and the density of
the crust of the earth, experiments on the best form of ships, geographical
explorations, and many others.
It is clear from the enormous advantages which this nation has already
derived from scientific discovery in physics and chemistry, pursued with
only {61} the aid of the very limited means of private persons, that had
research in those subjects been sufficiently supported, the manufactures,
arts, commerce, wealth, and civilization of this country would have been
much greater than they are; emigration also of the industrious classes,
disease, pauperism, crime, the evil effects of famine, etc., would have
been much less. The amount of knowledge and riches obtainable by means of
research and invention is practically unlimited, and it is astonishing that
this immense source of industry and wealth in a nation should have been so
neglected by our Governments. The practical value of new scientific
knowledge is vastly greater than that of all our goldfields or even of our
coal supply, because it would not only enable us to obtain from coal
several times the amount of available heat and mechanical power we now
secure, but also to apply to our wants the numerous other materials
composing the crust of our globe and the contents of our oceans; also all
terrestrial forces, the internal heat, the tidal energy and atmospheric
currents, and the immense amount of power this Earth is continually
receiving from the Sun. Whilst at present vast amounts of materials and
energy remain unutilized, nearly all those terrestrial substances and
forces might probably be rendered of service to us if we possessed
sufficient knowledge.
That scientific research is a far greater source of wealth and wellbeing
than our stores of coal is easily proved. At present we obtain in our best
{62} steam-engines only about one-seventh (or less) of the mechanical power
producible by the combustion of the coal, the remainder being lost in
various ways. And this occurs simply because we have not yet discovered a
method of wholly converting heat into mechanical power. In some other
instances we are able to convert one force wholly into another without
loss, as for example: the chemical action of a voltaic cell into
electricity; and by means of research we shall probably be enabled to
effect a similar complete conversion of other powers into each other. The
effect of converting heat wholly into mechanical power would be equal to
increasing our stock of coals for that purpose to seven times its present
amount. This instance is only one of the many thousand possible ways in
which research may yet prove of value to mankind.
It is true that a very large amount of original research in physics and
chemistry has been done in this country; the contents of our scientific
journals and of the publications of our various Learned Societies prove
this. It is also true that the English nation has been pre-eminently active
in applying scientific knowledge to practical uses by means of inventions,
and has been generally the first in carrying out inventions on a large
scale. We have been either the first, or nearly so, in developing
steam-engines, railways, locomotives, rapid trains, gas works, flour mills,
blast-furnaces, cotton machinery, cheap postage, light-houses,
electro-plating, lucifer-matches, {63} electric-telegraphs, submarine
electric cables, great engineering establishments, iron ship-building, and
many other important enterprises. Three out of four of all the great ocean
steamers, and three-fourths of all the locomotives of the world were
constructed in this country.[10] By means of our enterprise and capital
also, the first railways, telegraphs, gas works, cotton mills, modern water
works, suspension bridges, water wheels, harbours, lighthouses, &c., &c.,
in nearly all parts of the world were constructed; and foreign nations have
been inducted into the practical methods of working our great manufacturing
and technical applications of science.
By means of English enterprise and skill the cities of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Altona, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Cologne,
Frankfort-on-Maine, Ghent, Haarlem, Hanover, Lille, Rotterdam, Stolberg,
Toulouse, Vienna, and others were lighted with gas. We formed Water
Companies or Waterworks in Amsterdam, Berlin, and other cities, and drained
Naples. We utilized the falls of the Rhone at Bellegarde, and thus obtained
10,000 horse-power for the use of the French manufacturers. We also sent
the first steam-boat to Coblentz in 1817, and the first to America. We laid
the first Atlantic cables. And as a general truth, we have been foremost in
invention, application and enterprise.
{64}
Recent International Exhibitions however, and the migration of various
branches of our trade to the Continent and America, have shown that the
degree of our relative superiority in manufacturing skill is diminishing.
Other nations, especially the German and American, perceiving the
dependence of invention upon research, and the enormous pecuniary and other
advantages gained by us, by the application of scientific knowledge to
manufacturing and other purposes, have within the last few years aroused
themselves, and are now pursuing pure science much more energetically than
ourselves. A few years ago the relative number of original researches made
per annum in England, France, and Germany were in the proportion 127, 245,
and 777. Many of those made in Germany were valuable ones, and were made by
Students in order to obtain a degree. Other nations are rapidly gaining
upon us in the application of science to industrial purposes, and have even
surpassed us in the extent of some of their manufacturing and technical
operations. Many persons who have visited Europe and America at intervals
during the last twenty years have testified to this.
The Vielle Montagne Zinc Company in Belgium employ 6,500 workmen, and
produce annually 32,000 tons of zinc. The John Cockerill Company,
engine-builders, Seraing, near Liege, employ nearly 8,000 men. Krupp, the
great engineer at Essen, near Dusseldorf, employs about 10,000 workmen; his
works at Essen alone cover 450 acres, and 1,000 tons {65} of coal are
consumed in them daily. The Anzin Company (Valenciennes) "is the largest
coal company in the world, producing no less than 1,200,000 tons per annum,
and employs 8,000 hands." The Chatillon and Commentry Iron and Coal Company
(France), produce annually from 300,000 to 350,000 tons of coal and coke,
nearly 70,000 tons of iron and steel, and employ nearly 9,000 workmen. At
the Creuzot Ironworks (France), "the mineral concessions cover an area of
nearly six square miles, the coal-fields nearly twenty-five square miles,
the building 296 acres. There are nearly forty-five miles of railway
between various parts of the works, upon which are generally running
sixteen locomotives. The galleries in the mines are more than twenty miles
long." 10,000 persons are employed in the works and the annual amount of
wages paid equals £400,000.[11]
Our practice with regard to original science has been very different from
the plan carried out in Germany. Within the last few years great
laboratories have been erected in Berlin, Leipzig, Aix la Chapelle, Bonn,
Carlsruhe, Stuttgardt, and other places, at the expense of the State, and
special provision has been made in them for original scientific research. A
glance at the frequently published list of scientific investigations made
in different countries will shew us that the Germans have been making a far
greater number of discoveries in science than ourselves.
Sir R. B. C. Brodie, Professor of Chemistry at {66} Oxford, speaking of his
experience when a student at Geissen, in Germany, states: "I say that the
enthusiasm and earnestness of the young men in the laboratory was quite
unparalleled in my experience at Oxford. The dilettante sort of way in
which things go on there is very inferior indeed to the way the German
students study. At Heidelberg, I have been told, there are about eighty
professors, and amongst those professors are some of the most eminent men
in Europe, so that they have a staff quite unsurpassed."
The industry of the Germans in scientific research is quite remarkable,
they are availing themselves of the great fountain of knowledge to a much
greater extent than ourselves, and are already beginning to reap the
reward. Within the last few years they have succeeded, by means of
researches, in making alizarine, the colouring principle of madder.
"England produces immense quantities of benzene, the greatest part of which
goes to Germany, there to be converted into aniline dyes, a considerable
quantity of which goes back to England. No other country is so far advanced
in the manufacture of the coal-tar colours as Germany. The quantity of
alizarine manufactured by the German makers far surpasses the English
production." (See "Alizarine, Natural and Artificial," by F. Versmann, New
York, 1873). Statements of this kind are frequently published, and made by
our manufacturers and others, of the departure of branch after branch of
our manufactures to the Continent, and of continually increasing
importation of foreign-made articles. {67}
Some persons, having become aware of the cosmopolitan nature of scientific
research, have suggested that it is a matter of no importance to us as a
nation whether we make researches or not, as foreigners would make them,
and we could apply them. But no honourable man would, after reflection,
seriously maintain such a proposition, because it implies a willingness to
obtain from the labours of other persons, advantages without paying for
them. It is partly this absence of a desire to pay for the labour of
investigation, which is now damaging the manufacturing and commercial
prosperity of this country. It is also certain that however much we may
have hitherto succeeded commercially, without making payment for research,
we should have succeeded much better had we properly assisted investigators
in pure science. Our success has hitherto been obtained, not in
consequence, but in spite of the disadvantageous circumstances under which
discoverers have laboured.
The commercial argument in favour of encouraging research, although the
most effective with the great mass of persons, and therefore much dwelt
upon in this chapter, is however quite a secondary one; the encouragement
of truth for the sake of its own intrinsic worth, in preference to the
material or extrinsic value of its results, should be the foundation of all
aid to discovery. Justice, also, ought to come before all minor
considerations, and no upright man would wish for a moment that anyone, and
much less the greatest scientific intellects in the country, should work
for his benefit without being remunerated. {68}
It has been objected that Continental nations, the Germans in particular,
have pirated our patents, infringed our designs, imitated our labels, used
our names, and taken our improvements wholesale, and this may be true. But
we still have had by far the largest portion of the reward of our greater
energy and inventive skill; we have had the great advantage of being first
in the markets of the world; and that advantage can only be retained by our
being the first in the pursuit of original research, as we have so long
been in the application of science to industrial arts, and not by
purchasing foreign inventions, nor by accepting gifts of unrecompensed
researches.
Nations as well as individuals are apt to push to an extreme the means by
which they have succeeded in gaining either riches or power. We have
devoted ourselves relatively too much to the pursuit of money and too
little to the pursuit of knowledge. The desire for wealth is in this
country so great, that probably nothing but a loss of that wealth will ever
make us properly encourage the pursuit of new knowledge.
Whilst research is being neglected, manufacturers and others in all
directions are asking for improvements in their machines and processes;
employers of steam engines want to obtain more power from the coals; makers
of washing soda wish to recover their lost sulphur; copper smelters, want
to utilize the copper smoke; glass makers wish to prevent bad colour in
their glass; iron puddlers want to economise heat; gas companies are
desirous of diminishing the {69} leakage of gas; iron smelters wish to
avoid the evil effects of impurities in the iron; manufacturers in general
want to utilise their waste products and prevent their polluting our
streams and atmosphere; and so on without end. And inventors are
continually trying to supply these demands, by exercising their skill in
every possible way, with the aid of scientific information contained in
books; but after putting manufacturers and themselves to great expense,
they very frequently fail, not always through want of inventive skill, but
often through want of _new_ knowledge attainable only by means of pure
research. Judging from the vast amount of inventive skill already expended
upon the steam engine, and the small proportion of available mechanical
power yet obtained from the coals consumed in it, it is highly probable
that a machine for completely converting heat into mechanical force cannot
be invented until more scientific knowledge is discovered.
It must not be supposed from these remarks, that discoveries which will
enable a man to make any particular invention, can be produced to order;
that is only true to a very limited extent. Men are beggars of nature, and
must not expect to be permitted to choose her gifts, or dictate what
secrets shall be disclosed. We may however be certain that if we acquire a
very much greater supply of new scientific knowledge, we shall then be able
to perfect many good inventions, though not always of the kind we wish, or
in the way we expect. The great sewage question {70} may perhaps be solved
in quite an unexpected way, possibly by the discovery of some substance
capable of precipitating ammonia and organic matter from their solutions.
Nearly all our manufacturing processes are full of imperfections; thus the
loss of gas by a single large provincial gas company, after that substance
has left the works, amounts to nearly one hundred and fifty millions of
cubic feet per annum, and to a value of about £18,000; and the soil of all
our large cities and towns is permeated and rendered foetid by coal gas.
And it has been stated by an eminent authority in such matters that we
might save 500,000 tons of coal a year by economizing the waste heat of
furnaces, by purifying the coal, coking it, etc. In a single chemical
manufactory, out of about two thousand tons of hydrochloric acid used per
annum, about eight hundred tons have been allowed to flow away as a
polluting substance, because it was not possible to utilise it. The loss of
material from a single large glass works equals fourteen hundred tons per
annum, and a value of £8,000. Similar grave defects might be pointed out in
nearly all our large manufactures, by those acquainted with the subject.
Inventions are wanted for quickening the process of vinegar making, and
diminishing the percentage of loss of the acid. For bleaching discoloured
fats. For quickening the process of converting cast iron into malleable
iron. To easily separate nitrogen from the oxygen of the atmosphere. To
economically convert {71} the nitrogen of the air into valuable products,
such as nitric acid and ammonia. To find uses for the immense quantities of
minerals which abound all over the earth; to utilise wolfram and find
applications for tungstic acid; to apply titanic acid to great industrial
purposes; to produce aluminium on the large scale, as we now produce iron.
To tan leather more quickly, and without detriment to its quality. To
prevent the rusting of iron. To more perfectly prevent smoke. To collect
and use the sulphuric acid of the salt cake consumed in the glass
manufacture. To make window glass by means of common salt. To deodorise
offensive substances. To find larger uses for phosphorus, sodium,
magnesium, and common salt. To remove phosphorus and sulphur from iron
ores, and sulphur from coal and coke. To obtain a good white alloy as a
cheaper substitute for German silver. To convert white phosphorus into the
red variety by a less dangerous process than the present one. To prevent
the putrefaction of "peltries" in glue making. To obtain better and cheaper
materials for colouring glass. To more perfectly prevent animal food from
change. To obviate or prevent explosions in mines. To perfectly purify
ordinary red lead for making flint glass. A cheaper process for converting
common salt into washing soda; and so on without end.
We also very badly require a method of recording our thoughts in readable
forms upon paper, without the slow and laborious process of writing. An
incalculable amount of brains and of intellect, especially of {72} the
greatest thinkers, would be saved by such a discovery. The curative arts
also are permeated with empiricism, and thousands of lives of persons of
all classes of society, are annually lost in this country through want of a
more perfect scientific basis of medicine, attainable only by means of
experiment and observation.
In this country, such great practical results have been obtained by means
of invention, that many persons suppose a sufficiency of inventive skill
will enable us to effect every possible scientific object, and are
surprised that no one can invent a plan of utilising the entire heat of
coals, or a mode of overcoming the sewage difficulty, or prevent the great
leakage of coal gas, or arrest epidemics, or produce a steam engine which
shall work without waste of power. The progress of invention however
depends upon that of discovery, and these various inventions, etc., wanted
by manufacturers and others probably cannot be perfected until suitable
_new_ knowledge is found. Every new invention has its own appropriate
discoveries, by means of which alone it can be perfected; it was not
possible to perfect the idea of an electric telegraph before the
discoveries of Volta and Oersted were made. According to scientific laws,
out of everything proceeds everything, and out of nothing, nothing can
come, even ideas are not created. An unlimited number of inventions cannot
be made by means of a limited amount of scientific knowledge; and our
present stock of such information applicable to {73} invention, is very
insufficient. One great reason why only a small portion of patents are of
practical value; and so many useless ones are taken out is, that in
consequence of our so-called "practical" spirit, we overestimate the power
of invention and under-value the discovery of new abstract truths; because
also invention has done so much, we think it will continue to do so, but
the latter depends upon a continued supply of discoveries.
Nearly every manufacturer is aware by painful experience of the great and
almost incessant variation that occurs in the quality and properties of the
materials used in his trade, and the frequent risk of failure of his
process. In the manufacture of iron, for example, the presence of much
phosphorus, sulphur, or silicon in the ore is liable to be very detrimental
to the quality of the iron produced from it; in the manufacture of glass,
the least quantity of iron in the materials will seriously injure the
colour of the product; in the selection of copper for telegraph wire, if it
contains the least trace of arsenic, the wire will not conduct the
electricity properly. The difficulties experienced in procuring suitable
materials for a manufacturing process are in some cases very great; and
when they are procured, additional difficulties arise from the inability of
the manufacturer or his manager to analyse them.
Every manufacturer is also aware that the difficulties encountered in
manufactures are not limited to the substances employed, but extend to all
the different {74} processes and stages of processes through which these
substances have to pass, and to all the forces, tools, machinery, and
appliances employed in those processes; in the manufacture of glass, for
example, the greatest care has to be exercised in the making and gradual
heating of the pots in which the glass is melted, the proportions of the
materials, the construction of the furnaces, the management of the heat,
and a whole host of minor conditions too numerous to mention, all of which
must be attended to with the greatest care. In the manufacture of iron and
steel, the smelting of copper, the refining of nickel, the preparation and
baking of porcelain, and in many other trades, innumerable difficulties,
all having their origin in the properties of matter and forces, continually
beset the manufacturers. In some cases difficulties occur which perplex
both the workman and the scientific man called in to his aid, and so far
from an unscientific workman being able to overcome them, even with the aid
of the scientific man, he is unable to do so.
The hidden difficulties which beset a manufacturer are not unfrequently so
inscrutable that the present state of knowledge in science fails to explain
them. Who can tell why it is that wire-work of brass or German silver
becomes gradually brittle by lapse of time? Or why varnish made in the open
country has different properties from that made in a town? Or why silk dyed
in Lyons should possess a finer colour than the same silk dyed by the same
process in Coventry? {75} With our present extremely imperfect knowledge of
Physical and Chemical science, we can perhaps hardly form an idea of the
amount of knowledge yet to be discovered respecting the phenomena which
manufactures present.
One of the inevitable results of these difficulties in manufacturing
processes and of deficiency of knowledge, is the production of a large
amount of goods of an inferior quality; and useless goods, technically
called "wasters," the cost of which has to be laid upon the saleable ones,
and thus the price of the latter is enhanced to the consumer. For instance,
flint glass discoloured by iron has sometimes to be sold at a loss for
making common enamel; waste window glass has to be sold as "rockery" for
ornamenting gardens, and defective articles of glass or metal have to be
re-melted.
In consequence of this want of new knowledge, manufacturers continue to
suffer losses which might be avoided; high prices of useful articles are
maintained; defects in their quality are not improved; preventable
accidents still continue to happen; the health of workmen continues to
suffer; many means of curing diseases remain unknown; medical practice
remains full of empiricism, &c., &c.
The great sewage question is apparently in this predicament; we are
probably trying to solve it without first discovering the requisite
knowledge; inventors, engineers, and consulting chemists have racked their
brains, and have not been able to devise a satisfactory {76} remedy, and
meanwhile the health of the entire population of this country is suffering.
If we so neglect the fundamental means of ameliorating our condition we
deserve to suffer. One would suppose that cholera, contagious diseases,
colliery accidents, pollution of air and water, enormous waste of heat from
fires, and a multitude of other evils which depend upon physical and
chemical conditions, are of but little importance, that we should so
neglect one of the most effectual means of preventing them; and it is
perfectly clear that by neglecting to aid research, those who gain so much
money and advantage from original science, and render no return, are
unwittingly sacrificing national interests upon a large scale to personal
benefit.
The practice of some manufacturers using and deriving great profit from new
knowledge evolved by research, without recompensing the discoverers,
sometimes causes injury to the public welfare by preventing the publication
of discoveries which have an immediate practical application. Experience of
this kind has constrained me to postpone the publication of a method I have
found of readily and quickly converting lumps of white phosphorus into the
red variety in a state of powder without protracted heat or grinding.
"What will be the next chapter of British enterprise and invention, and who
and where the men to perform the chief part in it? As to the work to be
done, there can be no doubt or mystery, for not a day passes {77} without
loud complaints, indignant remonstrances, fatal oversights, sad
mis-calculations, terrible shortcomings, social or material evils to be
remedied if possible, whole masses of people, indeed whole classes to be
succoured and lifted out of the slough, and enormous difficulties placed by
nature in our way evidently that we may exercise our wit and our virtues in
the attempt to overcome them. Here, from all these Isles, there arises a
despairing cry from agriculture, as if it had really reached the end of its
tether, and had found itself landed in utter helplessness and insolvency--a
bad speculation altogether. Here are countless problems, and at the same
time countless discoveries, which if they lead to nothing else, prove the
inexhaustible nature of our dominion over the elements. Then, for the sea,
with its terrible average of wreck and total loss running on without
intermission and with but rare abatement, who shall say there is here no
work for the discoverer and inventor who will give his heart and soul and
mind to it?"
It is indeed high time, that by means of discoveries which will enable us
to predict with certainty the nature of coming seasons, we shall be better
enabled to cope with adversities in agriculture; also, that the numerous
wrecks, and the thousands of lives lost with them every year on our coasts,
should be diminished. But these desirable results cannot be effected by
invention based upon insufficient knowledge; invention must be preceded by
general as well as special research, because the former often discloses
important {78} truths which we cannot predict. Our present electric lights
in light-houses and on large ocean steamers, had their origin, not in
direct inventions or special researches for the purpose, but in abstract
researches on apparently remote subjects.
It is nothing less than a national crime that proper provision has not yet
been made for investigating scientifically the causes of famine and
pestilence, also physiology and pathology, and the discovery of the laws
which regulate diseases and epidemics. What can be more painful to behold
than a mother and father deprived of a whole family of five or six children
in rapid succession by scarlatina or other contagious disease, and both the
parents and medical men utterly unable to save them; and this is a common
occurrence. Persons who are ignorant of science look with an abject feeling
of helplessness upon great national calamities, and even upon private
afflictions, such as a local epidemic, as if there was absolutely no
remedy, whilst scientific men believe that by extension of knowledge, such
evils might be largely avoided or prevented.
Many persons however, actuated by the very kindest of motives, but
insufficiently acquainted with the necessity, conditions, results, and
advantages of experiments, unwittingly obstruct the discovery of new
knowledge in physiology and pathology, by attempting to prevent experiments
being made upon animals.
We should not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Nearly every step in
life involves a choice {79} between two alternatives, and this is the case
with experiments upon living creatures, either such experiments must be
made, or the wholesale slaughter of men and other animals, by pestilences,
epidemics, small-pox, foot and mouth disease, &c., must continue. Many of
the properties of living bodies, like those of dead ones, can only be
ascertained by means of experiments, no other course is possible; and the
knowledge so obtained enables us not only to prolong the lives but also to
alleviate the sufferings of all kinds of living creatures. Nearly all our
medical and surgical knowledge has been obtained by observation and study,
either of the results of experiments made by ourselves, or by the course of
nature for us; and the former is often attended by immeasurably less pain
and expence than the latter. No one who has ever made in a proper manner
new experiments, would venture to assert that valuable knowledge is not
gained by them; and this statement is as correct of experiments in
physiology as in all the other sciences.
The total amount of pain inflicted upon animals by vivisection experiments
in this country is infinitesimally small--because, firstly, the proportion
of experimentalists in so-called "vivisection," does not amount to one
person in one million of our inhabitants:--secondly, students cannot be
induced to enter upon scientific research in physiology, because such
labour is unrewarded, either by enabling them to obtain certificates,
degrees, or money. Whatever pain also, {80} is inflicted in such
experiments, is by men of the highest eminence in physiology, and therefore
by the most competent persons.
Experimental research is an occupation requiring an exceptional kind of
ability and experience; and persons who have never made experiments, nor
studied their relation to human welfare, are largely incompetent to
determine when and how they should be made, the real effects of them, or
the value of the knowledge they afford. To persons inexperienced in
scientific research, many experiments appear useless, which have great
practical value, either immediately or at a later period. Our greatest
curse is ignorance; and knowledge, by enabling us to avoid the fatal
effects of pestilences, and epidemics, is as necessary as food to mankind.
The "Anti-vivisection" movement however is but one of the phases of the
ever-existing conflict between the advancing and retarding sections of
mankind.
Greater sympathy with suffering accompanies greater civilization. The
increased humanity of the present age over that of previous ones, is
largely due to the discovery and extension of new scientific knowledge.
Science, by showing more clearly to man his true position in nature and in
relation to his fellow-men and other animals, has rendered more evident the
concrete fact, that the happiness of each depends upon the happiness of
all, and the happiness and welfare of all upon that of each individual. It
has also operated in a more apparent, though less {81} important way, by
inculcating better systems of hygiene, improved sanitary arrangements, &c,
&c. It is not to the zeal of "anti-vivisectionists," but to the
well-directed labours of experimental medical men, that mankind are
indebted for the discovery and invention of nearly every known method of
preventing and alleviating animal suffering and of prolonging human life.
This statement is true of vaccination, the use of chloroform in general
surgery, dentistry, and midwifery, of carbolic acid spray in surgical
operations; the abolition of the practice of searing amputated limbs with a
red-hot iron; and many other improvements. Ferrier's comparatively recent
vivisection experiments have already enabled medical men to treat more
successfully those formidable diseases, epilepsy and abcess of the brain.
What this nation badly requires, is not less experimental research, but
more. When famines result from insufficiency of Solar heat, instead of
investigating the conditions of the Sun's surface to enable us to predict
their occurrence and provide accordingly, we allow them to come upon us in
our unprepared state and produce their fearful effects. When contagious
disease overtakes us, what do we do? Instead of previously employing and
paying scientific investigators to make experiments in physiological and
chemical science, to enable us to combat it successfully, we vainly attempt
to apply our present stock of chemical and physiological knowledge to ward
off the difficulty. When high price of fuel intervenes, instead {82} of
previously giving discoverers the means of finding new principles relating
to heat, and to chemical, and electrical action, we ineffectually endeavour
by means of invention, to economise fuel. These are the pottering,
short-sighted, and ignorant ways in which "the great English nation"
temporises with great evils, and permits national welfare to be sacrificed
to private gain, instead of employing for the discovery of new knowledge
some of that superfluous wealth which in many instances is a curse to its
possessors.
* * * * *
{83}
CHAPTER II.
------
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MENTAL AND MORAL PROGRESS.[12]
It is not highly necessary after what has been already said in these pages,
to adduce much evidence to show that scientific discoveries, either
directly or through the medium of the inventions based upon them, have been
a great cause of mental and moral progress. As however there are many
persons who do not perceive the dependence of such progress, and especially
of moral advance, upon science, a few of the chief relations of those
subjects to each other may be pointed out.
The dependence of mental progress upon science may be rendered manifest in
several ways:--1st. By showing that new scientific knowledge is continually
extending and modifying our views of existing things. 2nd. That inventions
based upon scientific discoveries have aided and extended our mental
powers:--3rd. That mental phenomena may be made the subject of experiment,
observation, analysis, and {84} inference:--4th. That the criteria of
truth, and the mental powers and processes employed for discovering and
detecting truth, are the same in mental as in physical science, and, 5th.
That mental action is subject to the great principles and laws of science.
And moral progress may be proved to have a scientific basis:--1st. By
shewing that moral actions are a class of mental actions, and therefore
subject to the same fundamental laws and influences:--2nd. That the
discovery of new scientific knowledge, and the use of inventions based upon
it, often conduce to morality:--3rd. That moral phenomena may be made the
subject of experiment, observation, analysis, and inference:--4th. That the
criteria of truth, and the mental faculties and processes employed, in
discovering truth, are the same in moral as in physical science:--5th. That
the fundamental rules of morality are subject to the great principles of
science:--6th. That moral improvement follows in the wake of scientific
advance:--and 7th. By showing the moral influence of experimental research
in imparting "the scientific spirit;" promoting a love of truth; dispelling
ignorance and superstition; detecting error; imparting certainty and
accuracy to our knowledge; inculcating obedience to law; producing
uniformity of belief; aiding economy and cleanliness, promoting humanity,
&c, &c. Each of these will be treated with extreme brevity.
MENTAL PROGRESS.
The chief object of this chapter is only to shew {85} that mental action is
largely consistent with the great principles of science; not that in our
present state of knowledge, mental phenomena can be entirely explained by
them, or that mental actions involve nothing more than physical and
chemical processes.
That mental progress is advanced by scientific discovery is a common
circumstance. Our ideas of facts, our knowledge of general principles, our
views of man, of nature, and of the Universe; and even our modes of
thought, have been gradually and profoundly changed by the new knowledge
acquired by means of scientific research. This truth is capable of being
most extensively illustrated by a multitude of facts in the whole of the
sciences, and in the arts, manufactures, and other subjects dependent upon
science. For example, in astronomy, great changes, produced by the results
of scientific discovery have taken place in our ideas respecting the
magnitude of Space and of the Heavenly bodies, the constitution, form, and
motion of the Earth, the functions of the Sun and Moon, the distances of
the Sun and fixed Stars, the nature of eclipses and comets; and a great
many other matters. In terrestrial physics, the mental advances have been
equally great in our ideas respecting the causes of tides and of winds, the
pressure of the atmosphere, the existence and course of the Gulf Stream,
the physical conditions of the Equator and Poles, the conditions upon which
day and night, summer and winter depend, the depth of the ocean, the height
of the atmosphere, the cause of rainbows, of {86} rain, hail, snow, mist
and dew, of thunder and lightning, the composition of air, water, mineral,
and organic substances, and other most numerous and varied phenomena. In
the subjects of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemistry, vegetable
and animal physiology, psychology and morality, and the more concrete
subjects depending upon them, such as politics, trade, commerce,
government, &c., our ideas have equally advanced, in consequence of
scientific research; and to fully describe the mental progress resulting
from discovery in nearly all branches of human knowledge would require a
series of books to be written on the History of all the Sciences.
Other causes also, which I need hardly mention, besides scientific
discovery, have of course contributed to the mental progress of mankind. We
arrive at true ideas, not only by the more certain and systematic process
employed in scientific research, but largely also by the uncertain method
of trusting to instinct and habit, by adopting dogmatic opinions, and by
the semi-scientific plan of following empirical rules.
Dogma and empiricism, in nearly all subjects, has rendered immense service
to mankind. Contemporaneously with the progress produced by new knowledge,
the mental condition of man has been maintained and prevented from
receding, by the combined influence of hereditary mental proclivity,
acquired habit, promulgation of dogmatic opinions and empirical rules, and
by previously known verified truth. Religious {87} belief has thus been the
forerunner of Science. Dogma and empiricism are indispensable agents of
civilization; they cannot be dispensed with by the great mass of mankind,
who have not the time at command, nor possess the other means, necessary
for acquiring verified knowledge. They afford rough and ready guides and
useful "rule of thumb" methods, though less certain and less accurate than
those afforded by verified and definite science.
That various inventions, based upon scientific discoveries, have greatly
aided and extended our mental powers is quite certain. The discovery of the
properties of a mixture of solution of nutgalls and green vitriol, has,
through the invention of ink, exercised an immense influence in promoting
the mental developement of mankind; and the discovery of the properties of
esparto grass and other materials for making paper has contributed to this
result. Every discovery also resulting in inventions which facilitated the
transmission of intelligence has had a similar effect. Amongst these are
magnetism, which, in the mariner's compass greatly assisted navigation and
the conveyance of letters by sea; and the steam engine which facilitated
the transmission of letters by land and by water; the electric telegraph,
the telephone, and other contrivances for transmitting ideas, have also
greatly promoted mental advance. The steam engine, by largely abolishing
physical drudgery, gave time for study and mental and moral improvement. It
has been said that "it is impossible to lay down a {88} railway without
creating an improved intellectual influence. It is probable that Watt and
Stephenson will eventually modify the opinions of mankind, almost as
profoundly as Luther and Voltaire." Photography has exercised an immense
intellectual influence of an improved kind, by making common to all mankind
views of the beautiful scenery of all parts of our globe, and portraits of
individuals of all nations and of all classes of society. Processes of
printing from electrotype plates, pictures and letter-press, upon the paper
wrappers used by grocers and other tradesmen, have also carried into the
homes of millions of poor persons truthful ideas and an improved
intellectual influence. The invention of steel pens, of which a thousand
millions are made yearly in Birmingham alone, must also have considerably
aided intellectual progress. The various calculating machines used by
merchants, the copying presses, papyrographs, and the numerous inventions
for copying and multiplying letters and circulars and for domestic
printing, have saved intellectual toil, and promoted the diffusion of
intelligence. These are only a few of the numerous ways in which inventions
based upon scientific discoveries, have resulted in mental progress.
Less perhaps has been done in the way of actual definite scientific
experiments upon mental actions and processes than in almost any other
department of science, and this is partly accounted for by the fact that
the other sciences require to be largely advanced before we can use them to
examine mental action, {89} and partly also because (as occasionally
happens) the latter has been a neglected subject of research. During the
past few years however, various experimental investigations have been made,
especially by Donders in Holland, and Mosso in Turin, for the purpose of
elucidating the physical conditions of mental action; and it has been found
that instead of an act of thought being instantaneous, as was formerly
believed, it requires a variable time.[13] Numerous desultory experiments
made upon dreamers, and with drugs, alcohol, &c., upon persons in the
waking state, also prove that mental phenomena are amenable to scientific
research. F. Galton has even proposed experiments and methods for measuring
the mental faculties of different persons.[14] The effects of exciting
different parts of the brain of animals by means of electric currents, and
the localization of the functions of the brain effected by the experiments
of Ferrier, Hirtzig and others, also tend to throw further light upon
mental phenomena. The fact alone that mental actions and conditions may be
made the subject of experiment, and consequently of observation,
comparison, analysis and inference, proves that they may be rendered
sources of new facts and principles, and are therefore within the domain of
science. As the dependence of mental phenomena upon physical conditions has
been clearly demonstrated, an extensive reduction of them to scientific
laws is only a question of time and labour.
{90}
The principles of nature and the modes of mental action are the same for
all men. It necessarily follows from the essential nature of truth and the
invariability of the chief methods of detecting it, that the criteria of
truth in mental science, and the mental powers and processes by which truth
is arrived at and detected in that science, are essentially the same as in
the physiological, chemical, and physical ones. In each of these subjects,
we first, either with or without the aid of experiment, make observations,
record facts, compare them, and draw conclusions from our comparisons; we
also group the facts, and the conclusions, in every possible way, and then
draw other conclusions; we also analyse, combine, and permutate the various
truths arrived at, and cross examine the evidence in every possible manner
in order to extract from it the greatest amount of new knowledge. And in
each case we employ as the criteria of truth, the test of consistency with
the whole of the evidence bearing upon the case, and especially with the
great principles of science. We determine what is true, chiefly by
comparison with those principles, because they are the most firmly
established true ones and the most universal. There is no royal road to
truth, and no special mental faculty for detecting it in any subject; and
it is in consequence of our mental faculties being so very finite that we
have no easier way of arriving at truth.
No dogmatic teaching can ever, except by accident, fully explain to man the
true nature of mind; and {91} only in proportion as man becomes enlightened
by extension of new scientific knowledge, especially in physiology, will he
be able to view himself in a true aspect apart from his consciousness.
Science penetrates deeper than metaphysical speculation, into the nature of
mental action, chiefly because metaphysics deals only with old ideas,
whilst science furnishes us with new experience and therefore with new
conceptions and wider evidence.
Fallacies are very prevalent, every subject of human study is liable to a
very large class of errors arising from the extremely imperfect state of
our knowledge, and in very few subjects is our ignorance as great as in
that of mental and moral phenomena. Every different subject of study also,
has, in consequence of its special peculiarities, its own peculiar class of
fallacies, into which the student of it is likely to be led, unless he is
previously guarded against them. In accordance with this truth, the study
of man's nature, especially the mental and moral portions, is particularly
liable to a class of errors arising from the circumstance, that the
phenomena to be observed and the observing power are intimately connected
together, each influencing and disturbing the other. The obstacles to our
arriving at truth in the study of mental and moral actions, are greater and
more frequent, the more nearly and intimately related the phenomena to be
observed and contemplated, are to the observing and contemplating faculty,
or rather to the contemplative action. When the two mental {92} actions are
extremely intimate, as when attention is directed to the action of will
(which is itself a conscious act of attention) undisturbed thought becomes
very difficult; and when further, the contemplative faculty attempts to
contemplate itself, as when consciousness attempts to observe
consciousness, in order to define it, the attempt results in almost
complete failure, probably because the two actions (observing and being
observed) being opposite in kind, cannot coexist at the same time in the
same structure. Knowledge of the exact nature of consciousness therefore,
will probably only be arrived at by indirect means, when physiological and
other knowledge is sufficiently advanced.
Consciousness, when uncorrected by sufficient knowledge and inference, is a
great source of error. That which we feel, we think exists whether it does
or not, until the subject is correctly explained to us. The incessant and
irresistible obtrusion of consciousness exercises dominion over every mind,
even of our greatest thinkers, and causes disturbance and interruption in
nearly every train of thought. It is largely the cause of some of our most
general ideas and emotions and insensibly influences our views of man and
nature. It produces true impressions as well as erroneous ones. It is a
cause of the feeling that an occult spirit exists within us independent of
our material structure. Combined with the almost equally persistent
impression of the uniformity of nature, it largely produces the idea that
the spirit within us, {93} will live and be active for ever. And by uniting
with the frequent impressions of failure of our efforts and desire for more
perfect enjoyment, it largely originates the idea of everlasting happiness.
It is in accordance with modern scientific knowledge, to view the mind, not
as a collection of distinct faculties, but rather as a single kind of
power, like each of the physical forces, having several different modes of
action; and as that which perceives, thinks, and wills. Its oneness is
shewn by its inability to be simultaneously occupied by several diverse
feelings, thoughts, or volitions, and by our incapacity to think of many
varied ideas at once; the more ideas also or objects we attempt to perceive
at once, the less we realize of each. In proportion as the mind is engaged
upon one idea, so is it also unable to be occupied with another. Strong
feelings exclude intellectual action. The mind can only execute several
actions at a time, provided they have been rendered more or less automatic
by habit, &c., but as all mental acts are in different degrees imperfectly
automatic, and require more or less attention, and each individual mind is
limited in its power, every such act withdraws a portion of attention from
the more engrossing ideas. Power of mind and power of maintaining attention
are nearly synonymous.
The recognised fundamental elements of mind are Receptivity and Perception
of impression: Retentiveness of impression: Perception of agreement (or
similarity) of impression: and Perception of difference {94} of impression.
All purely mental acts appear to be resolvable into these.
Many persons still entertain the idea that mental actions are largely
independent of the natural conditions to which physiological, chemical, and
physical phenomena are subject. The unscientific mind is readily beguiled
by easy schemes of mental action, or simple systems of mental and moral
philosophy, unaware that great abstract truths often require deep thought
to discover them, or even to perceive them when discovered and published.
"A false notion, which is clear and precise, will always meet a greater
number of adherents in the world than a true principle which is obscure."
It is not until unscientific persons have become used to advanced
scientific ideas and nomenclature, and knowledge as so far progressed as to
enable thinking men to illustrate those ideas freely in familiar language,
that great abstract truths are believed by the public. The ordinary and
simple theory of the operations of the human mind is, that they often arise
without any cause, and are frequently not obedient to ordinary influences,
and this idea is still entertained and promulgated even by some of our most
popular ministers of truth. It is therefore necessary in order to further
prove that new scientific knowledge is really a basis of mental progress,
to point out a few of the chief ways in which mental action essentially
depends on scientific principles, and to adduce a few instances in which
other substances than brain exhibit essentially similar phenomena. To {95}
shew this however in a more satisfactory manner would require a large
treatise to be written upon the subject.
The human brain and mind are evidently subject to the ordinary laws of
matter and energy. Receptivity and retentiveness of impression is not only
a property of brain, but of all solid matter without exception. Moser's
pictures, and Chinese mirrors, the impressions on each being reproducible
by warm breath, are examples of this. And as these two properties are
fundamental elements of mind, they must be present in and essential to,
every mental action.
All phenomena require time and all matter occupies space; thought and brain
are no exception to this. Whilst all persons say "I must have time to
think," many believe that thought is instantaneous. Time is a necessary
condition of all thought, and therefore of all comparison, inference,
imagination, and mental analysis; it takes time even to form an idea, or
draw an inference from it, and the two cannot be formed simultaneously.
Professor Donders, of Utrecht, has invented what he terms a Noëmatachograph
for registering the amount of time occupied in mental processes, and by the
aid of that instrument has ascertained that the time required by a man of
middle age to perform a single act of simple thought is about one
twenty-fifth part of a second. It has also been ascertained that the time
required is longer in some persons than in others; and longer if the {96}
subject of thought is one with which the thinker is not familiar. Mosso, by
means of an instrument which he calls a Plethysmograph, has shewn, that
during mental action, either in the waking state, or in dreaming, there is
a greater amount of blood determined to the brain, and more during
difficult than during easy mental action. These are instances of scientific
research casting a light upon mental processes.
Coexistence of matter and energy is another great truth which appears to be
applicable to all nature; wherever there is matter, there is either active
or stored up power; and as particular forms of energy are in some cases
most exhibited by particular kinds of substance, (as magnetism by iron), so
mind is associated with living brain. As also we never see the physical
powers exhibited except by material substance, so have we never yet
observed mental action in a space devoid of material. The most perfect
vacuum yet produced contains many millions of particles of substance in
each cubic inch. Of all the countless number of scientific phenomena
observed since men have been able to reliably investigate, not one has
afforded us conclusive evidence of mental action entirely independent of
these conditions. In accordance also with the usual truth in science, that
complicated action requires complex structures; mind, being the most
intricate action, is manifested by the most complicated body.
Mind, like each of the physical forces may be {97} viewed as a mode of
energy; it is essentially dynamic; activity or change, within or without
us, appears to be the original source of all our mental impressions, and
the cause of their re-excitement in an act of memory. A man's mind, being
continually excited by circumstances, must be active whether he will or no,
and if it does not possess sufficient truthful ideas entirely to occupy it,
it must be more or less occupied with erroneous ones. "We can neither feel,
nor know, without a transition or change of state--and every cognition,
must be viewed as in relation to some other feeling, or cognition," (Bain.
Mental and Moral Science, p. 83); _i.e._ the mental effect of impressions
upon us depends upon our immediately previous mental state; consciousness
and perception appear to be based upon cerebral change or activity; after
strong excitement of consciousness an increased amount of acid products is
found in the secretions. "It is a general law of the mental constitution,
more or less recognised by inquirers into the human mind, that change of
impression is essential to consciousness in every form," (Bain. Emotions
and Will, 3rd edi. p. 550). A sufficient degree also of such change is a
necessary condition of conscious perception; it is the stronger or more
rapid only of mental changes that excite our consciousness.
We perceive nearly all things by means of a difference of impression which
they make upon us; by contrast. That which makes no such difference of
impression, such as the great uniformities of time and {98} space, makes no
immediate impression upon us. We only know of the existence of those
uniformities by inference from our perceptions of sequences or of relative
difference. Although the Earth moves at the rate of 62,000 miles an hour in
its orbit, consciousness does not perceive it. If also there was no error,
we should be less immediately able to discern truth, without pain we should
lose much of the enjoyment of pleasure. Without the contrast of
imperfection we could not directly appreciate perfection.
This principle of "relativity," or of change of impression, operates both
in the phenomena of dead and living matter and in those of mind; the
selenium in a photophone is kept in a state of motion or activity, not by a
beam of uniform light, but only by one which changes; electrical action is
excited by a relative difference of friction, of temperature, of chemical
action, &c.; chemical action also often results from a relative difference
of property of two bodies. That the most inscrutable phenomenon of mind,
viz., consciousness, is largely dependent upon relative physical and
chemical conditions, is proved by the powerful influence which alcohol,
chloroform, opium, haschish, and other substances, have in exciting or
depressing it. These facts prove that excitement of consciousness or mental
action depends upon precisely the same general condition, viz.: change of
impression, as the excitement of some of the physical forces; and that mind
possesses a similar property to the physical forces of being changed by
inequality of impression. {99} Whilst copious evidence is available to shew
that the mind is excitable by physical causes, no more conclusive proof
exists that a mental impression arises without a natural cause, than that a
physical one, such as a photographic impression, arises in that way.
Abundant evidence of non-creation of ideas out of nothing might be adduced;
even imagination and invention are subject to this limit, because an
unlimited number of new conceptions cannot be formed from a limited number
of previous ideas.
The dependence of the mind (like any other mode of energy) upon physical
conditions, is further proved by the fact that the mental and moral states
of a man are largely governed by sensation; if the latter is unhealthy it
makes the mind so, and it makes some difference what the part of the body
is in which the sensation exists; most commonly it is the viscera. The mind
is also intimately dependent upon the physical condition of the brain, and
is largely affected by the quantity and quality of the blood in that organ.
The most fundamental principle which pervades every one of the sciences,
and agrees with the actions of every natural form of energy without
exception, including mind, is, that of consistency or non-contradiction. No
machine or scientific apparatus of any kind can perform two contradictory
acts at the same time. It is both a physiological and psychological fact,
that we cannot experience two contradictory sensations, nor perceive two
contradictory ideas at the {100} same instant. We can neither feel,
perceive, nor observe, one thing, whilst we are feeling, perceiving, or
observing, one of a contradictory nature; nor can we perform any two
contradictory acts of comparison, inference, imagination, or volition,
simultaneously. As also two mental actions are often not exactly alike, or
entirely harmonious, they must so far as they are really contradictory, be
mutually exclusive; and one of them must partly prevent the other, the
strongest one prevailing, and this general truth is commonly though not
explicitly, recognised in the maxim, that to do anything well, we must do
only one thing at a time. In accordance with the universal truth, that
contradictions cannot co-exist, it is well-known that one disease
frequently expels another from our frame, and the action of
counter-irritants is based upon the same principle. The fortitude of
martyrs may probably be explained by this power of one set of ideas and
feelings to exclude another, and the facts of mental physiology afford
plenty of other examples.
It is probably because we cannot simultaneously perform two contradictory
actions, that we cannot contemplate consciousness, or think of an idea and
at the same time think of that act of thought. In accordance with this,
even Newton, and other great geniuses, have been unable to accurately
describe the mental processes by means of which they arrived at their most
difficult results. In consequence also of this, we cannot define
consciousness, and are often {101} unable to directly observe or analyse
our mental actions, especially those of a very abstruse or complex kind.
Much of the knowledge of the operations of our mind, we are therefore
obliged to obtain by indirect means; by analogies, and inferences from the
phenomena of nature, &c., and in this way our knowledge of mental action
largely depends upon our acquaintance with physical and chemical science,
and can only advance as it advances. To clearly understand one subject we
are often obliged to study several others. Ignorance of science in general,
and of cerebral physiology in particular, is the chief obstacle to our
acquiring a more accurate knowledge of mind.
Next to consistency, the great principle of causation constitutes the most
essential part of all natural truth, and to deny the operation of this
principle in particular cases of mental action, simply because we, with our
very finite powers, cannot in the extremely imperfect state of our
knowledge, yet fully explain some of the most difficult, complex,
transient, and ever-changing phenomena of will and consciousness, is
contrary to the most weighty evidence. "The Will" is a conscious mental
effort to effect an object, the idea of which is already in the mind, and
being a mental "effort" it absorbs the mind and thereby incapacitates it at
the moment from observing its own action.
If any phenomenon (such as mental action) is essentially dependent upon
another, it must be connected {102} with it in a never-failing or
indissoluble manner, so that when the one occurs the other is always
present, otherwise it would not be essentially dependent. The only known
connections of this kind are those causation and continuity of phenomena,
according to which every phenomenon has a cause, and all phenomena are
indissolubly connected in endless series. The evidence of the truth of
these principles is so vast, that even all mankind thinking through all
ages, and after having made an almost infinite number of definite
experiments and observations, have never yet met with a single well
verified instance of their failure; and we are therefore justified in
inferring that they are universal. There are however instances in the
physical and chemical sciences, as well as in mental action, where the
dependence of phenomena upon those principles is not very apparent, and has
not yet been sufficiently proved, but it is probably in consequence of our
imperfect knowledge and limited faculties, that we are unable as yet to
fully trace such dependence. The history of science, abundantly proves that
we should not assume that a phenomenon arises without a natural cause,
simply for the reason that it is very difficult to trace its origin, but
wait patiently for more knowledge respecting it. It is unphilosophic and
contrary to reason to attribute to occult agencies, effects which may be
explicable by ordinary causes, or to refuse to believe in more abstruse
causes where the assumption of simple ones is contradicted by some of the
evidence. {103}
The principle of causation forms the basis of many minor ones, such as
selection, evolution, differentiation, &c. Plurality of causes also is a
very common circumstance in all the sciences, and especially in concrete
phenomena, and in the complex ones of animal life; the arrival of a ship
for example at a distant port, is a result of many conditions. Similarly
with most of our mental actions, they are compounds of feeling and
intellect, and produced by many causes, such as hereditary tendency,
acquired habit, internal and external mental excitants, dogmatic belief,
knowledge of empirical rules, and occasionally of verified principles.
Several of these causes also frequently conspire to produce a single idea
or decision.
Various general principles of lesser magnitude arise from the combined
action of two or more of the greater ones, and these also appear to operate
in mental actions as well as in physical ones. Thus by the combined
influence of causation and of the principle that every phenomenon occupies
time, "effects often lag behind their causes;" and in some cases during a
long period. The greatest heat of summer for example usually occurs several
weeks after mid-summer. The mental effects of early mistakes are often not
fully experienced until old age. The decline of a nation also follows a
long time behind the period of action of the chief causes which produce it.
Although effects are indissolubly connected with their causes, they
frequently do not occur in an active form until a long period after them.
In such cases {104} they are stored up in what is termed a potential or
latent state, ready for liberation at a future occasion, when the suitable
conditions are present; the storage of chemical power in gunpowder, of
solar heat in coal, and its subsequent liberation in our fires, are
suitable examples. The principle of deferred activity and storing up of
power, occurs also in vital and mental phenomena; potential heat is stored
up in our food, and is afterwards evolved by oxidation in our tissues.
Muscular power is stored up during sleep, ready to be evolved during
labour. The storage also of cerebral impressions, and cerebral energy,
ready to call forth ideas, and thereby powerful emotions, by the exciting
action of memory, may also be viewed as an instance of similar kind
belonging to mental phenomena. A new and striking instance of the storage
of energy has been shewn in Faure's improved form of secondary voltaic
battery, in which the most powerful voltaic current may be (at least
practically) stored up (in a box containing lead plates immersed in dilute
sulphuric acid) and conveyed to a distance with little loss, and then
liberated.
Exciting causes operate very extensively in mental actions as well as in
physical ones, a mere look or word from an eloquent speaker will excite the
passions and liberate the muscular power of a multitude. Every part of the
human body, especially the muscles and nerve centres, is a store-house of
power always ready to be set free by the slightest suitable causes; this is
strongly illustrated in the irrepressible activity {105} of children, and
in the excitable passions of young men and women. The more immediate cause
of this power is the oxidation of assimilated food; and the source of power
in the food is the heat of the Sun stored up in the plants and animals they
have eaten.
The subsequent liberation of power under the influence, often of very
slight causes, long after the original cause has ceased to act, has led us
to conclude erroneously that causes are not always proportional to effects.
Proportionality of effect to cause appears to be universal; it probably
operates in mental as well as in physical actions, our faith in education
as a means of intelligence is based upon this; the more complete the
education of a particular individual, the greater usually is his degree of
intelligence. Proportionality of cause to effect is apparently disobeyed
not only in physical but also in mental phenomena. Throughout the whole
realm of nature, minute circumstances often act as exciting, deflecting,
and guiding causes, and contribute to the production of apparently
disproportionate effects. Thus a spark will discharge the largest cannon; a
touch determine the most distant electric signal; a word or look, excite
the strongest emotions; the little change of position of a railway point
will direct a train either to distant North or South; the minute change of
contact of the telegraph switch, will determine the signal to places wide
asunder; one false idea also at a critical moment will often lead a man or
woman to ruin; and in all these classes of cases, {106} whilst trifling
causes _appear_ to produce great effects; the real causes are the stored up
latent powers set free or directed. It is astonishing how small a
circumstance will excite an idea, and deflect the entire current of our
thoughts; and it is equally surprising what great physical and chemical
effects are often started by most minute exciting or deflecting conditions;
the explosion of seven tons of dynamite at Hell-gate, near New York, by the
pressure of a child's finger closing an electric circuit is a suitable
example.
Every phenomenon therefore whether physical or mental, is probably
connected in an indissoluble manner with some preceding phenomenon, either
immediately in point of time, or remotely through some static condition,
usually that of stored up power. In this sense the great principle of
continuity of phenomena appears to be universal, and the present state of
the Universe is said to implicitly or potentially contain all the future
states of the Universe. Mind also in this way, like each of the physical
forces, often acts as a link in an endless chain of causes and effects, and
is connected with non-mental phenomena in accordance with the great
principles of science.
Science has demonstrated what has been termed the "Convertibility of
Forces," or, that when one form of energy disappears, another form (or
forms) of energy, and in precisely equivalent amount, is produced in its
stead, either in a latent or active state. The equivalent quantities of the
various forms of {107} energy have also been discovered by actual
experiment and measurement. A pound weight falling through 772 feet gives
forth as much energy as would (in the form of heat) raise the temperature
of one pound of water one Fahrenheit degree. We know that so much
mechanical power is equal also to so much electric current, chemical
action, &c., and a large amount of evidence exists to show that these
transformations of energy occur in all the organs of living creatures, and
in obedience to the law of their equivalents. How far mental power is a
"mode of energy" transformable, and obedient to the laws of equivalence,
are interesting questions for future research.
The mechanical principle of action and reaction is another which can be
traced in mental as well as in physical phenomena. Mental excitement is
often succeeded by mental depression, "after pleasure follows pain." The
power of mental self-guidance and self-education is largely dependent upon
the two well known scientific principles of latent energy, and action and
reaction. We are able to liberate energy, not only in cases where it will
influence inanimate matter but also ourselves. The principle of
self-guidance is not restricted to living creatures, nor is self-regulation
limited to mental power. The principle of self-regulation operates in
clocks, watches, musical boxes, the governors of steam engines, water
regulators, gas regulators, &c., &c., and upon an immense scale in the
movements of the heavenly {108} bodies. With the electric locomotive, the
greater the load it has to draw, or the steeper the incline it has to
ascend, the more strongly does it exert its strength, up to the full limits
of its power. Neither in physical nor in mental actions can a body or force
usually act directly upon itself to change its state whether of activity or
rest. In both classes of cases however we meet with plenty of instances
where, a body by an almost imperceptible expenditure of energy on its own
part either alters some surrounding conditions, or excites a powerful
liberation of energy in another body which then reacts upon it to change
its state. In this way the action of clock-work in the self-exploding
apparatus of a torpedo liberates at a particular moment a spring, and
causes an explosion which destroys the apparatus. Similarly, whilst a man,
in many cases, is unable to _directly_ alter his mental state, to increase
or diminish his mental activity, to cause sleep, &c., he is able
_indirectly_ to change his mental condition by drinking stimulants or by
adopting means of self-education; and to induce sleep by means of opium,
suitable exercise, &c.
The principles of indestructibility or conservation of matter and energy,
flow from the preceding ones, and are exhibited in mental actions as well
as in physical ones. Whilst the universal experience of mankind has not yet
afforded us a single well verified instance of actual creation or
destruction of matter or energy, it has supplied us with plenty of examples
of apparent destruction and creation of each of them. {109} But scientific
knowledge corrects the uncertain testimony of consciousness; whilst we see
coal burn and be apparently destroyed, science proves to us that the
elements composing it remain undiminished. We observe also that the heat of
the fire dissipates and is apparently lost for ever; but science again
proves that it is either stored up in the latent state, ready to be again
liberated at a future time, or else converted into other forms of energy. A
given atom of matter or a portion of energy, therefore, to the best of our
knowledge, continues and persists for ever. As we cannot either create or
destroy matter so also can we not create or annihilate energy, and this
truth probably holds good with regard to mental as well as to physical and
chemical power. Great changes of state in bodies (as in the combustion of
wood &c.) have led us to erroneously think that the substances are
destroyed; and great apparent differences of property, such as those of
diamond and charcoal, have led us similarly to conclude that they are
entirely distinct and independent of each other when they are not.
As the cerebrum of man is composed of matter, and during excitement, its
parts are active, we might confidently predict that its particles obey the
First law of Motion, viz.: that a body in a state of rest or motion will
continue in that state of rest or motion until some cause arise to prevent
it. So it has been found that the action of the vital and mental forces
have a degree of persistence, like the physical ones. It has been
experimentally found that portions of {110} living bone transplanted to
fleshy parts of animals where there was no bone, continued to grow for a
time by a life of their own, and increased by formation of additional bone,
like a crystal grows in its medium; but after a time they diminished and
disappeared. In a similar manner we are all of us aware of the persistency
of ideas, even in opposition to the will, after the cause of them has been
removed. Sometimes we cannot retain an idea because of the persistence of
others; and at other times we cannot get rid of one, for a similar reason.
Our mental habits also have often very great persistence.
The principle of heredity may be viewed as a result of the First law of
Motion, and appears as Persistency of state, either of structure, form, or
mode of action. It appears both in inanimate bodies, living structures, and
in mental phenomena; in the latter, as hereditary mental peculiarities. The
principle of Persistency of structure and Heredity of form and property,
during repeated or even continual dissolution and aggregation of a material
substance, is more or less manifest nearly throughout the whole of nature.
In the formation of crystals it is clearly seen; each crystallizable
substance will only grow into its own shape or shapes; each particle of
common salt, during an endless series of successive solutions and
aggregations into the solid state, always forms a more or less perfect
cube; that of silica a hexagon; and so on throughout the entire series of
thousands of different crystalline bodies. As each {111} form of crystal
only produces crystals of like form and property (or at most in certain
cases a limited number of modified forms, as in the instance of calcic
carbonate, &c.) so also each seed, both of animals and vegetables, only
produces its own particular essential shape and collection of functions.
The same principle shews itself in the transmission of particular types of
disease, and of eccentricities of organization, from one generation to
another of animals. Peculiar malformations of body and characteristics of
mind often persist in families from generation to generation. This
persistency or heredity of structure and of property is not limited to
solid bodies, but exists also in liquids: "The effect of vaccine virus upon
the liquid blood, in producing a permanent and organic change in its
constitution and character, which continues to exercise a protective
influence against small-pox, in the great mass of cases, through a long
life, during which time the blood must have undergone, many thousands, if
not millions of changes and modifications." (F. Winslow. "Obscure diseases
of Brain and Mind," page 432). The same persistency of structure and
property of structure, has even been detected in vapours; the vapour of red
iodide of mercury for example, deposits only crystals of red iodide, whilst
that of the yellow deposits only yellow (see Gmelin's Handbook of
Chemistry, vol. 1, p. 100.)
We often appear to mentally select when we only yield to causes acting upon
us, _i.e._, to the strongest influence or motive. That "self-preservation
is the {112} first law of nature," is not only true of living creatures,
but largely also of dead substances. Inanimate as well as animate matter,
appears to usually select what is good for itself. Apparent selection,
which is manifested in the phenomena of instinct, is exhibited not only by
brain, but by all material substances. Acids appear to select bases, North
magnetism rejects North and prefers South magnetism. Also if a piece of
zinc is put into a mixed solution of the nitrates of silver, magnesium,
calcium, strontium, barium, lithium, sodium, potassium, and rubidium, it
will select the silver only with which to form a "metallic tree," and
reject all the other metals. Everything which aggregates or grows to a
definite shape, appears to select its material; if a crystal of a
particular salt is placed in a mixture of saturated solutions of different
salts, it will only select and assimilate to itself suitable material,
either particles of the same composition as itself, or those which are
isomorphous with it, _i.e._ belonging to the same crystalline system. In
living bodies also, the same principle operates; Living tissues, whether of
animals or vegetables, usually select from their nutrient fluids, and
assimilate, particles only of those kinds of matter which are suitable for
their structure; in this way, a bone assimilates lime and phosphoric acid
from the multitude of different substances conveyed to it by the blood. And
in all these cases, the selecting material appears to act as if it
possessed the powers of instinct, perception, comparison, judgment, and
{113} volition. The act of self-repair is clearly connected with this, and
is not limited to living structures; Sir David Brewster observed that if a
portion of the surface of a perfect crystal of alum is very slightly
abraded by dissolving a film from it, and the crystal be then immersed
during a very brief period in a saturated solution of alum, the abraded
portion repairs itself. The subjects of "malformation of crystals," and
"diseases of crystals" have been scientifically investigated. The power of
selection (or rather of apparent selection) is no doubt a result of the
combined action of causation and of the inherent properties of bodies, and
depends, like consciousness, upon difference of impression, the strongest
suitable influence determining. If apparent selection can thus be performed
by inanimate matter, we should not, except for a very sufficient reason,
assume the existence in living creatures, of a special occult power to
perform the same function. In the selection of ideas also the intellect
acts according to the purely scientific method.
We frequently appear to mentally adapt ourselves to particular
circumstances when we are really determined by causes; and this apparent
adaptation is also seen in ordinary physical and chemical phenomena. The
course of a river for instance, adapts itself to the configuration of the
country through which it flows, and if it cannot pass wholly by one
channel, as in seasons of flood, or on occasions of accidental obstruction,
it travels through several; and a similar result {114} occurs with the flow
of the blood when an artery is tied or becomes obstructed. A plant when
growing in a dark recess, bends itself towards the light as if it preferred
light; and its roots adapt themselves to the forms of existing obstacles. A
decapitated frog jumps away from a source of irritation, as if he still
possessed sensation, volition, and choice. A man seeking his way through a
crowd avoids the course in which the throng is densest. The human mind
also, chooses as it were, the easiest way of solving a problem, and usually
adapts itself to altered circumstances.
The principle of evolution also operates both in physical and mental
actions, and is a result of that of causation. Complexity of structure and
function is evolved out of simplicity of composition and property by
plurality of causes and conditions. For instance, many complex forms of
crystals of ice are produced from water. Calcspar crystallizes in more than
one hundred varieties of form, (all derived from an obtuse rhombohedron)
under the influence of a number of slightly different conditions of
temperature, impurities in the solution, &c. The most complex bodies are
evolved out of the simplest, the bodily frame of man himself (and that of
other animals) is constructed of less than twenty of the elementary
substances. The same simple substances are capable of yielding very
different and more complex bodies under different conditions; thousands of
different chemical compounds are composed of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon
only. In the development of {115} living forms from ova, the ultimate form
produced does not exist in the germ, any more than a crystal exists in its
solution, but is a natural consequence of the forces acting in and upon the
germ, like the cubical form of a crystal of common salt is a result of the
forces acting in its constituents under the conditions of its environment,
especially those of pressure and temperature. The extent to, and manner in
which, the force and principle operate, depend upon the material substance,
and its conditions internal and external.
It is a common circumstance, both in physical, mental, and moral subjects,
for the apparent to be the very opposite of the real. This general truth
has been repeatedly illustrated in an incidental manner in this book, and
need not be much further elucidated. Phenomena are none the less real,
however, because they are not readily manifest; our earth is as much tied
to the sun by the invisible power of gravity, as if it was attached to it
by visible material chains. Mistaking the apparent for the real, largely
explains the persistency of certain beliefs, and why it is that persons
unacquainted with science, cling to self-deception, and resist some of the
most firmly established truths. The more evident but untrue explanation is
believed, whilst the less apparent but true one is rejected. It is the
chief cause of the belief that "the will is a supernatural power." To a
scientific man however, apparent contradictions are not unfrequently a sign
of truth; too accurate results sometimes {116} indicate that they have been
artificially made to appear correct.
Sympathetic action or propagation of similar influence by immediate
impulse, is a property of all the natural forms of energy, as well as of
mind. Similar actions are propagated thus in all kinds of dead substances,
as well as in the living brain. Matter is sympathetic to sound in the
phenomena of singing-flames, and a vibrating string responds to a
particular note in obedience to well-known laws. Iodide of nitrogen may be
caused to explode by the influence of a particular note from a fiddle. In
the phenomena of light, with a spectroscope, a luminous gas is sympathetic
with, and emits and absorbs, only particular kinds of luminous rays. In
chemical action also, combustion excites combustion, ferment excites
ferment, infection communicates infection, and the similar chemical change
is transmitted from molecule to molecule. Mental excitement and disease in
one person, often excite similar phenomena in another, as is seen in
"religious revivals," and well-known epidemics, such as the "dancing
mania," "preaching epidemics," the "leaping ague," the "mewing contagion,"
etc., etc., (See "Epidemics of the Middle Ages," by Hecker; Sydenham
Society publications; also Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 312.) Like
excites like in the actions of each of the forces of nature; both in
physical, chemical, and mental action, the kind of impulse transmitted is
similar, unless conditions exist which transmute it. Dynamite, {117}
started into combustion by a flame, burns slowly away; but when started by
a detonating substance, detonates violently. Guthrie has also discovered
that if a melted cryohydrate (_e. g._ a chilled saturated aqueous solution
of a solid salt) is cooled to a certain greater extent, it will not
solidify--nothing separates out, although the solution is four or five
degrees below its proper solidifying point. If a little crystal of ice be
then thrown into it, nothing separates but ice, which comes to the surface.
If we throw in a little anhydrous salt, nothing but the anhydrous salt
separates out, and that sinks to the bottom. But if we throw into it a
crystal of a previous crop of cryohydrate, then nothing but the cryohydrate
separates. In this case also, like evidently excites like only, in
obedience to physical laws. (Addresses, Science Conferences; South
Kensington Museum, 1876; Vol. 2, p. 108). Even two clocks, when hung near
each other, against a board or surface which readily transmits vibrations,
have been known to exhibit, by synchronous action, an apparent sympathy,
which changed their rate of going.
Periodical phenomena, also, brought about by definite causes, occur in
mental, as well as in physical phenomena. In the former we have the
phenomena of sleep, and in the latter, definite causes produce summer and
winter, day and night, the tides, cycles of solar spots, maxima and minima
of magnetic intensity, etc., etc.
Conversely to the manifestation of the principles of {118} inanimate matter
by living bodies and in mental action, so have modern inventions
demonstrated the possibility of the performance by inanimate substances and
apparatuses, of the functions, not only of our bodily organs, (as of
locomotion by the steam engine,) but also of our senses and intellect, and
in some cases, to a degree far surpassing unaided human power. Apparatus,
sensitive to sound, have been constructed, as in the microphone and
singing-flames; others capable of reproducing articulate speech, as in the
phonograph, telephone, etc.; others again sensitive to light, as in the
production of visible images by photography, and reproducing them at a
distance through wires by means of the photophone; the power of indicating
or foretelling future events has also been embodied in instruments called
"tide predictors," and that of evolving inferences has been shewn in
Jevon's "Logical machine."
The various facts mentioned in this chapter prove that mind agrees with the
various forms of physical energy in many essential points, and obeys many
of the same laws or principles. Examine whatever general phenomena of the
mind we may, we can always detect some apparent or real connection of them
with the great principles of inorganic nature; and in order to prove the
dependence of them upon the great principles of science it is not necessary
to show that all such actions are subject to those principles. Until the
whole is explained however, there will always remain mysterious phenomena
to cavil about. {119}
MORAL PROGRESS.
At the present time few competent persons have largely investigated the
fundamental relations of morality to Physical Science, consequently moral
actions are usually considered not to have a scientific basis, and the
doctrine is still extensively taught that some moral phenomena are
essentially supernatural.
As new scientific knowledge has increased, belief in witchcraft, sorcery,
demonology, exorcism, evil influences and omens, unseen spirits, a God of
evil, supernatural and occult powers, supernatural sources of strange
diseases, evil presages from comets and eclipses, fetishism, worship of
images and of the Sun, a belief that the Earth is the chief body in the
Universe, that man is the "Lord of Creation," &c, &c. have largely passed
away, and beliefs more consistent with facts and with true inferences drawn
from them, have taken their place. Belief in the supernatural nature of the
human will however is still largely retained. A writer on morality,
says--"In every genuine volition we have a phenomenon not law-determined,
law-regulated, and law-explained."[15] A popular expositor of religion
says--"The phenomena of the human soul are essentially different from the
phenomena with which the student of science is most familiar, and must be
investigated on other principles and by other methods." "The voluntary
activity of man lies beyond the limits of science." "Every language man has
ever spoken--no matter how {120} perfect or how rude--the literature of the
ancient and the modern world, the indestructible instincts of the human
soul, the testimony of consciousness, unite to affirm that the human will
is independent of natural law." "The will is a supernatural power." "I
myself am not under the dominion of natural law;" "my moral life is
essentially a supernatural thing." "As soon as you approach the
intellectual and moral life of man, you enter a region in which you have to
do with a new order of facts." &c.[16]
Morality, the subject of duty, or of right and wrong-doing in conscious
creatures, is usually considered to relate only to those actions over which
a man has or might have had control, and which it was his duty either to
perform or avoid, and not to those which are entirely beyond his influence,
it is therefore essentially dependent upon the power of selection or
choosing. As then all moral actions require voluntary choice between right
and wrong, and every act of choice is a mental one of comparison of two or
more things, all moral actions are mental ones. We cannot compare things
which have not made any mental impression upon us. We know further, and the
evidence already given proves, that mental actions are intimately dependent
upon the principles of nature operating within and around us. If then all
acts of morality (or immorality) are mental ones, and if all mental actions
are intimately dependent upon the great principles of nature; then all acts
of morality {121} are dependent upon those principles. Morality also cannot
be properly understood without a knowledge of various sciences, especially
biology, because it relates to human creatures, all of whom are morally
affected by the various forces and substances belonging to the physical and
chemical sciences.
Having shown that moral actions are mental ones, and adduced evidence to
prove that mental actions are largely subject to scientific principles;--it
follows as a necessary consequence, that moral actions also largely obey
those principles, and I need not repeat that evidence.
The extension of scientific knowledge conduces in a very general way to
moral progress, by diffusing the "scientific spirit," increasing our love
of truth, facilitating the attainment of greater certainty and accuracy,
enabling us to more perfectly avoid error, reducing our ignorance,
dispelling superstition, inculcating obedience to law, diminishing
difference of opinion and thereby lessening strife, conducing to humility,
to greater economy of means, to increased cleanliness, &c, &c. Scientific
research also, by disclosing to man his true position in nature, enables
him to act in harmony therewith, and thus increase his morality and general
happiness.
Knowledge is as free as the air, once diffused it becomes impressed upon
the brains of men and cannot be easily destroyed or restrained; and the
greatest moral effects of science are cosmopolitan ones. Inventions based
upon new scientific truths are gradually {122} breaking down the barriers
between the various nations of the Earth, and infusing common interests
amongst all mankind. Nothing is uniting the sympathies of different
nations, increasing the friendly feelings between them, and diminishing the
probability of war, more than the increasing facilities of communication
brought about in a great measure by the developments of science and art;
more particularly by ocean steam navigation, rapid postal communication and
the telegraph, (see p. 51). At the present time there are about six
Atlantic telegraph cables in use, and an almost daily service of passenger
steam ships across that ocean. The use of inventions based upon scientific
discovery has aided moral progress in various ways. All inventions are made
with the object of supplying some real or supposed want, and nearly
everything which supplies a common want, conduces to contentment and
happiness and the general progress of mankind. No one can possibly measure
or estimate the advantage of the inventions of writing and printing, in
helping men to avoid quarrels, to settle differences of opinion, to
sympathise with suffering, to give advice: &c. Similar moral functions are
also performed by the electric telegraph, and a few specimens of some of
the messages sent through the wire would clearly illustrate this fact.
Great moral progress has also resulted from cheap daily intelligence,
collected largely with the aid of the telegraph; and of cheap books
produced by means of the steam engine. It is estimated that 250 millions
{123} of copies of newspapers are yearly published in Great Britain. The
Bible and Religious Tract Societies could hardly have existed had not the
properties of the ingredients of ink been discovered. The present
multiplicity of testaments, prayer-books, hymn-books, &c., has also been
rendered possible by the invention of printing. As darkness is favourable
to crime, so the invention of gaslight has conduced to morality. The
numerous sources of intellectual and moral enjoyment, developed by
inventions based upon scientific discovery, have attracted mankind from
more sensual and less moral amusements, and the invention of the
piano-forte has operated largely in a similar manner.
In many respects, the poor man of to-day can command social comforts,
conveniences, and pleasures, which an emperor could not in former times.
Who can estimate the amount of beneficial moral influences of an indirect
kind obtained by means of modern science? The relief from pain by
chloroform and other new medicines, the diminution of domestic toil by the
sewing machine; the increased health and pleasure obtained by access to the
country and seaside by means of railways; the diminution of anxiety
resulting from more speedy conveyance of letters, and especially of
messages by telegraphs, the increased pleasure of life resulting from being
surrounded by objects of beauty multiplied cheaply by means of scientific
processes, such as photography?
The human mind cannot greatly resist impression, the various effects of
scientific research necessarily {124} produce an influence upon it. Whilst
great deep-seated truths make a powerful impression on the minds of
philosophers, the great practical effects of science in inventions, &c.,
profoundly impress the mass of mankind. One of the chief influences of the
discovery of important scientific truths and of their practical application
in some wonderful way, such as in the telescope and microscope, phosphorus
matches, photography, electro-plating, the electric light, the
spectroscope, microphone, telephone, &c., is to produce a profound and
wide-spread impression of the existence of a great and mysterious
influence, which produces (or enables us to produce) such striking effects.
Whilst also the novelty of the practical effects of new scientific truths
in inventions, astonish persons in general; the definiteness of scientific
phenomena, and the certainty with which they may be reproduced convince all
competent persons who examine them, that they are rigidly subject to
definite laws. In this way the antique belief that natural phenomena are
produced by supernatural agencies, is gradually being abandoned, and the
more moral conviction of the omnipresence and universality of law has been
largely established in its stead. Every new scientific fact and invention
thus becomes a new proof of the universality of law. Belief in the
supernatural has diminished in proportion as scientific knowledge has
advanced; instead of natural phenomena being erroneously ascribed to
demons, spirits, supernatural {125} powers, and occult causes, they have
been proved to be results of natural powers, acting in accordance with
known principles. Assertions which have been made, that "the will is a
supernatural power, independent of natural law" &c., are not supported by
evidence at all equal in cogency to that in proof of the statement, that
our mental and moral powers as a whole act in accordance with the great
principles of science.
That moral phenomena, like those of the physical sciences, are capable of
being made the subject of experiment, observation, comparison, analysis,
and inference, is very manifest. Every case of bribery may be viewed as an
experiment in morality. The very common case where an employer tests the
honesty of a servant by some contrivance, is also a trial of a similar
kind. The dependence of the moral powers upon scientific conditions, is
clearly seen in the influences of intoxicating drinks. A mere natural
substance could not possibly overcome the influence of a power which exists
entirely independent of it; _i.e._, a "supernatural" one. Even the greatest
believer in the "supernatural" power of the human will, deplores the
serious injury which the abuse of alcoholic liquors produces upon mankind,
rendering the will powerless, and debasing the moral sentiments. The
effects of opium, haschisch, &c., are other examples. A vast number of
experiments remain to be made of the effects of drugs and organic
compounds, both solid, liquid and gaseous, upon moral actions; {126} which
will probably prove a still greater degree of dependence of those actions
upon purely physical and chemical conditions.
The "order of facts" in the subject of morality requires precisely similar
mental treatment to those to which scientific investigation has been
already applied with such great success, and which include all phenomena
admitting of observation, comparison, analysis and inference; and not only
those in which we are able, but also those in which we are not able to
produce by means of experiment, the phenomena to be observed, such as those
of astronomy and geology. Different subjects also are experimental in
different degrees, physical science is more experimental, physiology is
more observational; morality is partly experimental, and therefore capable
of reduction to scientific system by means of our intellectual powers.
In consequence of the essential nature of truth being the same in all
subjects, and of the fundamental processes of mental action in the
determination of truth being also alike in all, the essential modes of
arriving at and detecting moral truth are the same as those employed in
research in the physical sciences. We possess therefore no special faculty,
call it "conscience," or what we may, by which we are enabled to infallibly
arrive at truth in moral questions. What is right and good, and what is
wrong and evil, are determined by precisely the same general means as what
is true; our much vaunted consciousness alone does not infallibly tell us;
reason alone, {127} acting upon the evidence, is the final arbiter in any
doubtful or disputed case. The truth of moral questions must be examined
and tested by precisely the same mental faculties and processes as those
employed in physical science, viz:--by the faculties of perception,
observation, comparison, and inference, acting upon the whole of the
evidence; and by the processes of observing facts, comparing them,
inferring conclusions; by analysing and cross-examining the evidence in
every possible way, and extracting from it the largest amount of consistent
knowledge.
Although we cannot detect moral truth by any other than intellectual
processes, we may however arrive at correct moral conduct in two ways,
viz:--either blindly or intelligently. We arrive at it blindly or
automatically by the process of trusting to our inherited and acquire
tendencies and dogmatic beliefs; and intelligently by the conscious use of
our knowledge and intellectual powers; and each of these methods has its
advantages. The former process being an empirical one, is very uncertain
and cannot be employed for the judicial detection of truth, or the certain
discrimination of it from error, it has however to be trusted to in all
cases where we are deficient in knowledge, or have not time for
investigation. Truthful ideas and correct conduct also, which at first
require the exercise of considerable intellect and much self-discipline, in
order to arrive at them, become by habit so completely converted into
acquired tendencies as to be automatic. It is not improbable {128} that
many of our truthful ideas and correct tendencies were originally arrived
at by intellectual processes; and have become incorporated into our mental
and physical structure by habit, education, and inheritance.
The scientific basis of morality is further shewn and essentially proved by
the fact that the fundamental rules of morality are dependent upon
scientific principles. According to Dr. Clarke, the two fundamental "rules
of righteousness" which regulate our moral conduct are, first, that we
should do unto another what we would, under like circumstances, have him do
unto us; and second, that we should constantly endeavour to promote to the
utmost of our power, the welfare and happiness of all men (to the latter
might well be added, the welfare of all sentient creatures). The first of
these rules is essentially dependent upon the scientific principle of
causation, viz:--that the same cause, acting under the same circumstances,
always produces the same effect, if what we did for another person under
like circumstances might produce a different effect to what it would when
done for ourself, the rule could not be depended upon and would be of no
use. The second also agrees with the great principles of science, for the
more we obey those principles, the more do we really "promote the happiness
and welfare of all men." The first of these rules however in the form
usually stated, is incomplete, because it does not provide for the
circumstance, that many persons desire to have done unto themselves, not
that which {129} is most right, and really most for their welfare and that
of mankind in general, but that which would most please them. The desire of
immediate pleasure or consolation is greater than the love of truth in
nearly all men, and this is connected with another fact, viz:--that persons
unacquainted with the great principles of science, have not the advantage
of the moral sustaining power of those principles, and are compelled in
circumstances of trial to seek extraneous mental relief.
The desire to do right is not the primary source of morality; there must be
a cause for that desire, and this fact also shews that moral phenomena are
dependent upon the scientific principle of causation. We can also much
better understand a subject, especially a complex one like that of morals,
when we can co ordinate its facts in a scientific manner, by referring them
to some general principle which governs or includes them. Referring moral
actions to a verified scientific principle, is more satisfactory than
referring them to a less definite source such as "conscience"; the
"testimony of consciousness"; or "the indestructible instincts of the human
soul," because a principle affords a more consistent explanation than a
dogmatic idea. The fact also that the discoveries of science usually
precede the developments of the moral advantages of science to mankind, is
in harmony with the general truth that effects follow their causes, and
with the conclusion that moral rules and moral progress have a scientific
basis. {130}
In a general way, the influence of science upon moral progress is connected
with what has been termed, "the scientific spirit." This characteristic
consists mainly of an intense love of truth, a desire to acquire new
knowledge, to arrive at certainty and accuracy; also an obedience to law in
general, and a consequent philosophic resignation to inevitable ills.
Science inculcates these qualities, and it is well known that scientific
discoverers have usually been highly moral persons, truthful, accurate, law
abiding, patient, persevering, temperate, &c. On the other hand, the most
lawless persons are usually those who are most ignorant of the great laws
which govern their actions, who over-estimate human power and ability, and
are impelled by ill-regulated enthusiasm or feeling.
Belief in and obedience to law, being a fundamental moral quality, is in
its turn the source of other moral qualities of less importance; for
instance, it tends to produce calmness, resignation, contentment, patience,
submission to the inevitable, &c. No man can be highly moral who disobeys
the great principles of nature. We may however obey those laws either
intelligently, by acquiring a scientific knowledge of them; empirically, by
obeying rules framed in accordance with them; or blindly, by obeying dogmas
which happen to agree with them. Those who do not understand laws cannot of
course intelligently obey them, and those who most disobey them, consist
nearly wholly of those who do not understand them. {131} Superstition,
ignorance of natural law, and a belief in occult powers, encourages
lawlessness, injures the moral sentiments, and is often attended by
bigotry, associated with strife, schism, and sectarian dispute.
Probably the greatest influence which scientific discovery has had upon the
moral progress of mankind, has been by inculcating an intelligent love of
truth on account of its own intrinsic goodness; in this respect it stands
pre-eminent. Love of truth is a fundamental virtue because it is the basis
of many smaller ones. It is more virtuous, also, to pursue truth on account
of its own intrinsic and unqualified goodness in all respects, than for any
narrow extrinsic quality, such as the personal pleasure or utility it may
afford, or on account of any personal gain or loss, reward or punishment,
which may result from pursuing or neglecting it. In the present imperfect
state of civilization however, the great bulk of mankind unavoidably employ
less noble, as well as the noblest motives, as a means of improvement. Most
men can only be moved to do right by means of inferior motives, one of the
most effectual of which in a commercial nation is "small investments, large
profits, and quick returns;" an expectation of great reward in return for
small self-sacrifice.
The discovery and dissemination of verified scientific knowledge is a purer
kind of occupation than the promulgation of any kind of dogma, because the
statements of verified science are usually capable of demonstration, whilst
those of doctrine, being often {132} contradictory, may, or may not be
true; mere affirmation also, when not based upon proof, is often dangerous
to morality. In dogmatic subjects a man may tell untruths with impunity,
because no one can disprove or convict him; but in demonstrable ones, a man
dare not utter falsehoods, because others will prove his statements to be
erroneous. It is demonstration rather than doctrine that is of divine
origin. A man also who practises scientific research is largely compelled
to adopt the most truthful views of nature, in order to enable him to make
discoveries.
Real science is largely independent of opinion or faith. Whether we believe
or not that a piece of clean iron immersed in a mixture of oil of vitriol
and water, evolves hydrogen gas, the fact itself remains unaltered. It is a
great and glorious circumstance for mankind, that human progress depends
essentially upon a knowledge of new verified truth. As verified
experimental knowledge can only come from the great source of all that is
good, to doubt the value of new demonstrable truth, is practical atheism.
Those also who systematically investigate sources of verifiable truth, are
much more likely to ultimately arrive at the fountain of all truth, than
those who employ unsystematic methods, or prefer unproved beliefs to
verified knowledge.
Another of the most powerful ways in which scientific discovery has
promoted moral progress has been an indirect one, viz., by diminishing
ignorance. Deficiency of knowledge is the parent of a vast {133} amount of
evil and failure. "There is no instance on record of an active ignorant
man, who, having good intentions, and supreme power to enforce them, has
not done far more evil than good." (Buckle, "History of Civilization," vol.
1, p. 167). Ignorance largely precludes happiness, and intelligence is an
indispensable condition of the highest morality. There are plenty of
difficult positions in life in which the desire to do right is not alone
sufficient, we must intelligently know what is the right course to pursue.
We are all of us ignorant in different degrees, and must be content in many
matters to walk by faith until we can walk by sight, and to act according
to rule and precept until we have discovered general principles to guide
us:--blind dogmatic morality and "rule of thumb" method is vastly better
than none, and has rendered great services to mankind. Whether comforting
doctrines are true or not, the great bulk of mankind prefer them because
they afford immediate relief; and whether they be erroneous or truthful,
men will be benefited by them and continue to believe in them, until their
minds are sufficiently advanced to receive a knowledge of verified
principles. Rules of morality however, when presented to us with a basis of
demonstrable truth, come with a degree of divine authority, and possess
greater claim to our observance, than the same rules presented to us as
empirical or dogmatic statements only.
In proportion to our ignorance the more we dislike to be apprised of our
defects and the more inclined are {134} we to continue uninformed; because
the less intelligent we are the less are we able to perceive the evil
effects of our blindness or the advantages of knowledge. As also the
present state of civilization is very imperfect, and unsolved problems
exist in all directions, ignorance and all its evil consequences are
extremely prevalent. It causes the great mass of mankind to neglect better
objects for the sake of money. It indirectly constrains lawyers to neglect
moral evidence. It induces medical men to withhold truth from ignorant
patients. It causes ministers of religion to prefer doctrine to
demonstration. It would therefore be comparatively easy to compose lists of
our moral deficiencies, and of improvements urgently needed in morality,
far more extensive than the very incomplete ones of our material
shortcomings already given (see pp. 68 to 78). To enumerate however the
imperfections in the moral conduct of mankind, the frauds in trades, the
undue advantage taken of the defenceless, the deceit and empiricism in
professions, the professional trading on human weakness, the cruelty of
field sports, the hollow motives of social, political, and religious life,
the propagating as infallible truth, doctrines which may be fallacious, is
not the object of this Chapter; but rather to make clear the fact, that the
extension of the domain of verified truth by means of scientific research
is highly conducive to moral progress.
The extension of new scientific knowledge is influencing morality and
gradually reducing the selfishness {135} of mankind, by proving that there
exist no royal roads to happiness, and that the greatest amount of
individual and national success can only be secured by a genuine pursuit of
truth, as an individual and cosmopolitan duty. Increased knowledge is
gradually proving to mankind that the purest happiness is to be obtained by
intelligent and virtuous conduct. By shewing Man the unreasonable character
of some of his fears and hopes, and substituting for them a greater variety
and extent of intellectual pleasures, science is slowly making him more
satisfied with his lot on this Earth. Meanwhile the great mass of mankind
are still pursuing the ever retreating phantom of an easy way to happiness;
the great laws of nature however cannot be evaded, the avoidance of evil
and the attainment of good can only be secured by obeying all the great
laws which govern our nature.
Progress in morality is largely dependent upon the diffusion of belief in
the universality of scientific laws. When men understand those laws, know
that their action is irresistible, and that they have no alternative but to
obey them or suffer, they acquire a habit of obeying them. Universality of
law in moral actions is often considered to be incompatible with the
existence of freedom of the will in selecting ideas, and choosing courses
of conduct; but we are free or not, according to circumstances, both to
think and to act. All things are free to be active or not, in accordance
with their properties and surrounding conditions, but not in {136}
contradiction to them; and the human will is no exception to this
statement. The "will" is only free within certain limits; it cannot act in
opposition to its strongest motives or causes of action. We believe
ourselves to be much more free than we are, because we often do not know
the causes which determine us, and we frequently fail to detect those
influences, because we cannot think, and at the same time clearly observe
our act of thought and its motives. Freedom of the will does not enable us
to set aside laws: entire freedom from law in any instance is probably only
apparent. This limited degree of freedom of the will indicates the
dependence of volition upon scientific laws, because a supernatural power,
being entirely independent of natural law, could not be limited by it. To
affirm without proof that the human will is a "supernatural power" is to
implicitly deny the universality and constancy of natural laws. New
knowledge developed by Science, imparts to us liberty, but not license;
and, so far from diminishing the freedom of the will, increases it by
showing us what conditions we must fulfil and obey in order to effect our
objects. We acquire power by being first obedient; and this is in
accordance with the principles and facts of science; we must obey nature
before we can make nature obey us; the elementary bodies, also, usually
acquire the free state, latent power, and the ability to evolve heat and
electric energy, only by being first subjected in their crude state to a
process of reduction and purification. {137}
Few circumstances connected with the discovery of new truths of science,
have had a greater moral effect, than the very high degree of certainty of
such truths. The moral result of this is a corresponding degree of
confidence in the statements of science. Trustworthiness is a great moral
quality. Uncertainty is a continual hindrance to action and enjoyment; and
many persons are driven to believe in error, and hence to commit sin,
rather than remain in suspense. Contradictions of doctrine, and the
consequent uncertainty of belief, in any subject, are fertile sources of
strife. Science consists, not merely of opinions and words, but also of the
tangible realities which those opinions and words represent, the forces,
substances and phenomena of the material Universe. Some persons however
fancy that the results of science are as uncertain as those of the
undemonstrable subjects with which they are familiar.
Another way in which science has contributed to moral progress, has been by
requiring greater accuracy in nearly all human actions, and thereby
diffusing greater exactitude of language and of conduct, which has spread
itself throughout all civilised society. Previous to the use of watches and
clocks, persons were no doubt much less exact in fulfilling their
appointments; the establishment also in our chief towns, of electric
time-keepers regulated from Greenwich Observatory, is increasing exactitude
in our large communities. Since the introduction of railways, millions of
persons have been compelled to be more {138} exact in their movements, by
the risk they incur of missing their train. Numerous inventions and
processes based upon scientific discoveries could not be worked at all
unless men possessed habits of greater accuracy than formerly. Workmen now
require higher moral and intellectual education, and their duties require
more intelligence and involve greater responsibility.
Science diminishes error, and the avoidance of error is a large step
towards the attainment of truth. There is no tyranny equal to that of false
ideas. Error often produces immoral acts, and every act of immorality is a
mental error. "The ignorant justice-loving man, enamoured of the right, is
blinded by the speciousness of wrong." "Inaccuracy of thought is the cause
not only of the errors we meet with in the sciences, but also of the
majority of the offences which are committed in civil life,--of unjust
quarrels, unfounded law suits, rash counsel, and ill-arranged undertakings.
There are few of those which have not their origin in some error, and in
some fault of judgment, so that there is no defect which it more concerns
us to correct."[17]
Our senses and consciousness are often great deceivers, and unless
corrected by sufficient knowledge, are frequently as great a source of
error in moral questions as in mental ones.[18] Their incessant influence
is a cause of selfishness, and of the fallacious tendency existing in
nearly every man, to exaggerate the importance of himself and of everything
relating to him. {139} It has led man to consider himself "the Lord of
Creation";--to believe that his volitions are not subject to natural laws
&c.:--and has given rise to the comparatively narrow-minded idea "the study
of mankind is man." The fact that consciousness frequently misleads men of
energetic temperament who feel their energy, indicates its connection with
a physical basis.
Consciousness is also an essential condition of what we term evil. If we
define evil as that which produces pain or discomfort in sentient
creatures, then evil is that influence only which unpleasantly affects
consciousness. And if we admit this, then all evil is relative, and there
is no absolute evil; because, if there were no sentient creatures, there
would be no evil. It is manifest also, that if the existence of evil is
dependent upon that of sentient creatures, and if the existence of such
creatures depends upon physical conditions, and upon the operations of the
great principles of science, then the existence of evil must itself depend
to that extent upon those conditions and principles. What we term Evil, is
caused, not only by the actions of man, but also on a large scale by the
operation of the simplest forces of matter, in earth-quakes, storms,
volcanic outbursts, droughts and famines, pestilences, etc. Evil (as well
as good) may therefore be viewed as a result, to some extent, of the
operation of the laws of the Universe; and here again we are compelled to
recognise a scientific basis of morality. {140}
That the same causes, acting under different conditions, produce different
and even opposite effects, is a well-known scientific truth. The same heat
of summer which causes our foods to decay, promotes the growth of plants in
the soil; the same cold of winter which increases the pain of bronchial
affections, and cuts short the lives of aged and infirm persons, acts as a
stimulant and a source of pleasure to the young and healthy. We need not
therefore be surprised, that the same physical conditions and principles of
nature, act as causes or conditions both of what we term evil and what we
term good. If, also the theory of relativity in physical and mental action
is true, that change of impression is a necessary cause or condition of
consciousness, and that previous experience of pain increases the
perception of pleasure, we possess in that theory, as one of the general
ideas of science, a partial basis of morality. All these remarks tend to
shew, that in order to obtain a truly scientific view of the nature of man,
and of man's position and duties in the Universe, we must avoid the errors
caused by uncorrected consciousness.
Another great moral effect of the continual discovery of new truth in
science, is the gradual production and diffusion of uniformity of belief,
first amongst scientific men, and then amongst the mass of mankind. This
uniformity of belief is a necessary result of the invariability of fact and
law; it does not extend to scientific opinions, hypotheses or theories,
because they are not necessarily facts, and may be {141} erroneous. A
knowledge of science tends to remove differences of opinion between man and
man, because it enables every honest examiner to obtain essentially similar
results. Scientific research will gradually disclose what is true and what
is untrue in doctrine and empirical rules; and what is true will be
retained. A universal religion or a scientific philosophy which is composed
of contradictory creeds cannot be wholly true. Science is gradually
superseding unreasonable beliefs, and inaugurating a true universal gospel
in which all men will eventually think alike in fundamental matters. The
continued discovery of new truth must of necessity sooner or later lead
mankind to the source of all truth and to universal satisfaction and
happiness. It has been frequently stated that science is antagonistic to
religion; it is evident however that as science is so conducive to
morality, it cannot be opposed to true religion, but only to false or
unfounded beliefs. Nothing shews more plainly a weakness of moral
confidence and a deficiency of faith in an over-ruling power, than a fear
that the pursuit of scientific truth will lead to results injurious to
mankind. What we most need to fear is, not that our most cherished
doctrinal beliefs may be proved to be mistakes, but that we through
deficiency of knowledge may be led to do wrong.
There are plenty of questions, especially in matters of theory and doctrine
in concrete subjects, which science cannot directly and absolutely decide
either one way or the other, but respecting which, by the {142} aid of new
knowledge and of inference based upon it, science gradually accumulates so
large a preponderence of evidence as conclusively settles them to the
conviction of every unprejudiced and reasonable person. Many of the most
deeply interesting questions in mental science and morality are of this
kind; and will probably be settled in this manner. It is well-known also to
scientific men that the indirect conclusions of the intellect and reasoning
power are often more certain than the direct evidence of the senses and
consciousness; we are more certain for instance that the Earth is a sphere
than that it is a plane, although the former conclusion is arrived at
largely by inference, whilst the latter is the direct testimony of
uneducated consciousness. Whilst our senses and consciousness inform us
that the Earth is a fixed body, inference proves to us that it is rushing
through space at an immense velocity. Sense and consciousness are not
intellect, although they are often treated as such. Their functions are to
perceive and observe, to act as witnesses, to supply evidence to the
judgment, and not to usurp the reasoning power. Even the universal
consciousness of all mankind is insufficient to overthrow the final
decisions of the intellect, or to decide what is true or false, because the
senses and consciousness cannot compare or infer. As it is the force and
repitition, and not the truthfulness of mental impressions, which largely
determines belief, we are capable of believing error as well as truth, and
we believe much that is erroneous until the {143} corrections of the
intellect are applied to the evidence of the senses and feelings. The
correctness or otherwise of our present beliefs will be tested in the
future as others have been in the past, and the new experiences requisite
for the purpose will probably be obtained by means of original research. It
is a great mistake to suppose that the warrantable inferences deduced from
scientific knowledge will not sooner or later profoundly influence
questions relating to the highest hopes and aspirations of the human race,
such as the independent existence and immortality of the human soul; that
of a personal Ruler of the Universe; freedom of the will; the origin of
evil; future reward and punishment; &c. By extension of knowledge a
scientific system of morality will be formed. The great principles which
govern the phenomena of all bodies are gradually being discovered, and when
found we deductively apply them to ourselves, and thus arrive at a
knowledge of our true position in nature, our duties, our proper course of
conduct, &c. Science also by disclosing to us the true relations of matter
to mind in the human brain, will probably not only make known to us the
true limits of our mental powers and of the knowable, but also help to
solve the problems of the relations of the Universe and of Man to an
intelligent Creator. It will decide such questions, largely by shewing us
whether or not the ideas we entertain respecting them are consistent with
the more extensive knowledge evolved by research. A part of the data from
which we may {144} safely predict that science will in the future exercise
so great a moral influence over mankind, is the fact that its chief
principles are fundamental guides and regulators of human action.
Probably nothing has a greater effect in making a man humble and reverent
than a thorough knowledge of science. By the inventions of the telescope,
microscope, spectroscope, telegraph, microphone, telephone, &c., the
extremely finite extent of all our faculties has been abundantly
demonstrated. Whilst the wonders of the telescope have developed an
intelligent sentiment of reverence, by revealing to us a portion of the
vast amount of the Universe of matter and energy, those of the microscope
have strengthened that sentiment by affording us an insight into the almost
endless complexity of minute creatures, substances and actions. Whilst also
these and other scientific instruments and appliances have proved the
excessively limited extent of our senses; the inscrutable character and
immense number and variety of problems of nature yet unsolved, equally
demonstrate the extreme feebleness of our mental powers. To obtain an
accurate acquaintance with science also, and especially to discover new
scientific truths, it is absolutely necessary to set aside human pride, and
approach the subject like a little child; no other course is possible.
A knowledge of geology and astronomy also makes a man humble and reverent.
The fact that this globe must have existed myriads of years; and is always
moving at the immense velocity of more than 62,000 {145} miles an hour in
its orbit, is sufficient to convince any unprejudiced person of his own
transient physical existence and his comparative physical feebleness and
insignificance. Hitherto, man has largely been accustomed, through the
influence of uncorrected impressions and other causes, to view all nature
as having been expressly provided for him, but science informs us that
whilst this Earth is suitable for his abode, and Nature ministers to his
necessities and pleasures, it is only on condition that he first obeys the
great laws of matter and energy, and adapts himself to their requirements.
The operation of those laws often ruthlessly destroys thousands of men by
pestilence, famine, drought, and other great calamities, and man can do
nothing which is incompatible with them without suffering a penalty.
Science shews that man is but one out of at least 320,000 different species
of animals; it also discloses the fact that the entire human population of
this globe constitute only about one 50,575,785 millionth part of the
Earth, and proves to us that the Earth itself is but a speck in the
Universe, one out of at least 75 millions of worlds; and that not only is
it merely a planet revolving round the Sun, but that the Sun is only one of
a multitude of Suns, and is itself, with all its planets, revolving round a
still more distant centre in space.
There is scarcely a faculty man possesses, which is not immeasurably
limited in comparison with the powers and capabilities of inanimate nature.
His physical energy, when compared with that of the {146} momentum of this
Earth, is so exceedingly small that it can hardly be conveyed to our minds
by means of figures; even the steam engine, excessively wasteful as it is
of power, far surpasses him in strength. The duration of his existence is
to that of the world he inhabits, as nothing to infinity. His power and
speed of locomotion are also very limited; the globe to which he is fixed
by gravity, moves in one hour through a distance greater than he could walk
in twenty years. Practically, by circumstances, he is almost rooted like a
vegetable to the locality where he exists; comparatively few men have
walked even a hundred miles from their homes, or have been conveyed round
this little globe by the aid of all our improved means of transport. A
balloon can ascend in the air, but a man cannot; without the aid of that
apparatus he is absolutely fixed to the surface of the Earth, and with the
assistance of all the appliances of science, he cannot yet ascend even ten
miles into the atmosphere, nor dive more than a few fathoms into the sea.
His senses are equally contracted; his perceptions of touch and sound are
far less delicate than that of the microphone; a photographic surface will
detect vibrations of light which he cannot at all perceive, and record
images more quickly than his brain; and for the detection of magnetism and
the chemical rays of light he possesses no sense whatever:--electrometers
and galvanometers can detect thousands of times smaller quantities of
electricity than he can perceive:--whilst a bolometer renders manifest a
one {147} hundred-thousandth of a Centigrade degree change of temperature,
he can hardly detect a difference of an entire degree; and whilst carbon
and platinum may be heated to whiteness without material change, a rise or
fall of about five Fahrenheit degrees in his temperature endangers his
life. His mental and intellectual powers are as limited as his senses; he
can hardly reckon without making an error even a single million, nor can he
conceive an adequate idea of a billion; a million miles or a millionth of
an inch are each quite beyond his immediate perception; an extremely minute
circumstance also is capable of disturbing and entirely diverting his train
of thought. He cannot create or destroy even a particle of dust, nor form
out of nothing a single idea. The velocity of transmission of his nervous
power, and the speed of his execution of will, are also extremely slow in
comparison with that of an electric current in a copper wire. Every person
is aware that he can only very slowly receive and understand a new idea.
His mental advance is as tardy as his locomotion, a sixth part of his life
is spent in acquiring the merest rudiments of universal knowledge. Whilst
his reasoning power, when applied to actual and truthfully stated
experience, is truly "the great guide" of his life, it only renders
explicit what was already contained in that experience; for when he draws
an inference, he usually only states in one form of words, what he has
already implicitly included in the propositions; and if the inference
contains more than this it is {148} unwarranted. His mental helplessness in
the absence of knowledge, is equal to his physical incapacity in the
absence of light. Nearly every problem of nature also is so complex, and
affected by so many conditions, that his reasoning power only enables him
to advance a very minute step at a time in the discovery of new knowledge;
he is then obliged to halt, and have recourse to new experiences obtained
either by means of experiment and observation, or by the latter alone.
Man's moral actions are largely the effect of circumstances; his thoughts
and actions are probably the whole of them limited by law. He is never free
from the influence of causation. His mental and moral freedom are limited
by the epoch in which he lives, by the customs of his nation, by the
individuals by whom he is immediately surrounded, by the alcoholic
stimulants of which he partakes, and by his own physical and mental
constitution, his degree of intelligence, &c., &c. Whether he is willing or
not, he is incessantly compelled to receive sensuous and mental
impressions, and be influenced by an almost infinite number and variety of
agencies acting upon him both from within and without:--To be mentally and
physically active, and perform all the bodily functions and acts necessary
to his existence:--To live on this globe in presence of all its phenomena,
and be carried through space at an immense velocity:--To undergo through a
long series of generations a progressive existence and development of
civilization, &c., &c. {149} He is more subject to the laws of the Universe
than those laws are subject to him; and he can only exercise his will
successfully and become their master by first obeying them.
Under the influence of the light and heat of the Sun, the entire population
of this planet (about fifteen hundred millions) are renewed out of the
crust of the Earth every few years, by breathing the air, drinking the
water, feeding upon plants which take their constituents from the Earth,
water and air; or by eating animals which have lived upon plants; and if
that heat and light, or that supply of food and air, were to cease, all
those human beings would die, and all the moral phenomena of man on this
globe would terminate. Whilst man cannot exist without the support of
inanimate nature and the operation of its laws, inanimate nature and its
laws can exist without him. That also which is naturally ordained by
Creative power to be dependent, cannot be essentially more important than
that upon which it depends for its existence. The essential importance of
man in relation to the Universe, exists only in his own imagination.
These facts shew that the principles of science, and the physical and
chemical properties of substances, lie at the very basis of man's existence
and activity and it would therefore be incorrect to say that the physical
system of the Universe is unimportant in comparison with the moral
phenomena of mankind.
That science conduces to humanity by preventing {150} and alleviating
animal suffering has been already alluded to (p. 80-81). True humanity
consists not in the abolition of experiments upon living creatures, but in
the judicious employment of them. Instead of barbarously treating our
suffering fellow creatures by indolently and ignorantly allowing causes of
disease and pain to continually occur and take their course, it urgently
enforces upon us the duty of extending our knowledge of physiology by means
of new experiments, observations and study. It would be untruthful to say
that experiments purposely made upon men and other animals do not yield new
and valuable information;--Pharmacopoeias and Materia-Medicæs are full of
descriptions of the properties of curative agents discovered by these and
other scientific methods.
Amongst the lesser virtues which have been greatly promoted by means of
scientific research is that of cleanliness. The origin of soap was the
discovery of the detergent properties of a boiled mixture of fat and
alkali. The numerous inventions which have cheapened the most important
soap-producing material, viz., washing soda, and those which have cheapened
oil of vitriol, the chief substance consumed in making washing-soda, have
all contributed to the cleanliness of mankind; and it has been stated that
the degree of civilization of a nation might be ascertained by the amounts
consumed of those substances.
Even the minor virtue of economy has been greatly promoted by the results
of scientific research. New {151} scientific truth has through inventions
taught us how to obtain greater effects with less expenditure of space, of
time, of materials, and forces. It has enabled us to effect our objects
quicker and with a diminution of waste. In the sugar manufacture for
example, by means of the centrifugal machine, the sugar is deprived as
perfectly of molasses in three minutes, as it was previously in three days,
and the necessary manufacturing apparatus has been so much reduced in
magnitude as not to require more than one half the space. The process of
bleaching linen, which formerly required weeks, has by the discovery of
chlorine been reduced to hours. Journeys which at one time occupied weeks
now only require days. Messages are now transmitted in hours which formerly
required months. Multitudes of instances might be adduced of the diminished
cost of the comforts and conveniences of life, resulting in consequence of
discovery of new scientific knowledge. Ultramarine for example, which at
one time cost from ten to twenty pounds an ounce, has by means of chemical
research been reduced in price to a few pence per pound; phosphorus, which
formerly cost several guineas an ounce, now costs only as many pence.
Numerous substances which were formerly thrown away, destroyed, or
neglected, are now utilized. Coal tar and gas-water, which were at one time
waste products in the making of gas, and which when thrown away were the
causes of costly litigation to gas-companies, by polluting streams and
wells, &c., {152} are now sources of very large income to those companies.
Those substances yield great quantities of salts of ammonia, the beautiful
aniline dyes, paraffin, benzene, napthaline, alizarine, and other valuable
products. Glycerine also, which formerly was a most offensive waste product
in soap-making, is now purified and used, to an extent of twenty millions
of pounds annually, for a great number of purposes; as an emollient for the
skin; as a source of nitro-glycerine and dynamite, used in blasting rocks,
in warfare, &c. The immense beds of native sulphide of iron also, notably
those of Tharsis and Rio Tinto in Spain, and of many other places, are now
utilized, literally in millions of tons, for the production of sulphur,
copper, oxide of iron, &c. A long list of instances of this class might be
adduced if it were necessary, some of them of very great importance.[19]
The promotion of morality by enabling us to detect crime, is one of the
smaller influences of scientific research, and may be referred to as a
set-off against the bad uses sometimes made of scientific knowledge. The
telegraph is very commonly employed to assist in tracking and capturing
criminals. Photography is also largely used in our gaols as a means of
recognising offenders.
Knowledge of science conduces also to self-discipline and self-mastery, it
tends to bridle our vicious passions by making known to us the penalties
which must be paid for their indulgence; it limits our self-will by shewing
us that we must respect and obey the {153} laws of nature whether we are
willing or not, no man can improperly manipulate dangerous substances or
forces with impunity; it moderates our bigotry by exhibiting to us the
great uncertainty of unproved opinions; it restrains undue credulity in
men's assertions, by shewing us their frequent fallacy; it gives us
confidence in the laws of nature, by proving to us their uniformity; it
withdraws us from self-deception by compelling us to accept the truths of
nature as they exist ready made for us, whether they harmonise with our
preconceived ideas or not; men cannot argue with nature, as they can with
their fellow-men, but must submit to the influence of verified truth. It
supplies us with principles instead of empirical "rule of thumb" methods as
guides of morality. Whilst it liberates us from the terror of irrational
fears, it cautions us against entertaining unreasonable hopes. It
substitutes for ignorant wonder and awe, an intelligent appreciation of
created things; and when fully developed it will probably satisfy all the
reasonable instincts and desires of men.
Whilst law, medicine and divinity, direct man's attention almost
exclusively to matters concerning himself, and thus tend to limit his
sphere of perception and knowledge, and unconsciously impress him with the
idea that all other existences are less important than himself, science not
only enlightens him respecting all the departments of his own nature, but
extends his mental vision in all directions by exciting his mind to observe
and reflect upon all other bodies {154} and actions throughout the
Universe. Whilst also music, painting, sculpture, poetry and the drama,
afford excitement and pleasure to his senses, feelings and sentiments, and
are largely personal; science not only constitutes the basis of those arts,
but shews the relations of them to Man and to the external Universe, and
thus more largely cultivates the intellect and corrects and refines the
senses, feelings and sentiments.
New scientific knowledge affords advantages to all classes of men; to the
minister of religion, by supplying him with new illustrations of Creative
power, in the greatness, smallness, and vast variety of nature; to the
physician, by explaining to him more perfectly the structure and phenomena
of the human body, and by providing him with new remedies; to the statesman
and politician, by making known to him the great and increasing relations
of science to national progress, by its influence upon wages, capital, the
employment of workmen, the art of war, the means of communication with
foreign countries, &c.; to the philanthropist, as an endless source of
employment for poor persons, by the development of new discoveries,
inventions, and improvements in arts and manufactories; to the military
man, by affording him new engines and materials for warfare and defence; to
the inventor, by supplying him with new discoveries upon which to found
inventions; to the merchant and man of trade, by the influence of new
products and processes upon the prices of his commodities; to the
manufacturer, as a means of improving his materials, {155} apparatus, and
processes; and to the investor of money, by assisting him to judge what new
technical schemes are likely to succeed.
As the domain of rational enjoyment afforded by means of science gradually
enlarges, that derivable from less intellectual sources will probably be
modified; indeed this change is already progressing, and is manifested in
the alterations occurring in theological views, and in the extensive
adoption of scientific entertainments by religious bodies. The recognition
of science by professors of religion is also shewn by the already extensive
use of railways on Sundays as a means of conveyance to churches and
chapels; also by the publication by the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, of Manuals of Electricity, Astronomy, Botany, Chemistry,
Crystallography, Geology, Physiology, Zoology, Matter and Motion, the
Spectroscope, &c.
Having shewn some of the chief modes in which new scientific truth is a
basis of mental and moral progress, it is not necessary to say much
respecting the evil uses sometimes made of science, because every good
thing is liable to be abused by ignorant or ill-intentioned persons. The
abuses of scientific knowledge do not arise from the true spirit of
research, viz., a desire for new knowledge on account of its intrinsic
goodness and value to man, but from an absence of that sentiment. The
Bremerhaven explosion, the assassination of the Czar, the uses of
photography to forge letters of credit, and of the {156} telegraph in
swindling operations, the employment of electro-gilding and silvering in
coining base money, &c., &c., are all attributable to motives other than a
love of science.
All the facts mentioned in this chapter, and the various points of
essential similarity between physical, physiological, and mental phenomena,
justify the conclusion that both moral and other mental actions, like
physical and chemical ones, are obedient to the great principles of
science. And from the evidence here adduced and alluded to, it is certain
that those principles influence human progress, not only in a few
conspicuous direct ways, but in a multitude of varied, deep-seated, and
indirect ones.
If the statements made in this Chapter are true, that the innate properties
of matter really are motive powers of the human organism, and the
principles of science are regulators of mental and moral action; that Man
is a feeble epitome of the principles and powers of inorganic matter; that
the laws of Nature operate in utter disregard of his erroneous beliefs;
that nearly all man's sins and sufferings are traceable to his ignorance
and limited powers; that in proportion to his ignorance of science so is he
unable to foresee the more remote consequences of his thoughts and acts;
and if new knowledge does correct erroneous beliefs and purify human
thought and action, it behoves teachers of morality to make themselves
adequately acquainted with the principles and newest developments of
science.
* * * * *
{157}
CHAPTER III.
------
NEW TRUTH, AND ITS GENERAL RELATION TO HUMAN PROGRESS.
The great source of the success of applying science to trade, and of the
beneficent effect of science upon human welfare in general, is simply the
influence of demonstrable truth. We know that if we have once discovered
all the principles, laws, and conditions of some scientific phenomenon, or
of some improved process or result in a manufacture, the reproduction of
exactly the same conditions will hereafter enable us to invariably produce
the same result. In this respect science differs from dogma, the truth or
falsity of which cannot be demonstrated; it also differs from empiricism,
because when empirically working a process we are ignorant of the
principles or laws which are operating, whilst with a scientific knowledge
we understand those laws, and can direct them to our particular purposes.
In the process of electro-plating for example, we understand the laws of
the phenomena, and can direct them so as to obtain silver of a hard or soft
quality, brittle or tough, crystalline silver, &c., according to our wish;
but if we had only an empirical knowledge of the subject we could not thus
vary the process. {158}
The highest test of truth is verified prediction; if we calculate
beforehand that an eclipse of the Sun will occur at a certain hour and
minute, and that eclipse occurs accurately at the predicted moment, we may
rest assured that our knowledge upon that point is true and complete. If we
say that a piece of clean iron, immersed in a solution of blue vitriol,
will become covered with a layer of metallic copper, and we find upon trial
that this result invariably occurs when we fulfil those conditions, we may
be certain that our knowledge of this phenomenon and its conditions is also
of a definite and certain character. Similarly, when we become able to
predict with certainty the conditions of the Sun's surface, we shall
probably also be able to predict severe winters, famines, &c., and
therefore be prepared to suggest precautions to be taken against them. Even
now the new truth necessary for this purpose is beginning to be evolved by
means of scientific research.[20]
Amongst the great axioms and principles of science, possessing great
certainty, and which enable us to predict, are, _1st._ the general truth
known as the Principle of Causation, that every effect has a cause; that
the same cause, acting under the same conditions, always produces the same
effect; and that causation acts through all time and all space:--_2nd._ the
great truth, that every phenomenon requires time; and every substance
occupies space:--_3rd._ the Principles of Conservation and Persistency of
Matter {159} and Energy; that out of nothing, nothing comes; and out of
everything, everything proceeds; that all the future states of the Universe
are implicitly contained in and will be evolved out of the present state of
the Universe; that we have no experience and possess no verified knowledge
either of creation or annihilation of Matter or Energy; that we cannot
absolutely create or destroy even an idea;[21] and that Matter and Energy
appear to be eternal:--_4th._ the Principle of Convertibility and
Equivalency of the different forms of Energy, according to which the
various forces known as mechanical power, heat, light, electricity,
magnetism, chemical action, &c., being modes of motion, are convertible
into each other in equivalent quantities and without addition or loss.
These and other great principles constitute the basis of physical and
chemical science, by obeying which, we have been enabled to evolve all the
wonderful practical realities of science of the present day.[22] To these
great principles may be added the more concrete truth called the "Law of
Progress," the essential idea of which is time, a time-rate; which
regulates the speed of increase of civilization, and is evidently connected
with the great truth that every phenomenon occupies time.
The Principle of Gravitation, demonstrated by Newton, explains a vast
number of facts relating to the motions of the Heavenly bodies:--the {160}
Undulatory Theory of Light, largely developed by the labours of Fresnel,
renders equally clear and systematic an almost endless number and variety
of optical phenomena; Oersted's law of Electro-magnetism similarly explains
and renders consistent a multitude of facts respecting the movements of
magnets and electric conductors, which would otherwise be confusing to
remember and impossible to satisfactorily explain. And the great mental
value of these comprehensive ideas to mankind, consists largely in
relieving the memory and diminishing mental confusion, by co-ordinating a
large number of different facts and apparently inconsistent phenomena by
means of a general conception which embraces the whole of them. Thus a
knowledge of the Principle of Gravitation informs us that both the ascent
of a balloon in the air, and the descent of a stone in water, are alike due
to the same force of gravity; and that of Chemical Affinity proves to us
that the apparently unlike phenomena of slow rusting of iron and vivid
combustion of phosphorus are essentially alike and due to the same cause.
All bodies, whether living or dead, and all forms of energy, appear to be
absolutely subject to the great laws of Causation, Progress, Conservation,
&c., no one can escape them; the man who transgresses the Law of Progress
by being too much in advance of his epoch, is punished as certainly as he
who lags behind it; all must advance together, and at approximately the
prescribed rates. {161}
The real source of all that is good in new scientific knowledge arises from
its verified and verifiable character, its high degree of certainty, and
its capacity of withstanding all the tests which can be applied to it. By
the term "scientific knowledge" in this case I mean that only that which
has been verified, and I purposely exclude all matters of hypothesis, mere
opinion or belief. Scientific research is the chief basis of national
progress, not only because it is continually disclosing new truths to us,
but also because the truths it reveals are frequently of the most definite
kind.
As the term "verified truth" may appear vague, the questions may well be
asked, what is truth? And how may we best detect it? And especially what is
new truth? and how may it best be recognised? Truth may be conveniently
defined as universal consistency; or that which perfectly conforms to
facts, and agrees with the widest experience, when tested by means of all
our intellectual powers, the reasoning faculty in particular. The usual
modern criterion of it, is consistency with the fundamental axioms of
logic, and with all the great principles of nature as established by means
of scientific research, such as the universality of causation, the
continuity of phenomena, the indestructibility of matter and energy, the
convertibility and equivalency of forces, &c. All truth whatever is one in
character by possessing the inseparable attribute of complete consistency.
The truthfulness of scientific knowledge is proved by its agreement with
universal experience and with the {162} fundamental logical axioms:--a
thing either is or is not:--a thing cannot both be and not be:--a thing
must either be or not be:--things equal to the same are equal to each
other; &c. It is chiefly by means of knowledge of these axioms and of the
above principles of science, and of their varied and numerous modes of
operation and application, that the man of science "explains" the
multitudinous phenomena of nature, predicts future events, and is enabled
to discover new truths and develope new inventions in the arts. Unlike
other persons; when he sees a new effect, or hears of a new phenomenon, he
at once refers it to these principles, in order to test its correctness or
to explain it.
With regard to the detection of truth, that is often a difficult and
complex process. There exists no royal or easy method; usually it can only
be recognised by means of laborious and critical examination of the whole
of the evidence obtainable in the case; and even then we are often obliged
to be satisfied with only an approximation, or it may be with even a mere
probability. Frequently also the truthfulness or otherwise of a statement
cannot be decided in any degree in consequence of the absence of suitable
or sufficient evidence, and for that we may have to wait for ages. We are
now waiting for evidence necessary to decide many questions respecting the
human mind.
With regard to the question, what is new truth?; that also is a difficult
one to solve. The forms in which different truths appear are so various,
and those {163} also in which even the same truth may shew itself are so
diverse, that it is often impossible to discriminate new truth from old
ideas clothed in a new form of words. The newness of an idea is entirely a
question of evidence, and to determine it, usually requires a complete
knowledge of all the circumstances affecting the particular case.
New truth appears to be usually derived from new physical or mental
experiences of phenomena external to our perceiving faculty; either by
observing matter or its forces under new conditions or from a new aspect;
and the knowledge comes to us either through the avenues of our feelings
and senses, or by means of direct observations, by comparison of such
impressions, or by inferences drawn from them. From the results of such
mental operations, additional new truths are evolved by the more complex
process of analysis, combination and permutation of ideas. New truths are
also evolved from old ones by each of these latter methods; but sooner or
later the implicit contents of our stock of old knowledge becomes exhausted
when used for such a purpose, and we are then obliged to seek new
experience.
As new truths may be acquired in the more direct manner, by acquisition of
new experience; and less directly, by mental operations upon old ideas,
other subjects of less fundamental and more concrete nature than the simple
sciences, such as sociology, &c., are also sources of progress, when
treated in these ways. {164}
Of all subjects, the simple sciences of physics and chemistry, are at the
present time, apparently making the most rapid advance, and the chief
reasons for this probably are, _1st._ they treat of facts and principles
which can be verified, and _2nd._ because the more complex sciences,
together with the arts and manufactures based upon them, can only improve
in proportion as they are developed. All the essentially human subjects,
such as sociology, politics, morality, religious worship, &c., are in this
position, and are probably results partly of the operation of the great
principles of nature acting through the body and mind of man.
The chief method of discovering new truth is that of observation,
experiment, and study, and further mental treatment of the results. The
most systematic methods also of evolving new truths are those employed by
scientific men in making discoveries, and when any person arrives at a new
idea, he usually (either consciously or unconsciously) employs them.
The acquisition of new knowledge must of necessity precede its diffusion.
Immediately a new truth, especially an important one, is discovered, its
influence begins to permeate the existing mass of knowledge in various
directions, causing us to view many of our old ideas in a new aspect;
giving rise also by comparison and inference, and by processes of
combination, permutation and analysis of ideas, to a multitude of other new
truths, usually less important ones, which themselves also affect previous
knowledge in similar ways, {165} and by analogous treatment give rise to
additional new conceptions.
But although we evolve truthful new conceptions from previous ones by these
purely mental methods, there is a limit to the number capable of being
evolved from a limited stock of ideas, because the number of combinations
and permutations of such a stock, though usually large, are themselves
limited. The number however is large in proportion to the degree of
essential importance of the ideas, and is greatest when we employ those of
the fundamental principles of nature, already referred to; for instance a
greater number of new ideas have been evolved by means of appropriate
mental processes from the law of gravitation and from that of
electro-magnetism than from any minor truth in science. Persons therefore
who are the least familiar with great demonstrable principles are usually
the least able to conceive new truthful ideas of intrinsic importance, or
to draw new verifiable inferences of much theoretical value.
Every inventor and student knows that he continually requires new materials
of thought, and if he does not obtain them, an obstacle, like a wall of
adamant, rises before his mind in all directions, and prevents his forming
new ideas. That also which is true of each individual is true of the
collection of individuals, mankind; if new truths are not obtained, the
thoughts of men flow in circles, and mental progress ceases. The mental
characteristics of sequestered communities in remote isolated districts,
are examples of this {166} fact. The influence of printing, railways,
telegraphs, postal communication and other scientific developments, in
aiding mental progress, afford other illustrations. A multitude of facts of
this kind, and many others, leads us to the conclusion that each new idea
requires a cause to produce it, and that human knowledge is subject to the
great law of causation; also that the creation of an idea out of nothing
would be a miracle, a phenomenon without a cause. Our present knowledge was
not created by us, but was originated by previous knowledge and experience,
including of course inherited impressions. Even in what is termed the
"noblest effort of the mind," an act of reasoning or inference, we do not
create an idea, but only render explicit in a new form of words, ideas
already implicitly contained in the words of the propositions employed, as
may easily be rendered manifest by mechanical means in Jevons's "Logical
Machine;" a proper inference never contains more than its data. In the
so-called "creation" of ideas by the imagination also, the new ideas are
evolved from old ones, and rendered explicit by mental processes of
analysis, combination, permutation, &c. Our scientific inventions also,
being mental conceptions, an unlimited number of them cannot be made by
means of a limited stock of old knowledge. It was in consequence of this
limit, viz., the impossibility of actually creating ideas out of nothing,
that human knowledge was not more advanced by metaphysical speculations
until science with its experiments and {167} observations came to its
assistance. These various facts prove the statement made in the Preface of
this book, that present knowledge only enables mankind to maintain its
present state.
Not only the mental, but also the physical advance of mankind is
essentially dependent upon the discovery of new truths. Men's physical
actions are determined not alone by their inherited and acquired tendencies
and the influence of external nature upon them, but also by their ideas; as
a man thinks, so also to a large extent does he act. Nations who do not
adopt new ideas do not either mentally or physically advance, but change
only so far as their immediate surroundings change; the Chinese are a
remarkable example of this; even the tendencies which men inherit, were
largely produced in their ancestors by the influence of ideas. The great
fact of the essential dependence of human progress upon new knowledge, is a
truth, the importance of which to man cannot be over-estimated, and is one
which statesmen, ministers of religion, and philanthropists should
seriously study.
Much of the apparent advance of this nation however is not real. The great
bulk of our newly published knowledge, even that which is scientific, and
considered by the public to be new, consists, not of new truths, but of old
ones dressed in new forms of expression:--
"The tale repeated o'er and o'er,
With change of place and change of name.
Disguised, transformed, and yet the same
We've heard a hundred times before."--_Longfellow._
{168}
It falls to the lot of but comparatively few men to discover or evolve
important new truths. The great majority of learned men also, have through
all historic time been occupied, and are still, not in evolving new ideas,
but in re-expressing old ones in different forms of words; the literary
spirit, is in civilised nations, almost universal. In ordinary writings it
is a rare circumstance to meet with an important and really new idea; it is
usually in books written by men who are acquainted or imbued with the great
principles and truths of science, that the newest demonstrable ideas are
most frequently found. The difference between evolving new ideas, and
re-expressing and permutating old ones; largely characterises the
dissimilarity of the scientific and the literary and theological minds. All
however are necessary to the welfare of mankind, the former to advance and
the other to maintain the condition of man. If all were not necessary they
would probably not exist.
There are two great artificial divisions of scientific knowledge also, upon
the development of which national progress largely depends, viz., knowledge
of inanimate matter and knowledge of man; the latter we have largely
cultivated but the former we have greatly neglected:--and even our study of
man has been largely one-sided and literary. It is far less important to
know what is man, than to know what are the great principles which underlie
the actions of all living creatures, and in obedience to which man is
compelled to work out his destiny in the Universe and the infinite future.
{169}
It is evident from this, that much of the mental activity around us is not
progress, but rather a process of maintaining present state, a prevention
of decline, a continually going round and round in conventional varied
step, a kind of intellectual mill. Under these circumstances it is not the
original discoverer, but he who in this occupation, can best express old
ideas, in the most varied forms and choicest language, who is most
generally considered to be the greatest intellectual chief.
Although originality even in literature and art is very imperfectly
encouraged in this country, both art and literature are much more readily
understood and appreciated than scientific research, and treated as if they
were more important. Whilst most persons can understand and appreciate the
gift of a work of art to a public art collection, few can understand or
properly value the discovery and gift of a new scientific truth of far
greater intrinsic value to the public stock of knowledge; the treatment
received by Priestley and other discoverers in comparison with that of
local donors, sufficiently illustrates this. Even publishers of lucrative
newspapers prefer to give prizes and pay liberally for sensational tales,
than to pay for articles on the public advantages of new scientific
knowledge.
* * * * *
{170}
CHAPTER IV.
------
THE PROMOTION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.
Nearly the whole of the most distinguished mathematicians, physicists,
chemists, biologists, and physiologists of Great Britain, also the Earl of
Derby, the Marquis of Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote and many other
eminent men, have given evidence before the Royal Commissioners on
"Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science"[23] to the
following effect:--_1st._ That the promotion of original scientific
research is neglected in this country. _2nd._ That such research is
encouraged more by the State in Germany than here. And _3rd_. That much
greater encouragement of it by our Government, by the Universities and the
Public, is highly necessary to our commercial prosperity. They have also
stated in evidence their opinions as to the best ways in which they
consider it may be assisted. The additional fact that all the greatest
scientific men who have ever existed have pursued research, and sacrificed
much for it, is a practical proof that they also approved of its
encouragement.
That research should be promoted is further the opinion of many men learned
in politics, literature, art, and science. The views expressed in numerous
letters on the subject, received by me from Members {171} of the Privy
Council, and of both Houses of Parliament, and from other eminent persons,
confirm this. It has also been adopted as a chief part of the programme of
the "Association for the Organization of Academical Study."[24]
"M. de Candolle, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Science, Paris, is
a strong advocate for the encouragement of a class of sinecurists like the
non-working Fellows of our Colleges, who should have leisure to investigate
and not be pestered by the petty mechanical work of continued teaching and
examining." "The modern ideas of democracy are adverse to places to which
definite work is not attached, and from which definite results do not flow.
This principle is a wise one for the mass of mankind; but is utterly
misplaced when applied to those who have the zeal for investigation, and
who work best when left quite alone."
The correctness of the principle of promoting research is also recognised
by our Governments in their yearly grants of money to the Royal Society,
and to the Royal Irish Academy[25] to aid research, also by the Council of
the Chemical Society, which has established a fund for the same purpose;
and by the British Association in their annual grants for the promotion of
scientific enquiry. The Fishmonger's Company also presented to Mr. W. R.
Parker, F.R.S., the sum of £50, followed by an annual gift of £20 for {172}
the three years, to assist him in bearing the expenses of his researches on
the skulls of vertebrate animals. And the British Pharmaceutical Conference
voted the sum of £80 from the Bell and Hills fund, during the period of
three years, in aid of research in connection with pharmaceutical science.
A small fund for the purpose of research exists also at the Royal
Institution. Fellowships also with a similar object have been founded at
the Victoria University. Dr. Priestley also was aided in his researches by
contributions from a small circle of friends. In recognition of the same
principle, nearly all of the most eminent scientific men on the Continent
have been assisted by their respective Governments. The total amount of aid
to research in this country is however very small, and to one acquainted
with the great commercial and other any valuable results of such labour, it
is simply astounding that we have not systematically organized a powerful
means of promoting discovery.
A few scientific persons however still continue to oppose aid to research;
quite recently, scientific investigators have been spoken of as a class of
"men amusing themselves without any result whatever."[26] That idea however
abundantly refuted in the foregoing pages. It has also been remarked[27]
that "practically, endowment of research comes to the creation of positions
where there is payment without corresponding labour." "In England above all
countries in the world, there will always be plenty of {173} amateurs ready
and willing to assist in research, and it is notorious that in England,
almost without exception, all the great advances in science have been made
by such amateurs. Therefore I do not think it at all desirable that the
British tax-payer should be required to put his hand in his pocket to
provide salaries for gentlemen who might be working rightly or wrongly. He
could not control them, and while there are such a body of amateurs in the
country, I think the researches may be very well left to them."
The first of these statements is not correct; the endowment of research
does not amount to "payment without corresponding labour." Scientific
discoverers have always been distinguished as a body of men intensely
devoted to their labours, and willing to perform much work for small
payment. Most of the great advances in science also in England, have been
made not by "amateurs," but by men of great experience, such as Newton,
Herschel, Priestley, Davy, Faraday, Graham, and many others. Endowment of
research is not desired for wealthy amateurs, but for investigators of
proved ability and small pecuniary means and who require assistance. Such
men, although not infallible, are the least likely to "work wrongly," and
much less likely to do so than amateurs. Many scientific investigators also
of repute, object to give their services wholly to a wealthy nation,
because they cannot afford to do so, and because it is only just that the
nation should make them some pecuniary return for their skill and labour.
The great evils {174} in this country requiring new knowledge to remedy
them[28] also prove that there are not "plenty of amateurs ready and
willing to assist in research here," or that "the researches may be very
well left to them."
Whilst some investigators have had abundant means to carry on research, and
have excelled in that occupation, many of the most eminent have been
persons of limited circumstances; and their insufficient pecuniary means
has often restricted their degree of success. The argument also that
insufficiency of means stimulates research, is only employed by persons who
are not making investigations under such a condition.
The President of the Royal Society, Dr. Spottiswoode, in his recent
address[29] also remarked:--"The question has been raised whether it be
wise, even in the interests of science, to encourage any one not yet of
independent income, to interrupt the main business of his life. It is too
often assumed that a profession or a business may be worked at half speed,
or may be laid down and taken up again, whenever we like. But this is not
so, and a profession temporarily, or even partially laid aside, may prove
irrecoverable, and the temptation to diverge from the dull and laborious
path of business may prove to have been a snare." Each of these remarks
appears to be made upon the assumption that it is still a doubtful question
whether persons qualified for research should be encouraged or not to
abandon occupations they reluctantly follow, and for which they are less
fitted, in order to become scientific {175} discoverers. As it is a fact
that the welfare of this country is suffering through deficiency of
encouragement of research, it is certainly desirable to encourage, by every
proper means, qualified persons to occupy themselves in such labour. Some
of the greatest discoveries have been made by men "not yet of independent
income," for instance, those made by Scheele, Priestley, Dalton, Faraday,
W. Herschel, and many others.
The late Astronomer Royal, also,[30] who has made many researches, and was
a scientific official paid by the State, says:--"I think that successful
researches have in nearly every instance originated with private persons,
or with persons whose positions were so nearly private that the
investigators acted under private influence, without incurring the danger
attending connection with the State. Certainly I do not consider a
Government is justified in endeavouring to force, at public expense,
investigations of undefined character, and, at best, of doubtful utility;
and I think it probable that any such attempt will lead to consequences
disreputable to science. The very utmost, in my opinion, to which the State
should be expected to contribute, is exhibited in the large grants
intrusted to the Royal Society. The world, I think, is not unanimous in
believing that they have been useful." He then enumerates what he considers
"the proper foundations of claims upon the State," which he illustrates,
and substantially includes in and {176} limits by, the kinds of scientific
research done under his direction at the Royal Observatory. He further
adds--"The Royal Observatory was founded expressly for a definite
utilitarian purpose (the promotion of navigation) necessarily connected
with the highest science. And this utilitarian purpose has been steadily
kept in view for two centuries, and is now followed with greater vigour
than ever before. To its original plan have also been added--but still in
the utilitarian sense--the publication of time, the broader observation of
terrestrial magnetism, and local meteorology." His views therefore appear
to be, that State aid to research should be limited to utilitarian objects;
and that it is with propriety given to his own department, which is
connected with the State. It has however been abundantly proved that nearly
all the great scientific utilities of every-day life, had their origin in
the pursuit, not of utilities, but of pure truth, and that immediate
usefulness is neither the most successful nor the highest motive in
scientific research, nor should research be limited by so narrow a
condition. The investigations also made by the aid of Government Grants
possess the usual degree of definiteness and of utility of such labours,
and it cannot be reasonably expected that the world would be unanimous
respecting any measure, especially respecting a subject so little
understood by the public as the Endowment of Research.
If investigators were to limit their researches to utilities, or what
appeared to be such, scarcely any {177} essentially new experiments or new
discoveries of importance would be made. No attempts would be made to
discover essentially novel facts, nor would many trials be made to test
fundamental abstract questions which affect the very basis of scientific
knowledge. The principles of electro-magnetism, of magneto-electric action,
and of the magnetic rotation of polarized light, were each discovered by
means of perfectly novel experiments, in which immediate utility was not
the motive.
It is worthy of notice that of the very small proportion of scientific
investigators who disapprove of State aid to Research, nearly every one
already possesses sufficient pecuniary means to carry on investigations,
and therefore cannot adequately appreciate the position and necessities of
investigators having only small incomes. In some cases also the objections
to aid investigators come from scientific men who have attempted to make
discoveries but have not succeeded.
Dr. Robinson of Armagh, a well-known investigator, has very properly
pointed out[31] what has been done in this country towards giving
assistance to those engaged in the pursuit of science, and mentions the
Observatories maintained by the Universities and by the Nation. He says
also that if anything more were to be done in increasing the amount of
grants of money to assist scientific work, he thinks "it might be best
applied in establishing in the great commercial {178} centres of the realm,
physical and chemical laboratories such as that which the Duke of
Devonshire has established at Cambridge, provided with the most refined
apparatus, and accessible to all who are considered privileged by a
competent tribunal." He also says "when there is found a man so far
surpassing his fellows in any department of science that he may be expected
to do work beyond their power, he ought to be made independent of any other
pursuit, so that none of his time and energy may be lost, such a case is
exceptional, and when it occurs it should be exceptionally provided for."
Original research will for a long time to come, be opposed by a large
section of the non-scientific public:--by the numerous persons whose source
of income depends upon the ignorance of their fellow-men:--by those who are
deficient of faith in demonstrable truth, and fear that their most
cherished beliefs are endangered by it:--and by many of those who are
insufficiently acquainted with it to perceive its great value to mankind.
With regard to the fears of many objectors that the Endowment of Research
would lead to jobbery and abuses, and thus retard the progress of discovery
instead of promoting it; it is evident that such a risk is an inseparable
concomitant of every remunerated office and is not peculiar to that of
research, and must therefore be accepted as unavoidable and be provided
against in the usual ways. It does not however appear probable that the
risk in this respect is at all greater {179} than that already existing and
provided against in many other appointments.
Many persons, not clearly perceiving the difference between pure research
and other scientific occupations, suppose that because science is
encouraged in various ways in this country; and because sums of money are
occasionally given to scientific institutions, and some scientific men are
evidently receiving good incomes, that discoverers are remunerated, but
this is a great mistake; there is probably not a scientific man in the
kingdom who is wholly employed in such work in abstract physics or
chemistry, and paid for his entire skill, time, and labour. Wherever
payment is made for scientific labour, it is nearly always for that
performed with a view to some immediate practical application. Inventors
and expositors are remunerated, but discoverers are not.
At the present time in this country scientific men are paid for teaching,
lecturing, writing popular scientific articles, compiling scientific books,
editing scientific journals, making chemical analyses and experiments for
manufacturers, companies, and others, for practical purposes, or to obtain
evidence for legal cases, giving evidence on scientific subjects in courts
of law, with consultations and advice to manufacturers and others,
superintending scientific commercial undertakings, &c. Some also
unfortunately obtain an income and cheap publicity by the empirical
contrivance of selling to tradesmen, their scientific opinions in the form
of testimonials which are extensively {180} advertised at the cost of the
purchasers. But not one of these occupations constitutes pure research, or
is an immediate source of new discoveries. Payment is made for all kinds of
scientific labour which will immediately benefit individuals or
corporations, but very little for pure investigation, and nearly every
inducement exists to attract men of science from pursuing such labour.
It might be supposed that investigators would patent or sell their
discoveries; but discoveries in pure science cannot usually be patented or
sold, because they have not been converted by invention into commercial
commodities. New scientific truth is utterly unsaleable; no one will
purchase it. Whilst the real or intrinsic value of it is great, its
extrinsic value is small and is the sum of money it will sell for in the
market. No one would have purchased Oersted's great discovery of
electro-magnetism. It would also be less to public advantage if
investigators were to neglect discovering new knowledge in order to apply
that knowledge to practical uses. It requires a different training of
mental power to discover new truths, than to utilize them by means of
invention, teaching or lecturing; and men who can invent and instruct are
far more numerous than those who are able to discover. Discoveries are also
generally much more valuable than inventions, because a single discovery
(that of gutta percha for example) not unfrequently forms the basis of many
inventions. Discoverers not unfrequently meet with new facts {181} which
they perceive might be applied to valuable technical uses, but they
hesitate to patent them because the process of invention, taking out a
patent, seeking a manufacturer to work it, and protecting their patent from
piracy, would occupy a large portion of their time, and take them away from
research. Sir D. Brewster got no money by patenting his kaleidoscope
because the patent was instantly pirated in all directions.
Some persons have suggested that scientific men should keep their
discoveries secret, but this would usually be a greater disadvantage to the
investigator even than publishing them, and no one would then derive any
benefit; discoveries also, being often capable of numerous applications,
and not being in a saleable shape, cannot usually be monopolised by any
one. New scientific knowledge is like a powerful light, it cannot be
hidden. Discoveries are eminently national knowledge, and research should
therefore be national employment.
Other persons suppose that investigators should be satisfied with the fame
of their discoveries, and not require any payment; but this is a most
unfair supposition, because no man can live without means, and every useful
person deserves to be paid for his labour. Ought the late Duke of
Wellington to have been satisfied with the fame alone of his exploits,
without being paid any salary? Ought a Bishop to be content with the renown
of his eloquence, without receiving any payment for his services? Genius
alone is {182} appropriately rewarded by fame, but time, unusual skill,
labour and expenditure, should be repaid by money.
It has been suggested that an investigator, if he is a man of practical
ability, is very often put into an office, the duties of which he can
efficiently discharge, and yet have leisure for original research, as in
the case of the late Dr. Graham, the eminent Master of the Mint,[32] our
Astronomers Royal, &c., and thus obtain his reward. But this is a very
imperfect plan, because research is very difficult, and to be carried out
effectually, requires the whole of a man's time and attention; the
investigator would also be taken from more important work to do that which
is of less value to the nation, and which might be performed by a more
suitable person; appointments also of the kind referred to are much too few
in number. Such a plan as this, of relegating important national work to
odd hours spared from official duties, is a makeshift, and quite unworthy
of this nation. Entire occupation in research, combined with efficient
publication of the results, is the only satisfactory plan of procedure.
Probably one of the most satisfactory ways of rewarding scientific
discoverers and serving national interests at the same time, would be to
create salaried professorships of original research, and appoint
discoverers of repute to fill them.
The time is near at hand when this nation will be compelled by the
injurious consequences arising from its neglect of scientific research, to
acquire a {183} knowledge of the relations of science to national existence
and welfare, and to adopt some means of encouraging discovery. The greatest
difficulty, probably, which has to be overcome, is not so much how to
obtain funds for the purpose, as how to employ them successfully, and
especially how to prevent their getting into the hands of unsuitable
persons. But, as methods have been found of remunerating all other classes
of persons, ways may be devised of remunerating scientific investigators.
It is only because the case is novel that it seems difficult; it is
probably no more intrinsically difficult to establish a professorship of
research than to found an ecclesiastical benefice.
The great difficulty of determining from what source discoverers should be
paid for their labours, arises from the fact that all classes of the
community share in the benefit. It is evident they should in some measure
be paid from a source towards which all classes either directly or
indirectly contribute, and therefore from some public fund. The persons who
first use scientific knowledge are the compilers of scientific books, and
teachers of science; but these only disseminate the knowledge, and do not
derive from it any great pecuniary advantage, they are only the agents for
supplying the knowledge to others. The persons who first convert such
knowledge into valuable commercial commodities are inventors and
manufacturers who have received scientific education or advice; but those
who derive the greatest pecuniary benefit from it, and who should therefore
either {184} directly or indirectly pay in the largest degree for it, are
the great manufacturers, capitalists, and landowners. Whilst the question
is being settled as to what class of persons shall primarily bear the
expense of research, discoverers themselves are suffering great injustice,
and our manufactures and commerce are passing into the hands of foreign
nations. What the amount of loss and disadvantage suffered by this nation,
through want of encouragement of scientific enquiry is, cannot be
estimated, but it is certainly enormous. Had even a very moderate amount of
payment been made for such labour, and the expenses out of pocket paid in
full, the amount of research performed would have been greatly increased.
Under present circumstances, many promising young men, fitted to become
good investigators, have been driven out of science altogether. I have
found by long experience and persistent enquiry, that there are many young
men distributed over this country, who are very desirous of engaging in
scientific research, and likely to make good investigators, but are
entirely prevented by the non-remunerative character of the labour, every
one wishes to know "what will it lead to"? Even amongst our most able
discoverers, scarcely one who has not possessed private means has continued
research beyond the middle age of life, because such labour enables no
provision to be made for old age; and all those who have left have devoted
themselves to less important but more lucrative occupations. Most of these
gentlemen have been {185} obliged to abandon research at a period of life
when their faculties were in the most perfect state for continuing it.
Where one young beginner in science meets with the fortunate circumstance
of a helping hand, as Scheele did in Bergmann, and Faraday in Davy, many
are crushed out. The want of encouragement to scientific discovery in this
country is so very great that extremely few men are able to struggle
through it, and this is one reason why we have had so few discoveries. Some
persons have argued that the very difficulties and discouragements offered
are an advantage to science by producing only men of the very highest
eminence in discovery; but it is manifest that however great the amount of
ability may be that is developed by discouragement, that amount would
probably be still greater by judicious assistance. Moreover, progress in
the developement of the national scientific intellect is not so much to be
reckoned by the few great successes which have occurred in spite of all
obstacles, but rather by the much more numerous ones which would have
resulted from proper encouragement. The advocates of such an argument can
have no idea of the heart-sickening feeling of long deferred hope
experienced by the young beginner in science; or the disgust gradually
engendered in his mind at the injustice of other men taking all the profits
of his labours and leaving him without means of support; or they would
never adduce it. In this country the success of the few {186} eminent men
of science has resulted from the accidental combination of a few more or
less fortuitous circumstances, and their own great natural determination,
and not from legitimate and just support. How many investigators we have
lost from the above causes it is impossible to tell. The encouragement also
of unusual ability should not be left to accident.
As scientific research has proved itself to be of such great value to this
nation, the question naturally arises, how can it best be promoted? A
number of plans have been proposed. Amongst these may be mentioned. _1st._
By founding State Laboratories, in which discoverers of established repute,
supplied with every aid and appliance, should be wholly engaged in research
in their respective subjects, and be paid by the State. _2nd._ By founding
colleges or Professorships of original research in each of the
Universities, and appointing professors similarly. _3rd._ By founding
provincial colleges or Professorships of research, the funds being raised
locally by means of subscriptions, donations, and endowments, with or
without State assistance. _4th._ By State or Local aid, in the form of
additional salary, to Professors in colleges, to enable them to pursue
research. _5th._ By an extension of the present Government grants
distributed by the Royal Society. _6th._ By making it a condition at each
of our Universities that every student entering for a degree in science,
should previously make an original research. _7th._ By the formation by
learned societies, of Endowment of {187} Research Funds, and making grants
of money therefrom to recognised investigators. _8th._ By aid to local
scientific investigators by Municipal bodies out of the rates. And _9th._
The support of Institutes of Scientific Research by private munificence.
Aid to research, in Germany, has been chiefly been made by the State, by
affording means to the Professors in the Universities; in America, more by
munificence of wealthy individuals; and in this country, chiefly in the
form of Government grants of money to investigators. The greatest
difficulty to be surmounted in carrying out any of these schemes, is the
very general ignorance in this country of the value and necessity of
research; and this can only be overcome by scientific men themselves
performing their duty of enlightening the public on the subject.
_1st._ _By founding State Laboratories._ One of the first duties of a
Government is to protect its subjects in the enjoyment of their property;
but as no law reserves to discoverers the fruits of their ability, it is
clearly a duty of the State to protect them in other ways. It is believed
to be a duty of the State to provide and pay for pure scientific research,
for the following reasons:--because research is eminently national work;
because the results of such labour are indispensable to national welfare
and progress, and are of immense value to the nation, and especially to the
Government; because nearly the whole pecuniary benefit of it goes to the
nation, and scarcely any to the discoverer; because research is not
sufficiently {188} provided for by means of voluntary effort, nor can its
benefits be restricted to a locality; and because there appears to be
scarcely any other way (except by application of University revenues) in
which discoverers can be satisfactorily recompenced for their labour. Also
"Government should for its own sake honour the men who do honour and
service to the country." (Faraday.)
The founding of State laboratories for original research was proposed and
advocated by the late Lieutenant-Colonel Strange, F.R.S., in communications
read before the British Association, and in evidence given before the Royal
Commissioners.[33] As the erection and maintenance of State laboratories
would require a large sum of money, and as all classes of the community
would share in the benefit, it is reasonable to suggest that the money
should come from some source towards which all classes of the community,
either directly or indirectly contribute, and therefore from some national
fund.
In national improvements, expense is quite a secondary consideration; the
funds however for providing State laboratories already exist; the sum of
nearly £600,000 has accumulated in the form of fees received by Government
for the granting of patents for inventions; and as the discoveries made by
scientific men form the materials by means of which those inventions were
made, the money thus accumulated may be justly claimed by scientific
discoverers as a suitable {189} source from which their labours should be
remunerated by the State.
Strong arguments might be adduced both against and in favour of the
application of this money for the purpose. Inventors are a great
wealth-producing class of the community; they are at present very highly
taxed, and receive but little advantage in return; to tax them without
giving them equivalent advantages, strikes very near to the root of
commercial prosperity, by diminishing improvements in arts and
manufactures. If an inventor is poor and his patent is valuable, he is also
frequently harassed out of it by litigation. Inventors are usually poor,
and but little able to pay taxes on patents at all; their pecuniary
position in this country is not greatly better than that of discoverers;
they are largely at the mercy of manufacturers and capitalists; and the
injustice to which they are sometimes subjected is notorious and
disgraceful. On the other hand, the fund already exists; inventors also
receive an equivalent from investigators, discovery is the indispensable
basis of nearly all invention; patented inventions are formed by means of
the knowledge obtained by pure scientific research. The poverty of a man
does not justify his taking the fruits of the labours of another man
without paying for them. If also the patent fees were thus applied, the
cost of research would then be paid for by all classes of the community,
somewhat in proportion to the benefit derived, because the cost of patents
in general ultimately falls upon the public at {190} large, in the shape of
an increased price put upon the commodity, in order to pay the cost of the
patent, like the grower of wheat is paid by the consumers of bread, through
the medium of the baker, the miller, and corn merchant.
Whilst the benefits derived from the labours of discoverers, flows chiefly
in the form of money into the hands of wealthy manufacturers, and finally
gets locked up in the possession of capitalists and landowners, it is
hardly to be expected that the Government will be in possession of funds
necessary to promote research unless some such plan as this is adopted.
Should the wealthy and governing classes however become sufficiently
acquainted with the value of research, and of the essential and permanent
dependence of their material prosperity upon it, there will then be some
hope that they will be willing to contribute in a more direct manner their
just share towards paying the expenses. There is, however, but little
prospect of this whilst the influence of wealth so depresses the scientific
education of those classes at the Universities.
The fundamental object in founding State laboratories should be to keep a
staff of the most competent men wholly engaged in original research in pure
science, and a secondary object might be to train assistants to become
investigators. Such laboratories would doubtless be located in London, and
be on a scale of magnitude creditable to science and the nation. They might
very suitably include {191} departments for the simpler pure sciences and
even for biology.
It is manifest that the arguments which support the proposition for
professorships of original research in those sciences apply in a greater or
less degree to other sciences; and it has been stated that "there is no
ground upon which the scheme can be limited to the subject of natural
philosophy." In reference to this remark, (which, like most objections,
contains some truth), it must be remembered that there is a natural order
of dependence of the sciences upon each other, in which order also they are
being evolved. It is a general truth that the physical sciences of light
and heat are based upon mechanical conditions of the particles of matter;
that the science of chemistry is founded upon physics; that biological
phenomena are dependent upon physical and chemical conditions; that
psychological subjects are based upon biology; and that biological science
cannot progress excepting in proportion to the advance of the sciences on
which it is based. In addition to this general order of precedence of
evolution in point of time, the various sciences are so mutually related
that all must advance together, the simple ones taking the lead, and the
concrete and more complex sciences, with their attendant arts, following
behind.
As this natural order of dependence and development of the sciences is a
great fact of nature, over which we have little or no control, and as a
scheme for the simultaneous establishment of professorships of research in
all the sciences, simple, complex, and {192} concrete, would probably be
too great an undertaking, the most proper course would be to commence with
the simpler ones, such as those of mathematics, mechanics, physics, and
chemistry, and perhaps biology. If it be argued that it would be
unadvisable to commence with the simple and purely experimental sciences,
it would be still more unadvisable to commence with the concrete subjects
of "natural history, medicine, civil history, law, and theology," or with
the arts which also depend upon science.
The number of investigators in such an institution would not be large,
because few of high repute could be obtained, many of our ablest ones
abandon research for remunerative pursuits. In order to make the plan
succeed, the conditions of the appointments should be such as to limit the
election to the most competent persons. In the selection of such gentlemen,
the verdict of opinion of scientific men generally, upon the published
researches of the candidates, would have previously determined who were
qualified for the office. Any man who had published reliable papers in the
Transactions of the Royal Society, might very properly be considered a fit
candidate, and the selection and appointment might be made by the
Government, with the advice of the Council of the Royal Society.
Probably there exists no class of persons upon whom the country might more
rely for industry in office than eminent investigators, because they have
pursued truth for its good effects alone. Men who had {193} previously
exercised the degree of self-sacrifice necessary to make a number of long
and difficult experimental researches, with only very limited pecuniary
means, must necessarily be possessed of great enthusiasm in their calling,
and would therefore be extremely unlikely persons to become idle by being
supplied with a sufficiency only of means to carry on their labours.
Further, such men might at present obtain a much larger income than they
would receive in such a post, by abandoning research and devoting
themselves to the various profitable engagements which are open to every
man of scientific ability who is willing to devote himself to applied
science. The actual work of research is much too arduous and difficult to
permit such an office to become an object of desire to a place-seeking or
idle person. But in order to exclude with certainty those who might devote
themselves to research solely or primarily for the purpose of subsequently
obtaining a well paid appointment, (as persons sometimes devote themselves
to learning, with the object of getting an "idle Fellowship,") and to
ensure in all cases a reasonable continuance of industry, it would be
necessary, that whilst the salaries paid should be sufficient to render the
professors free from care, if expended with a reasonable degree of economy,
they should not be so large as to conduce to idleness. The professors
should undertake not to engage in any other remunerative employment, and
provision should be made, that in case a professor persistently failed to
make, complete, or publish his {194} researches, or devoted less than the
stipulated amount of time to such labour in the Institution, without
reasonable cause, he should be removed.
Many persons fancy that "it must be very nice to be always making
experiments," and that they "should be delighted with such an occupation"
if they "could only spare the time." But such an idea is only another
illustration of the general ignorance of the subject, and it is only
expressed by those who have never made a laborious and difficult research.
Pure research is by far the most difficult of all scientific occupations,
and this is another chief reason why discoverers are few, and why they will
probably remain so.
To succeed in research, a man must set aside all human pride, and approach
the subject with perfect humility; and this is not an easy task, men cannot
so readily abandon preconceived and cherished notions. Many researches are
moreover extremely dangerous. Thilorier was killed by the explosion of a
vessel of liquefied carbonic anhydride; Dulong lost an eye and finger, and
Sir Humphrey Davy was wounded by an explosion of chloride of nitrogen.
Faraday was near being blinded by an experiment with oxygen. Nicklès of
Nancy, and Louyet of Brussels, lost their lives, and two other chemists
were seriously injured in health by exposure to the excessively dangerous
fumes of hydrofluoric acid. Bunsen lost the sight of an eye and was nearly
poisoned by an explosion whilst analysing cyanide of cacodyl.[34] Hennel
was killed by an {195} explosion of fulminate of silver, and Chapman by one
of nitrate of methyl; and nearly every chemical investigator could tell of
some narrow escape of life in his own experience. Any one who wishes to
know whether it is "very nice to be always making experiments" should
attempt the isolation of fluorine, the chemical examination of some
offensive substance, or the determination of some difficult physical, or
chemical problem.
That a professorship of original research would "involve substantial work"
does not admit of doubt, and therefore "there would be some security that
it would be worthily bestowed." It would not become an "ornamental
sinecure," in which "there is pay but no work," unless, by assigning to it
too large a stipend, inducement was held out to that numerous class of
persons whose love of money is stronger than their love of truth, to seek
the office; to say the utmost, it could hardly become so largely a sinecure
as many offices now held by ecclesiastics. Jobbery and abuse of patronage
would be still further prevented by making the duties sufficiently heavy.
The appointment, and remuneration by salary, of professor of research,
would not lessen the independence of scientific men if the office was not
placed under the superintendence of active and interfering officials
ignorant of science. Although the professors might not be highly paid, the
appointment would increase their independence because it would be one of
the most honourable to which scientific men could {196} attain, and because
they would thereby be put into a sphere in which they could exercise their
talents to the fullest extent, and render the greatest service and honour
to the nation. If also the salaries offered were not too great, those
persons only would become candidates who at present have insufficient means
to defray the considerable cost of experiments.
It would be necessary to appoint only persons who would undertake to devote
their time solely to the discovery of new facts and principles in science,
and the determination of purely scientific questions, and not to the making
of inventions; because discovery is of far greater national value than
invention; and because inventions would immediately on their publication be
seized, modified, and patented by individuals for their own personal
benefit. Discoveries, on the other hand, would require a large additional
amount of labour expended upon them by inventors before they could be
converted into saleable commodities.
Each professor should be allowed perfect freedom to choose his own special
subjects of research in the sciences he had been accustomed to study,
because each investigator is usually the best judge of what researches are
the most likely to yield him important results. No discoverer of repute
would be very likely to trespass on another man's sphere of research,
because he would usually have an abundance of good subjects of his own; and
every honourable man would purposely avoid doing so; and we find this
practically to be the case at the present time. Separate sets of {197}
rooms would be necessary for each investigator in order to keep the
researches private and distinct.
The whole of the new knowledge obtained by research should be treated as
national property, and all of it worthy of publication should be made known
without the least reserve, it would also be desirable to publish the
results at reasonable intervals of time. The publication might take place,
as at present, in the journals of the learned Societies, or in the leading
scientific magazines, and the value of the work would be largely guaranteed
by such a mode of publication. The professors should also engage not to
sell, patent, or prematurely disclose any of the knowledge obtained. By
electing to such offices only discoverers of repute, the nation might
reasonably depend for the results upon the known ability and industry of
the men. That the results obtained would, many of them, be highly valuable,
does not admit of doubt, because long experience has uniformly proved it;
but no discoverer can tell beforehand what results he will obtain,
otherwise research would hardly be needed.
An objection has been made that no one can tell how long it will be after a
discovery is made before the nation will derive the chief benefit. The
length of time which elapses between the publication of discoveries and
their practical fruits is very variable. Usually benefit commences at once
and gradually widens; directly discoveries are published they begin to be
used by compilers of scientific books, and by teachers and lecturers in
science, and are thus diffused {198} amongst the public in general, and
begin to produce beneficial effects. Inventors, manufacturers, medical men,
and others, also begin to apply them to their respective purposes. In some
cases striking applications are immediately made of them, and public
attention is thus directed to the useful result; but in many cases the
beneficial effects are small, numerous, and indirect, and it is difficult
to trace and describe them. The objection also is deficient in force,
because expenditure in any other occupation, and receipt of the profit upon
it, are rarely simultaneous. Many of the wisest reforms in this country
have been a long time in producing their results. We must therefore be
content, as in all ordinary cases of investment, with the conviction that
the expenditure will be profitable, and we must wait patiently for the
certain harvest. In research, as in many other human enterprises, a man who
will not move until he is absolutely certain that what he intends to do
will at at once succeed, must sit still and perish.
Suggestions have also been made to appoint a Government Committee, or
Council, whose function should be to value scientific discoveries, and make
corresponding amounts of reward to the discoverers. But this appears to be
a less feasible plan, because no man can, at the period of discovery,
determine what amount of practical result a discovery will ultimately
produce. Who could have foretold with certainty at the date of Oersted's
discovery of electro-magnetism, that this discovery would result in {199}
the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds upon telegraphs
alone?[35]
Objections have been made to definite payment for labour in research, on
the ground of indefiniteness of the results, and the impossibility of
measuring their value. Can we expect to buy new scientific knowledge at so
much a pound, or to retail discovery by the pint? The work of discoverers
is as definite as that of many other persons who are paid. Who can measure
the value of the cure of souls, of the duties of a judge, or of those of a
field-marshal? Instead of paying for the labour of research in a definite
way, we have adopted unsatisfactory makeshifts. Exceptional gifts, and
semi-charitable pensions, have been with difficulty obtained in a few cases
for scientific men; most often for those who applied scientific knowledge
to practical uses than for those who discovered that knowledge. In this
country, neither lawyers, medical men, military persons, nor clergymen are
paid definitely by results, but by time and labour, in accordance with the
reputation of the man, and there is no sufficient reason why investigators
should not be similarly remunerated. The differences in the cases are only
ones of degree.
The time has arrived when this great evil should be made known and
remedied, and men of science should press upon our Government, as a matter
of justice to themselves, and necessary for the nation's welfare, that the
accumulated fees from patents should be applied to the establishment of a
Scientific {200} department of the State, the erection of State
laboratories, and the payment of discoverers for the national work of
research.
_2nd._ _Professorships of Research at the Universities._ Most of the
remarks already made respecting the appointment and maintenance of
professors of research in State laboratories, would apply equally to those
proposed in connection with the Universities. Amongst the reasons which may
be adduced in favour of the establishment of such professorships the
following may be selected. Because the advancement of learning is
peculiarly the function of a University, and one of the chief objects for
which such institutions were founded. The word University implies a seat of
universal knowledge, and it is reasonable to assume that Universities
should act as fountains of new theoretical knowledge, as well as perform
the function of diffusing it; such an addition would also raise their
intellectual position, and make them much more respected, both at home and
abroad.
With regard to such professorships, the "Association for the Organization
of Academical Study," consisting of a number of learned men belonging to
the Universities, the Royal Society, and other learned bodies, adopted the
following resolutions:--
"That the chief end to be kept in view in any redistribution of the
revenues of Oxford and Cambridge is the adequate maintenance of Mature
Study and Scientific Research, as well for their own sake as with the view
of bringing the higher education within the {201} reach of all who are
desirous of profiting by it." "That to have a class of men whose lives are
devoted to research is a national object." "That it is desirable, in the
interest of national progress and education, that Professorships and
special institutions shall be founded in the Universities for the promotion
of Scientific Research." "That the present mode of awarding Fellowships as
prizes, has been unsuccessful as a means of promoting Mature Study and
Original Research, and that it is therefore desirable that it should be
discontinued."
With regard to the funds necessary:--It has been estimated that the money
paid in the form of sinecure fellowships or retiring pensions, to young men
in Oxford alone now amounts to about £80,000 or £90,000 a year; and it has
been suggested that this money be applied to the purpose. These funds were
originally intended for promoting knowledge, but vested interests prevent
their being used for discovering new truths.
The chief object of such professorships would be the same as that in the
proposed State laboratories, viz.--to keep a staff of the most competent
men wholly engaged upon research in pure science. The professors of
physical and chemical research might be selected in accordance with the
suggestions already made, and be appointed by the Senate or other governing
body, with the advice of the Council of the Royal Society. All the
precautions which have been already suggested under the head of "State
laboratories," would {202} have to be taken in order to exclude unsuitable
persons, and to secure industry in the professors. The remarks also,
already made respecting the limitation of the duties of the professors to
research in pure science, the exclusion of invention, the publication of
results, the class of sciences with which a commencement might best be
made, etc., apply equally in this case. I do not however mean by these
remarks to suggest the disendowment of research in the more complex or
concrete subjects, in order to make a commencement with the simpler
sciences.
The existence within the Universities of offices in which the faculties of
scientific men might be developed to their fullest extent, would induce
those engaged in the work of scientific instruction in those institutions
to devote more time to research, in order that they might improve their
scientific talents, and in their turn become fitted to occupy such posts.
It has been suggested that discoverers should teach as well as investigate;
but this would be an imperfect plan, and would largely convert the position
of a professor into that of one at an ordinary college. Every person who
has had much experience in experimental investigation also knows, that to
carry it out effectually, requires the whole of his time and attention. If,
therefore, teaching or lecturing constitutes a part of the duties, a
portion of the professor's time must be taken from the more important
occupation of research, and the fundamental object of the institution will
be frustrated. Research evolves new knowledge; {203} teaching simply
distributes it. The labours of a scientific teacher or lecturer consist
essentially of a continued series of repetitions of other men's
discoveries. For each single man who can discover, there exist many who can
teach. With teaching in addition to research, all the usual educational
machinery, lecture theatres and apparatus, diagrams, audiences, pupils,
registration of students, receipt of fees, examinations, marking of papers,
valuing of answers, attending annual meetings, etc., would be brought into
requisition, and the result would probably be, as it is at present, the
duties of teaching would, in nearly all cases, swallow up the time, and
prevent the freedom from interruption necessary for successful research
Under present circumstances, it is the testimony of nearly every teacher
and lecturer in science, that he "has no time for research." If teaching is
also carried on, the Research laboratories will compete with educational
institutions, established and carried on by private enterprize, and place
them at a disadvantage, and thus discourage voluntary effort in the
diffusion of science; but by limiting the functions of the professors
entirely to pure research, there will be no competition with any private
interests, because no persons gain a livelihood entirely by means of such
occupation.
That the practice of teaching is however of very great use in preparing the
mind of a scientific man for research is quite certain, because it compels
him to study all parts of his subject, and whilst doing so, many questions
for investigation occur to his mind. {204} Many of our most eminent
discoverers have also been teachers. But teaching is not a necessary
condition of success in research, nor even a necessary preparation for it;
the examples of various able discoverers prove this. In some cases
discoverers have devoted themselves to teaching, only after having attained
high repute in research; in others they have not been teachers at all.
Original research itself usually suggests plenty of new subjects of
investigation, without the additional ones suggested by teaching.
In order that self improvement in a man of science might never stagnate,
there should exist a continuous and complete series of steps of preferment,
by which the merest beginners in scientific knowledge, might be enabled to
attain to the highest scientific position; and finally become wholly
occupied in that kind of labour by which their scientific faculties would
be developed to their fullest extent, but this last step is wanting. By the
proposed plan however a student would become a teacher; the teacher
develope into a professor; and a professor might employ for a period a
portion of his time in research, and thus become qualified for entire
devotion to original investigation and discovery.
After a scientific teacher has acquired a thorough knowledge of his
subjects, and a high position in his profession, his occupation becomes to
him a species of intellectual routine, in which he is continually going
through the same courses of lectures and examinations over and over again,
and his personal improvement stagnates. But if there was remuneration for
research, {205} or there existed some post or employment, to which those
who had acquired the ability to investigate might be appointed, there would
be an inducement to continued intellectual improvement, and a sphere in
which the most valuable faculties of scientific men might be developed for
national benefit to their fullest extent.
_3rd._ _Provincial Colleges of Research._--The success of this plan would
depend essentially upon the diffusion of a knowledge of the importance of
scientific research amongst the richer classes. There are at present a very
few wealthy persons in this country who perceive to some extent the value
of such research, and the dependence of their wealth upon it, who would be
willing to contribute to a fund for the purpose; and there are many more
who would assist if the importance of the subject was properly explained to
them. The chief argument in favour of provincial colleges of research is,
that it is a duty of wealthy persons to aid research, because they have
derived, and are continually deriving great benefits from it, for which
they make no payment. The ways in which some of those benefits have been
derived have been already briefly stated. As the large manufacturers and
capitalists are generally the persons who derive great pecuniary benefit
from the progress of science, it might be reasonably urged that they should
contribute freely towards its advancement.
Such an institution might be located in each of the {206} largest centres
of industry. The objects of the institution; the branches of science to be
investigated in it; the number of professors, the mode of selecting them,
and of excluding unsuitable candidates for the office; the means by which
industry might be secured and jobbery prevented; the exclusion of
invention, and of teaching and lecturing; the publication of results,
removal of professors, etc., have already been treated of under the head of
"State laboratories." The chief difficulties to be overcome in this, as in
all other plans of aiding research, are to find a sufficient number of
influential persons acquainted with the subject to practically carry out
the plan; to secure investigators of high ability; and to prevent the
offices being filled by incompetent persons.
_4th._ _Aid to Professors of Science in Colleges._--Another way by which
research might be promoted, would be by giving assistance in the form of a
definite amount of additional salary, for the purpose of pure research, to
professors and teachers in colleges and institutions; the money being
supplied by the State or from the funds of the Institution. In carrying out
this plan, it would be necessary to assist only those persons who had
already published a good research, and thus proved their ability; and who
would engage to devote a definite portion of their time to the labour as a
part of their duty. The selection of suitable men might be made with the
advice of the Council of the Royal Society. {207} The additional salary
should be entirely in the form of remuneration for labour, time, and
materials, etc., expended upon research in pure science, and not in
effecting inventions. The knowledge obtained should be treated as public
property, and be published in the usual manner, and the investigator should
not be permitted to sell or patent it. It would be necessary to provide
that in case the investigator failed to make or publish a reasonable amount
of good research, the additional salary should cease. Publication in the
journals of the Royal Society, or in a leading scientific magazine, might
be considered a sufficient proof of the satisfactory quality of the labour.
It is very desirable that all the higher teachers and professors of science
in our educational institution should devote a portion of their time to
original research. It would make their lectures more reliable, because
research yields experience in the detection of error; whilst there is
usually only one way of succeeding in making an experiment, there are
always many ways of failing, and in the directions given in books, the
latter are usually omitted. It would also induce the students to take a
greater interest in the subject, and feel more respect for the teacher. The
special excellence of the German system of teaching consists in the union
of teaching and original research. This plan of aiding research would
induce some of our teachers of science who have not yet made researches, to
attempt such labour, it would also develope a superior class of scientific
teachers generally; and produce a supply of candidates for professorships
of research. {208}
A great obstacle to the carrying out of this plan lies in the fact that in
consequence of the ignorance of the value of original research by the
founders of such Institutions, no definite provision usually exists in the
Trust deeds to authorise the Trustees to devote any of the funds to such a
purpose.
_5th._ _Extension of the Government Grant System._--During a number of
years the British Government has entrusted to the Royal Society the annual
sum of £1,000 for the purpose of aiding science; and that sum has been
given in varying portions to different investigators who have applied for
grants in aid of their expenses in making investigations.
Although the total amount to be disbursed annually was not large, very few
persons, qualified to make good researches, usually applied for its
assistance, and it was difficult to dispose of the whole. The chief causes
of this difficulty were:--a grant from the fund was an unprofitable gift to
accept, because it was only sufficient to partly pay the expenses out of
pocket for chemicals and apparatus, and allowed nothing for the skill,
time, or labour, nor for payments made to assistants. Further, "By order of
the Council, all instruments, apparatus, and drawings, made or obtained by
aid of the Government Grants, shall, after serving the purpose for which
they were procured, and in the absence of any specific understanding to the
contrary, be delivered into the custody of the Royal Society."
By far the greater part of the expense of an investigation in physics or
chemistry is the exceedingly large {209} amount of time it occupies. Many
necessary preliminary experiments have to be made, which yield either
negative, unsuccessful, or incomplete results, and make the undertaking
expensive. A good investigation in chemistry also not unfrequently costs
the investigator a sovereign a day if he is wholly employed upon it. In
some cases, for each £100 received as a grant, at least a £1,000, was
directly and indirectly expended. Any person therefore who undertook a
research became a loser, and aid from the Government Grant fund did not
entirely cover his loss. Only scientific men who had other sources of
income were able to avail themselves of the grants. The existence of the
grants also was not widely known. The advantages of the plan were, it
diminished the loss to the investigator, and the fact of being allotted a
sum from the fund was considered highly creditable to the recipient.
In consequence largely of the evidence collected from eminent men of
science from all parts of Great Britain, and the recommendations based upon
it, by the Royal Commission for the Advancement of Science, the Grant
system has been extended; our Government recently placed an additional
amount of £4,000 a year, for five years, to be distributed in sums at the
recommendation of the Royal Society to suitable applicants, and the five
years have now elapsed.
This extension of the Grant system has been an {210} improvement. It has
resulted both in a large increase in the number of applicants and of
researches; and has shown that there exists in this country a large amount
of scientific ability in need of encouragement. The amounts granted were
increased in magnitude so as to cover in some cases payments made to
assistants and the entire outlay made for experiments, also a small payment
for a portion of the time occupied in actual research. The plan of awarding
the grants has been for work proposed by the applicants to be done, and not
for that already performed. How far a retrospective method might be worthy
of trial, is difficult to decide. It has been objected to it that the
claims of scientific investigators for researches already made, would be so
great and so convincing that it would be impossible to resist them, and the
funds required to satisfy those claims would be so large as to render the
plan quite impracticable; if however the retrospective period was limited
to a short time, a year for example, the difficulty would be lessened.
There would still however remain the great difficulty of valuing the
results. This might probably be overcome by regulating the money payment
according to the time, labour, pecuniary expenditure, and scientific status
of the particular investigator, and leaving genius to be rewarded by the
fame and honour of the results.
No system of aid however can place scientific investigation in a
satisfactory position in this country, which does not include certain
remuneration for time, {211} money and labour expended; and no sound
argument can be adduced why investigators should not be adequately
recompenced. The genius alone of a discoverer should be rewarded by fame,
and his time, labour, and expenditure, in accordance with his professional
reputation, be repaid by money, as in all other intellectual occupations.
The same amount of time and labour expended in any ordinary profession,
requiring an equal, or even less amount of preparatory education and
experience, and less rare ability, would yield an income of several
thousand pounds a year. Although the lives of a few eminent discoverers
have proved that it has been possible for them to do a considerable amount
of research under the conditions which have existed, that is no reason why
they should not be remunerated. Previous success in research has been due
to the unusually great perseverance, industry, and self-denial of the men,
and but little to any pecuniary encouragement received. The fewness of such
men, supports this view of the case. The plan of aiding research by grants
which include no certain payment for time or labour, is quite
incommensurate with the importance of the subject and entirely unworthy of
the reputation of a great nation.
_6th._ _Students pursuing Research at the Universities._ In the German
Universities each student is required to make an original research before
he can obtain a degree in Science, and the plan has worked successfully;
also in the Victoria University, Manchester, {212} several Fellowships have
recently been established for the encouragement of students in original
investigation.
If this plan could be carried out in our old Universities it would produce
most valuable results, because the governing, wealthy, and influential
classes of this nation are chiefly educated at those institutions, and they
would then acquire habits of more accurate scientific thought, and some
knowledge of the nature and importance of scientific research, and of the
essential dependence of national welfare upon it.
But a great and probably insuperable obstacle exists to the carrying out of
such a plan, viz., the wealth possessed by the parents of students. An
original research cannot be made without considerable industry, and the
greatest opponent of industry, especially with young men, is the possession
or expectation of wealth. According to college tutors at our old
Universities, there is no large class of industrious students at those
institutions. The greatest cause of the idleness of the students is
parental neglect and the habits of wealthy society. Many parents allow
their sons too much money, and over-look too readily their idleness and
frivolity; the young men also know their parents are rich, and act
accordingly. Many persons send their sons to those places chiefly to form
aristocratic acquaintances, and for other purposes than those of
educational discipline and learning. The college authorities have also
largely acquiesced in the wishes of the parents and students. And in this
way {213} scientific research has been almost entirely excluded from our
old Universities. If the present tutors and governing bodies of those
Institutions cannot induce students generally to be industrious, by what
means can it be expected that these young men can be persuaded to exercise
the still greater degree of industry and intelligence requisite to
prosecute research, whilst they are decoyed from it by the attractions of
wealth? In Germany the conditions are very different, the students in the
Universities of that country have much less money at their disposal. Nearly
the whole of the educational courses also at the Grammar schools and other
educational institutions in this country, are formed upon the plan of
sending all the superior scholars to our Universities, and thus the
defective state of scientific training at the Universities operates through
our whole scholastic system, and depresses the entire scientific
instruction of the nation. It is evident that in this way the undue wealth
of this country largely retards national progress.
_7th._ _Local Endowment of Research Funds._ In addition to the foregoing
means, local efforts might be made to encourage research in each great
centre of industry; through the medium of the local scientific societies.
Nearly as early as the year 1660, Cowley in a treatise, proposed a
Philosophical Society to be established near London, with liberal salaries
to learned men to make experiments; but he could not get the money raised.
A plan of this kind is in operation in Birmingham and carried out by the
{214} Council of the Birmingham Philosophical Society in accordance with
the following:--
"SCHEME FOR ESTABLISHING AND ADMINISTERING A FUND FOR THE ENDOWMENT OF
RESEARCH IN BIRMINGHAM."
"The Council are of opinion that this Society would be omitting a principal
means of the advancement of Science--the end for which all such
associations exist--if it neglected the question of the Endowment of
Research. To maintain a successful investigator in his labours, even though
no results of immediate or obvious utility can be shown to spring out of
them, is of interest to the community at large. Indeed, it is just because
the practical usefulness of such work is not immediate or obvious that it
becomes necessary to give it special support, for otherwise it would have
its own market value, and endowment would be superfluous. But the proper
and effectual administration of an Endowment Fund is perceived to be so
beset with difficulty, as often to deter even those who recognise the
principle from advocating it in practice. Most of the dangers usually
foreseen would, however, as a rule be avoided, simply by the distribution
of such funds from local centres, under such a scheme as is now proposed.
The Council, are therefore, anxious to establish a Fund, in connection at
once with the Society and the Town, for the direct Endowment of Scientific
Research."[36]
{215}
_8th._ _Local Laboratories of Research._ Another plan would be for local
scientific societies to raise money by soliciting subscriptions and
donations for the support of local laboratories; a prospectus of the
following kind being issued:--
PROPOSAL TO FOUND A LABORATORY OF PURE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN ----.
"As the manufacturers, merchants, capitalists, land-owners, and the public
generally, of this town and district, have derived and are still deriving
great pecuniary and other benefits from the discovery of new knowledge by
means of pure research in the sciences of Physics and Chemistry; and as in
consequence of the great neglect of such research in this country, and the
increased cultivation of it in other lands, our commerce is suffering, and
a great many evils in manufacturing and other operations, in sanitary and
many other matters dependant upon physical and chemical conditions, remain
unremedied; it is proposed to found a Local Laboratory of original research
in those sciences, with every suitable appliance in it; and to employ one
or more investigators of repute, with assistants, who shall be wholly
engaged in such labour in their respective sciences."
As it is largely the custom in this country to effect great objects by
means of individual liberality and corporate enterprise, instead of
trusting to State assistance, it is not improbable that when the great
importance of scientific research and its claims {216} to encouragement
have become more generally known, that aid which has hitherto been
with-held from it will be rendered by private generosity; and local
institutions, wholly for the purpose of original scientific research will
be established and supported by public-spirited wealthy persons. An
institution of this kind upon a small scale, and called "The Institute of
Scientific Research" has already been established in Birmingham, (see Note
p. 40). By founding local institutions of this kind there exist
opportunities for wealthy persons to do great good to mankind, and acquire
renown as philanthropists by the action.
And _9th_. In consequence of the great benefit derived from scientific
research by the inhabitants of each locality, it has become a duty of each
large community to promote it, and local Town Councils might with advantage
and perfect justice to the public, devote a portion of municipal funds to
the purpose of aiding local scientific research. To this plan it may be
objected, that as the results of research are cosmopolitan, diffusing
themselves everywhere, and this diffusion cannot be prevented; the benefits
arising from research cannot be restricted even to a large community. In
reply to this:--As knowledge and its advantages are cosmopolitan, the duty
of promoting research must be equally extensive. There is also a real
return received by the public for expenditure of money in research, in the
free liberty to use all new knowledge developed everywhere by such labour,
and although the money expended by a {217} community upon particular
researches or upon an individual investigator, does not directly produce an
immediate return; practically an immediate and direct benefit is received
by that community, because new scientific knowledge for the use of teachers
and popular lecturers, and new inventions based upon it, of local value to
that society, continually become public. Every civilized community has also
received beforehand such benefits to an enormous extent; and each
investigator may reasonably claim public support on the ground that he
contributes to the general stock of new knowledge. Some persons however,
who have not fully considered the subject, wish to receive not only the
advantages accruing from the common stock of knowledge, but also to reserve
to themselves the entire benefit arising from their own special
contributions.
Experience alone will prove which of the foregoing schemes is the most
suitable in this country, or in particular cases. At present the plan
largest in operation is the system of Government Grants, next in magnitude
are the other funds distributed by the Royal Society, the British
Association, the Chemical Society, the Royal Institution, the Birmingham
Philosophical Society, and those provided by the munificence of private
individuals. It is greatly to be hoped that the liberal spirit of private
individuals will yet further remove the great blot which lies upon the
reputation of the wealthy manufacturers, capitalists, and land-owners, who
have derived such great profits from {218} scientific research and have
scarcely aided it at all in return. It is also to be desired that the
Corporations of manufacturing towns will recognise the value of original
scientific enquiry to their fellow townsmen, and will undertake the
responsibility of voting money from municipal funds to promote it.
* * * * *
Notes
[1] See p.p. 165 to 167.
[2] Essays and Addresses, Owen's College, 1874, pp. 172-182.
[3] See Chapter 2, Section B.
[4] In the year 1870, a gentleman of the name of Davis bequeathed £2,000 to
the Royal Institution, London, to aid original scientific research.
[5] As a notable exception to the above statement:--"Scientific research
has now an Institute of its own in Birmingham, without being indebted to
the public funds. A fund has already been collected for carrying on the
work. The building is called 'The Institute of Scientific Research.'" See
_Nature_, January 7th, 1881, p. 366; the _Athenæum_, February 5th, 1881, p.
204; the _English Mechanic_, p. 537, February 11th, 1881.
[6] Professor Bache left 50,000 dollars, and Smithson bequeathed 541,000
dollars to this Institution.
[7] Respecting the Members of our Houses of Legislature, a former
Postmaster-General remarked to me, that a dose of scientific research would
be too much for them.
[8] The Victoria University has recently become a partial exception to this
statement.
[9] See "Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers," vol. 5, pp. 719 and
890; and vol. 8, p. 1,010.
[10] See _Nature_, April 24th and May 1st, 1873, pp. 485 and 13; also _Work
and Wages_, by Brassey, pp. 170 and 178.
[11] NOTE.--See "Work and Wages," by Brassey, p.p. 15-131 and 132; also the
"Laboratory," vol. 1, p.p. 313-316, 378 and 380.
[12] NOTE.--The whole of this chapter, especially the Moral Section, is
capable of great amplification and much more copious illustration.
[13] NOTE.--See also p. 95.
[14] NOTE.--Athenæum, Aug. 3, 1877. p. 242.
[15] "Wish and Will," by L. Turner, M.A.
[16] "The Mutual Relations of Physical Science and Religious Faith."
[17] Port Royal Logic, Discourse 1.
[18] See p. 91-92.
[19] See "Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances," by P. W. Simmonds.
[20] See "Barometer Cycles," by Balfour Stewart, F.R.S.--_Nature_, Jan. 13,
1881, p. 237.
[21] See p. 165, et seq.
[22] It would I consider be an improvement in our educational arrangements,
if a Professorial chair, solely devoted to teaching those laws and
principles, existed in each Scientific College.
[23] See vols. 1 (1872) 2 (1874) of the Reports of that Commission.
[24] See pages 100 and 101.
[25] "_Nature_," April 3rd, 1873. p. 431.
[26] Sir Edmund Beckett, "_English Mechanic_", 1881, No. 830, p. 560.
[27] The Earl of Craufurd, "_English Mechanic_," 1881, No. 830, p. 560.
[28] See page 68, et seq. p. 134.
[29] See "_Nature_," Dec. 2nd, 1880, p. 112.
[30] "_English Mechanic_," 1881, No. 831, pp. 586, 587.
[31] "_English Mechanic_," August 17th, 1881, p. 83.
[32] The Mastership of the Mint is no longer given to scientific men.
[33] See Reports of Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and
Advancement of Science, Vol 2, pp. 75-92.
[34] See "_Nature_" No. 600, p. 597, April 28th, 1881.
[35] A fleet of thirty ships, varying in size from 500 to 5000 tons each,
is employed in laying and repairing telegraph cables, and 25 millions of
pounds have already been invested in submarine cable enterprises.
[36] See "_Nature_," vol. XXII, page 203.
* * * * *
Changes made against printed original.
Page 11. "our knowledge of the substance": 'knowwledge' in original.
Page 24. "Nearly every manufacturer": 'ever' in original.
Page 32. "Persons in general can easily understand": 'ean easily' in
original.
Page 39. "wealthy persons who have devoted themselves": 'themselver' in
original.
Page 62. "also all terrestrial forces": 'terrestial' in original.
Page 81. "better systems of hygiene": 'hygeine' in original.
Page 114. "course in which the throng is densest": 'the' repeated across
line break in original.
Ibid. "thousands of different chemical compounds": 'compouuds' in original.
Page 116. "emits and absorbs": 'aborbs' in original.
Page 119. "In every genuine volition": 'volitition' in original.
Page 126. "purely physical and chemical conditions.": 'physicial' in
original.
Page 127. "the judicial detection of truth": 'judical' in original.
Ibid. "completely converted into acquired tendencies": 'completly ...
tendences' in original.
Page 134. "the present state of civilization": 'civilzation' in original.
Ibid. "to withhold truth from ignorant patients": 'withold' in original.
Ibid. "lists of our moral deficiencies": 'deficiences' in original.
Page 135. "there exist no royal roads to happiness": 'their exist' in
original.
Page 151. "a diminution of waste": 'dimunition' in original.
Page 152. "twenty millions of pounds annually": 'anually' in original.
Ibid. "Photography is also largely used in our gaols": 'in our goals' in
original.
Page 158. "acting under the same conditions": 'conitions' in original.
Ibid. "every phenomenon requires time": 'requiries' in original.
Page 182. "to be carried out effectually": 'effectualy' in original.
Page 184. "been driven out of science altogether": 'althogether' in
original.
Page 186. "more or less fortuitous circumstances": 'fortuitious' in
original.
Page 189. "their labours should be remunerated by the State.": 'remuerated'
in original.
Page 199. "should not be similarly remunerated": 'similarily' in original.
Page 203. "consist essentially of a continued series of repetitions":
'esssentially' in original.
Page 217. "of local value to that society": 'of' repeated across line break
in original.
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