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�SCIENCE LECTURES FOR THE PEOPLE.
THIRD
SERIES.—1871.
SCIENCE LECTURES,
DELIVERED IN THE
HULME TOWN
HALL,
MANCHESTER.
IN THE YEAR 1871.
By
Lecture I.
YEAST.
Professor HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S.
Lecture II.
COAL COLOURS.
By Professor ROSCOE, F.R.S.
Lecture III.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE.
By Professor WILKINS, M.A.
Lecture IV.
THE FOOD OF PLANTS.
By Professor ODLING, F.R.S.
Lecture V.
THE UNCONSCIOUS ACTION OF THE BRAIN.
By Dr. CARPENTER, F.R.S.
Lecture VI.
EPIDEMIC DELUSIONS.
By Dr. CARPENTER, F.R.S.
Lecture VII.
THE PROGRESS OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
By Professor ROSCOE, F.R.S.
MANCHESTER :
JOHN HEYWOOD, 141 and 143', DEANSGATE.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., Stationers’ Hall Court.
F. PITMAN. Paternoster Row.
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�INDEX
Page.
Yeast.......................................................
x
Coal Colours................................................ ...............................................
Origin
of the
English People.............................................................
Food of Plants..........................
...............................
Unconscious Action
of the
Epidemic Delusions..................
.......................... *.............................................
Progress
of
49
.Brain....................................................
95
Sanitary Science...................................................... J20
��ON
YEAST
A LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR
HUXLEY,
LL.D.,
F.R.S.
Delivered in the Free Trade Hah,, Manchester, 3rd November, 1871.
I have selected to-night the particular subject of Yeast for two
reasons—or, rather, I should say for three. In the first place,
because it is one of the simplest and the most familiar objects with
which we are acquainted. In the second place, because the facts
and phenomena which I have to describe are so simple that it is
possible to put them before you without the help of any of those
pictures or diagrams which are needed when matters are more
complicated, and which, if I had to refer to them here, would
involve the necessity of my turning away from you now and then,
and thereby increasing very largely my difficulty (already sufficiently
great) in making myself heard. And thirdly, I have chosen this
subject because I know of no familiar substance forming part of
our every day knowledge and experience, the examination of
which, with a little care, tends to open up such very considerable
issues as does this substance—yeast.
In the first place, I should like to call your attention to a
fact with which the whole of you are, to begin with, perfectly
acquainted, I mean the fact that any liquid containing sugar, any
liquid which is formed by pressing out the succulent parts of the
fruits of plants, or a mixture of honey and water, if left of itself foj
a short time, begins to undergo a peculiar change. No matter how
clear it might be at starting, yet after a few hours, or at most a few
days, if the temperature is high, this liquid begins to be turbid,
�and by-and-by bubbles make their appearance in it, and a sort of
dirty-looking yellowish foam or scum collects at the surface ; while
at the same time, by degrees, a similar kind of matter, which we
call the “ lees,” sinks to the bottom.
The quantity of this dirty-looking stuff, that we call the scum
and the lees, goes on increasing until it reaches a certain amount,
and then it stops; and by the time it stops, you find the liquid in
which this matter has been formed has become altered in its quality.
To begin with it was a mere sweetish substance, having the flavour
of whatever might be the plant from which it was expressed, or
having merely the taste and the absence of smell of a solution of
sugar; but by the time that this change that I have been briefly
describing to you is accomplished the liquid has become com
pletely altered, it has acquired a peculiar smell, and, what is still
more remarkable, it has gained the property of intoxicating the
person who drinks it Nothing can be more innocent than a
solution of sugar; nothing can be less innocent, if taken in excess,
as you all know, than those fermented matters which are produced
from sugar. Well, again, if you notice that bubbling, or, as it
were, seething of the liquid, which has accompanied the whole of
this process, you will find that it is produced by the evolution of
little bubbles of air-like substance out of the liquid; and I dare
say you all know this air-like substance is not like common air; it
is not a substance which a man can breathe with impunity. You
often hear of accidents which take place in brewers’ vats when
men go in carelessly, and get suffocated there without knowing
that there was anything evil awaiting them. And if you tried the
experiment with this liquid I am telling of while it was fermenting,
you would find that any small animal let down into the vessel
would be similarly stifled; and you would discover that a light
lowered down into it would go out. Well, then, lastly, if after this
liquid has been thus altered you expose it to that process which
is called distillation; that is to say, if you put it into a still, and
collect the matters which are sent over, you obtain, when you
first heat it, a clear transparent liquid, which, however, is some
thing totally different from water; it is much lighter; it has a
strong smell, and it has an acrid taste ; and it possesses the same
intoxicating power as the original liquid, but in a much more
intense degree. If you put a light to it, it burns with a bright
flame, and it is that substance which we know as spirits of wine.
Now these facts which I have just put before you—all but the
last—have been known from extremely remote antiquity. It is, I
hope, one of the best evidences of the antiquity of the human
�race, that among the earliest records of all kinds of men, you find
a time recorded when they got drunk. We may hope that that
must have been a very late period in their history. Not only
have we the record of what happened to Noah, but if we turn to
the traditions of a different people, those forefathers of ours who
lived in the high lands of Northern India, we find that they were
not less addicted to intoxicating liquids ; and I have no doubt
that the knowledge of this process extends far beyond the limits
of historically recorded time. And it is a very curious thing to
observe that al) the names we have of this process, and all that
belongs to it, are names that have their roots not in our present
language, but in those older languages which go back to the times
at which this country was peopled. That word “fermentation” for
example, which is the title we apply to the whole process, is a
Latin term ; and a term which is evidently based upon the fact of
the effervescence of the liquid. Then the French, who are very
fond of calling themselves a Latin race, have a particular word for
ferment, which is leviire.' And, in the same way, we have the word
“ leaven,” those two words having reference to the heaving up, or
to the raising of the substance which is fermented. Now those are
words which we get from what I may call the Latin side of our
parentage ; but if we turn to the Saxon side, there are a number
of names connected with this process of fermentation. For
example, the Germans call fermentation—and the old Germans
did so—“giihren;" and they call anything which is used as a
ferment by such names, such as “gheist” and “geest” and finally
in low German, “yest ■” and that word you know is the word
our Saxon forefathers used, and is almost the same as the word
which is commonly employed in this country to denote the common
ferment of which I have been speaking. So theyhave another name,
the word “hefe" which is derived from their verb “heben” which
signifies to raise up ; and they have yet a third name, which is also
one common in this country (I do not know whether it is common
in Lancashire, but it is certainly very common in the Midland
counties), the word “barm” which is derived from a root which
signifies to raise or to bear up. Barm is a something borne up; and
thus there is much more real relation than is commonly supposed
by those who make puns, between the beer which a man takes
down his throat and the bier upon which that process, if carried
to excess, generally lands him, for they are both derived from the
root signifying bearing up; the one thing is borne upon men’s
shoulders, and the other is the fermented liquid which was borne
up bv the fermentation taking place in itself.
�4
Again, I spoke of the produce of fermentation as “spirit
of wine.” Now what a very curious phrase that is, if you
come to think of it. The old alchemists talked of the finest
essence of anything as if it had the same sort of relation to the
thing itself as a man’s spirit is supposed to have to his body; and
so they spoke of this fine essence of the fermented liquid as being
the spirit of the liquid.
Thus came about that extraordinary
ambiguity of language, in virtue of which you apply precisely the
same substantive name to the soul of man and to a glass of gin!
And then there is still yet one other most curious piece of nomen
clature connected with this matter, and that is the word “ alcohol ”
itself, which is now so familiar to everybody. Alcohol originally
meant a very fine powder. The women of the Arabs and other
Eastern people are in the habit of tinging their eyelashes
with a very fine black powder which is made of antimony,
and they call that “kohol;” and the “al” is simply the article put
in front of it, so as to say “ the kohol.”. And up to the 17th
century in this country the word alcohol was employed to signify
any very fine powder; you find in Robert Boyle’s works that he
uses “alcohol” for a very fine subtle powder. But then this
name of anything very fine and very subtle came to be specially
connected with the fine and subtle spirit obtained from the
fermentation of sugar; and I believe that the first person who
fairly fixed it as the proper name of what we now commonly call
spirits of wine, was the great French chemist Lavoisier, so com
paratively recent is the use of the word alcohol in this specialised
sense.
So much by way of general introduction to the subject on which
I have to speak to-night. What I have hitherto stated is simply
what we may call common knowledge, which everybody may
acquaint himself with. And you know that what we call scientific
knowledge is not any kind of conjuration, as people sometimes
suppose, but it is simply the application of the same principles of
common sense that we apply to common knowledge, carried out,
if I may so speak, to knowledge which is uncommon. And all
that we know now of this substance, yeast, and all the very strange
issues to which that knowledge has led us, have simply come out of
the inveterate habit, and a very fortunate habit for the human race
it is, which scientific men have of not being content until they
have routed out all the different chains and connections of
apparently simple phenomena, until they have taken them to
pieces and understood the conditions upon which they depend.
I will try to point out to you now what has happened in conse
�5
quence of endeavouring to apply this process of “analysis,” as we
call it, this teazing out of an apparently simple fact into all the
little facts of which it is made up, to the ascertained facts relating to
the barm or the yeast; secondly, what has come of the attempt to
ascertain distinctly what is the nature of the products which are
produced by fermentation; then what has come of the attempt
to understand the relation between the yeast and the products ;
and lastly, what very curious side issues—if I may so call them—
have branched out in the course of this inquiry, which has now
occupied somewhere about two centuries.
The first thing was to make out precisely and clearly what was
the nature of this substance, this apparently mere scum and mud
that we call yeast. And that was first commenced seriously l?y a
wonderful old Dutchman of the name of Leeuwenhoek, who lived
some two hundred years ago, and who was the first person to
invent thoroughly trustworthy microscopes of high powers. Now,
Leeuwenhoek went to work upon this yeast mud, and by applying
to it high powers of the microscope, he discovered that it was no
mere mud such as you might at first suppose, but that it was a
substance made up of an enormous multitude of minute grains,
each of which had just as definite a form as if it were a grain ol
corn, although it was vastly smaller, the largest of these not
being more than the two-thousandth of an inch in diameter ; while,
as you know, a grain of corn is a large thing, and the very smallest
of these particles were not more than the seven-thousandth of an
inch in diameter. Leeuwenhoek saw that this muddy stuff was in
reality a liquid, in which there were floating this immense numbei
of definitely shaped particles, all aggregated in heaps and lumps
and some of them separate. That discovery remained, so to speak,
dormant for fully a century, and then the question was taken up
by a French discoverer, who, paying great attention and having the
advantage of better instruments than Leeuwenhoek had, watched
these things and made the astounding discovery that they were
bodies which were constantly being reproduced and growing; that
when one of these rounded bodies was once formed and had grown
to its full size, it immediately began to give off a little bud from one
side, and then that bud grew out until it had attained the full size of
the first, and that, in this way, the yeast particle was undergoing a
processof multiplication by budding, justas effectual and just as com
plete as the process of multiplication of a plant by budding; and
thus this Frenchman, Cagniard de la Tour, arrived at the conclusion—
very creditable to his sagacity, and which has been confirmed by
every observation and reasoning since—that this apparently muddy
�6
refuse was neither more nor less than a mass of plants, of minute^
living plants, growing and multiplying in the sugary fluid in which
the yeast is formed. And from that time forth we have known this,
substance which forms the scum and the lees as the yeast plant;
and it has received a scientific name—which I may use without
thinking of it, and which I will therefore give you—namely,
“ Torula.” Well, this was a capital discovery. The next thing
to do was to make out how this torula was related to other
plants. I won’t weary you with the whole course of investi
gation, but I may sum up its results, and they are these—that
the torula is a particular kind of a fungus, a particular state
rather, of a fungus or mould. There are many moulds which
undqr certain conditions give rise to this torula condition, to a
substance which is not distinguishable from yeast, and which has
the same properties as yeast—that is to say, which is able to
decompose sugar in the curious way that we shall consider by-andby. So that the yeast plant is a plant belonging to a group of the
Fungi, multiplying and growing and living in this very remarkable
manner in the sugary fluid which is, so to speak, the nidus or home
of the yeast.
That, in a few words, is, as far as investigation—by the help of
one’s eye and by the help of the microscope—has taken us. But
now there is an observer whose methods of observation are more
refined than those of men who use their eye, even though it be
aided by the microscope; a man who sees indirectly further than
we can see directly—that is, the chemist; and the chemist took up
this question, and his discovery was not less remarkable than that
of the microscopist. The chemist discovered that the yeast plant
being composed of a sort of bag, like a bladder, inside which is a
peculiar soft, semifluid material—the chemist found that this outer
bladder has the same composition as the substance of wood, that
material which is called “cellulose,” and which consists of the
elements carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, without any nitrogen.
But then he also found (the first person to discover it was an
Italian chemist, named Fabroni, in the end of the last century)
that this inner matter which was contained in the bag, which
constitutes the yeast plant, was a substance containing the elements
carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen ; that it was what
Fabroni called a vegeto-animal substance, and that it had the
peculiarities of what are commonly called “ animal products.”
This again was an exceedingly remarkable discovery. It lay
neglected for a time, until it was subsequently taken up by the
creat chemists of modem times, and they, with their delicate
�7
methods of analysis, have finally decided that, in all essential
respects, the substance which forms the chief part of the contents
of the yeast plant is identical with the material which forms the
chief part of our own muscles, which forms the chief part of our
own blood, which forms the chief part of the white ox the egg;
that, in fact, although this little organism is a plant, and nothing
but a plant, yet that its active living contents contain a substance
which is called “ protein,” which is of the same nature as the
substance which forms the foundation of every animal organism
whatever.
Now we come next to the question of the analysis of the
products, of that which is produced during the process of fermen
tation. So far back as the beginning of the 16th century, in the
times of transition between the old alchemy and the modern
chemistry, there was a remarkable man, Von Helmont, a Dutchman,
who saw the difference between the air which comes out of a vat
where something is fermenting and common air. He was the
man who invented the term -‘gas,” and he called this kind
of gas “gas silvestre”—so to speak gas that is wild, and lives
in out of the way places—having in his mind the identity of this
particular kind of air with that which is found in some caves and
cellars. Then, the gradual process of investigation going on, it
was discovered that this substance, then called “ fixed air,” was
a poisonous gas, and it was finally identified with that’ kind of
gas which is obtained by burning charcoal in the air, which is
called “ carbonic acid.” Then the substance alcohol was subjected
to examination, and it was found to be a combination of carbon,
and hydrogen, and oxygen. Then the sugar which was contained
in the fermenting liquid was examined, and that was found to contain
the three elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. So that it was
clear there were in sugar the fundamental elements which are con
tained in the carbonic acid, and in the alcohol. And then came that
great chemist Lavoisier, and he examined into the subject carefully,
and possessed with that brilliant thought of his which happens to
be propounded exactly apropos to this matter of fermentation—•
that no matter is ever lost, but that matter only changes its
form and changes its combinations—he endeavoured to make
out what became of the sugar which was subjected to fermen
tation. He thought he discovered that the whole weight of
the sugar was represented by the weight of the alcohol pro
duced, added to the weight of the carbonic acid produced; that
in other words, supposing this tumbler to represent the sugar,
that the action of fermentation was as it were the splitting of it,
�8
the one half going away in the shape of carbonic acid, and the other
half going away in the shape of alcohol. Subsequent inquiry,
careful research with the refinements of modern chemistry, have
been applied to this problem, and they have shown that Lavoisier
was not quite correct; that what he says is quite true for about 95
per cent of the sugar, but that the other 5 per cent, or nearly so, is
converted into two other things; one of them, matter which is
called succinic acid, and the other matter which is called glycerine,
which you all know now as one of the commonest of household
matters. It may be that we have not got to the end of this refined
analysis yet, but 'at any rate, I suppose I may say—and I speak
with some little hesitation for fear my friend Professor Roscoe
here may pick me up for trespassing upon his province—but I
believe I may say that now we can account for 99 per cent at least
of the sugar, and that that 99 per cent is split up into these four
things, carbonic acid, alcohol, succinic acid, and glycerine. So
that it may be that none of the sugar whatever disappears, and
that only its parts, so to speak, are re-arranged, and if any of it
disappears, certainly it is a very small portion.
Now these are the facts of the case. There is the fact of the
growth of the yeast plant; and there is the fact of the splitting up
of the sugar. What relation have these two facts to one another ?
For a very long time that was a great matter of dispute. The
early French observers, to do them justice, discerned the real state
of the case, namely, that there was a very close connection
between the actual life of the yeast plant and this operation of the
splitting up of the sugar; and that one was in some way or other
connected with the other. All investigation subsequently has con
firmed this original idea. It has been shown that if you take any
measures by which other plants of like kind to the torula
would be killed, and by which the yeast plant is killed, then
the yeast loses its efficiency. But a capital experiment upon
this subject was made by a very distinguished man, Helmholz,
who performed an experiment of this kind. He had two
vessels—one of them we will suppose full of yeast, but over
the bottom of it, as this might be, was tied a thin film of bladder;
consequently, through that thin film of bladder all the liquid
parts of the yeast would go, but the solid parts would be
stopped behind ; the torula would be stopped, the liquid parts of
the yeast would go. And then he took another vessel containing
a fermentable solution of sugar, and he put one inside the other;
and in this way you see the fluid parts of the yeast were able to
pass through with the utmost ease into the sugar, but the solid
�1
9
parts could not get through at all. And he judged thus : if the
fluid parts are those which excite fermentation, then, inasmuch as
these are stopped, the sugar will not ferment; and the sugar did
not ferment, showing quite clearly that an immediate contact with
the solid, living torula was absolutely necessary to excite this
process of splitting up of the sugar. This experiment was quite
conclusive as to this particular point, and has had very great
fruits in other directions.
Well, then, the yea.st plant being essential to the production of
fermentation, where does the yeast plant come from ? Here,
again, was another great problem opened up, for, as I said at
starting, you have, under ordinary circumstances in warm weather,
merely to expose some fluid containing a solution of sugar, or
any form of syrup or vegetable juice to the air, in order, after a
comparatively short time, to see all these phenomena of fermen
tation. Of course the first obvious suggestion is, that the torula
has been generated within the fluid. In fact, it seems at first
quite absurd to entertain any other conviction; but that belief
would most assuredly be an erroneous one.
Towards the beginning of this century, in the vigorous times of
the old French wars, there was a Monsieur Appert, who had his
attention directed to the preservation of things that ordinarily
perish, such as meats and vegetables, and in fact he laid the
foundation of our modern method of preserving meats; and he
found that if he boiled any of these substances and then tied them so
as to exclude the air, that they would be preserved for any time.
He tried these experiments, particularly with the must of wine and
with the wort of beer; and he found that if the wort of beer had
been carefully boiled and was stopped in such a way that the air
could not get at it, it would never ferment. What was the
reason of this? That, again, became the subject of a long
string of experiments, with this ultimate result, that if you take
precautions to prevent any solid matters from getting into the
must of wine or the wort of beer, under these circumstances—that
is to say, if the fluid has been boiled and placed in a bottle, and
if you stuff the neck of the bottle full of cotton wool, which
allows the air to go through, and stops anything of a solid
character however fine, then you may let it be for ten years and it
will not ferment. But if you take that plug out and give the
air free access, then, sooner or later, fermentation will set up.
And there is no doubt whatever that fermentation is excited
only by the presence of some torula or other, and that
that torula proceeds, in our present experience, from pre-existing
�IO
torulae. These little bodies are excessively light. You can easily
imagine what must be the weight of little particles, but slightly
heavier than water, and not more than the two thousandth or
perhaps seven thousandth of an inch in diameter. They
are capable of floating about and dancing like motes in the
sunbeam ; they are carried about by all sorts of currents of air;
the great majority of them perish ; but one or two, which may
chance to enter into a sugary solution, immediately enter into
active life, find there the conditions of their nourishment, increase
and multiply, and may give rise to any quantity whatever of
this substance yeast. And, whatever may be true or not be true
about this “ spontaneous generation,” as it is called, in regard to
all other kinds of living things, it is perfectly certain, as regards
yeast, that it always owes its origin to this process of transporta
tion or inoculation, if you like so to call it, from some other , living
yeast organism ; and so far as yeast is concerned, the doctrine of
spontaneous generation is absolutely out of court. And not only
so, but the yeast must be alive in order to exert these peculiar
properties. If it be crushed, if it be heated so far that its life is
destroyed, that peculiar power of fermentation is not excited. Thus
we have come to this conclusion, as the result of our inquiry, that
the fermentation of sugar, the splitting of the sugar into alcohol and
carbonic acid, glycerine, and succinic acid, is the result of nothing
but the vital activity of this little fungus, the torula.
And now comes the further exceedingly difficult inquiry—how
is it that this plant, the torula, produces this singular operation ol
the splitting up of the sugar? Fabroni, to whom I referred some
time ago, imagined that the effervescence of fermentation was
produced in just the same way as the effervescence of a seidlitz
powder, that the yeast was a kind of acid, and that the sugar was
a combination of carbonic acid and some base to form the alcohol,
and that the yeast combined with this substance, and set free the
carbonic acid; just as when you add carbonate of soda to acid you
turn out the carbonic acid. But of course the discovery of
Lavoisier that the carbonic acid and the alcohol taken together
are very nearly equal in weight to the sugar, completely upset this
hypothesis. Another view was therefore taken by the French
chemist, Thenard, and it is still held by a very eminent chemist, .
M. Pasteur, and their view is this, that the yeast, so to speak, eats a
little of the sugar, turns a little cf it to its own purposes, and by
so doing gives such a shape to the sugar that the rest of it breaks
up into carbonic acid and alcohol.
Well, then, there is a third hypothesis, which is maintained by
�II
another very distinguished chemist, Liebig, which denies either
of the other two, and which declares that the .particles of
the sugar are, as it were, shaken asunder by the forces at work
in the yeast plant. Now I am not going to take you into these
refinements of chemical theory, I cannot for a moment pre
tend to do so, but I may put the case before you by an
analogy. Suppose you compare the sugar to a card house, and
suppose you compare the yeast to a child coming near the card
house, then Fabroni’s hypothesis was that the child took half the
cards away; TWnard’s and Pasteur’s hypothesis is that the
child pulls out the bottom card and thus makes it tumble to
pieces; and Liebig’s hypothesis is that the child comes by and
shakes the table and tumbles the house down. I appeal to my
friend here (Professor Roscoe) whether that is not a fair statement
of the case.
Having thus, as far as I can, discussed the general state of the
question, it remains only that I should speak of some of those
collateral results which have come in a very remarkable way out
of the investigation of yeast. I told you that it was very early
observed that the yeast plant consisted of a bag made up of the
same material as that which composes wood, and of an interior
semifluid mass which contains a substance, identical in its com
position, in a broad sense, with that which constitutes the flesh
of animals. Subsequently, after the structure of the yeast plant
had been carefully observed, it was discovered that all plants, high
and low, are made up of separate bags or “ cells,” as they are
called; these bags or cells having the composition of the pure
matter of wood; having the same composition, broadly speaking,
as the sac of the yeast plant, and having in their interior a
more or less fluid substance containing a matter of the same
nature as the protein substance of the yeast plant. And
therefore this remarkable result came out—that however much
a plant may differ from an animal, yet that the essential con
stituent of the contents of these various cells or sacs of which the
plant is made up, the nitrogenous protein matter, is the same
in the animal as in the plant. And not only was this gradually
discovered, but it was found that these semifluid contents of the
plant cell had, in many cases, a remarkable power of contractility
quite like that of the substance of animals. And about 24 or 25
years ago, namely, about the year 1846, to the best of my recol
lection, a very eminent German botanist, Hugo Von Mohl, con
ferred upon this substance which is found in the interior of the
plant cell, and which is identical with the matter round in the
�12
inside of the yeast cell, and whicn again contains an animal
substance similar to that of which we ourselves are made up—he
conferred upon this that title of “protoplasm,” which has brought
other people a great deal of trouble since 1 I beg particularly to
say that, because I find many people suppose that I was the
inventor of that term, whereas it has been in existence for at least
twenty-five years. And then other observers, taking the question
up, came to this astonishing conclusion (working from this basis of
the yeasty that the differences between animals and plants are not
so much in the fundamental substances which compose them, not
in the protoplasm, but in the manner in which the cells of which
their bodies are built up have become modified. There is a sense in
which it is true—and the analogy was pointed out very many years
ago by some French botanists and chemists—there is a sense in
which it is true that every plant is substantially an enormous
aggregation of bodies similar to yeast cells, each having to a
certain extent its own independent life. And there is a sense in
which it is also perfectly true—although it would be impossible for
me to give the statement to you with proper qualifications and
limitations on an occasion like this—but there is also a sense in
which it is true that every animal body is made up of an aggrega
tion of minute particles of protoplasm, comparable each of them
to the individual separate yeast plant. And those who are
acquainted with the history of the wonderful revolution which has
been worked in our whole conception of these matters in the last
thirty years, will bear me out in saying that the first germ of them,
to a very great extent, was made to grow and fructify by the study
of the yeast plant, which presents us with living matter in almost
its simplest condition.
Then there is yet one last and most important bearing of this
yeast question. There is one direction probably in which the
effects of the careful study of the nature of fermentation will
yield results more practically valuable to mankind than any other.
Let me recall to your minds the fact which I stated at the begin
ning of this lecture. Suppose that I had here a solution of pure
sugar with a little mineral matter in it; and suppose it were
possible for me to take upon the point of a needle one single,
solitary yeast cell, measuring no more perhaps than th£ three
thousandth of an inch in diameter—not bigger than one of those
little coloured specks of matter in my own blood at this moment,
the weight of which it would be difficult to express in the fraction
of a grain — and put it into this solution. From that single
one, if the solution were kept at a fair temperature in a
�13
warm summer’s day, there would be generated, in the course of a
week, enough torulae to form a scum at the top and to form lees
at the bottom, and to change the perfectly tasteless and entirely
harmless fluid, syrup, into a solution impregnated with the poi
sonous gas carbonic acid, impregnated with the poisonous substance
alcohol; and that, in virtue of the changes worked upon the sugar
by the vital activity of these infinitesimally small plants. Now
you see that this is a case of infection. And from the time that
the phenomenon of fermentation were first carefully studied, it has
constantly been suggested to the minds of thoughtful physicians
that there was a something astoundingly similar between this
phenomena of the propagation of fermentation by infection and
contagion, and the phenomena of the propagation of diseases by
infection and contagion. Out of this suggestion has grown that
remarkable theory of many diseases which has been called the
“ germ theory of disease,” the idea, in fact, that we owe a great
many diseases to particles having a certain life of their own,
and which are capable of being transmitted from one living
being to another, exactly as the yeast plant is capable of
being transmitted from one tumbler of saccharine substance to
another. And that is a perfectly tenable hypothesis, one which
in the present state of medicine ought to be absolutely exhausted
and shown not to be true, until we take to others which have less
analogy in their favour. And there are some diseases most
assuredly in which it turns out to be perfectly correct. There are
some forms of what are called malignant carbuncle which have
been shown to be actually effected by a sort of fermentation, if
I may use the phrase, by a sort of disturbance and destruction of
the fluids of the animal body, set up by minute organisms which
are the cause of this destruction and of this disturbance; and only
recently the study of the phenomena which accompany vaccination
has thrown an immense light in this direction, tending to show by
experiments of the same general character as that to which I
referred as performed by Helmholz, that there is a most astonishing
analogy between the contagion of that healing disease and the
contagion of destructive diseases. For it has been made out quite
clearly, by investigations carried on in France and in this country,
that the only part of the vaccine matter which is contagious, which
is capable of carrying on its influence in the organism of the child
wh,o is vaccinated, is the solid particles and not the fluid. By
experiments of the most ingenious kind, the solid parts have
been separated from the fluid parts, and it has then been
discovered that you may vaccinate a child as much as you
�14
like with the fluid parts, but no effect takes place, though an
excessively small portion of the solid particles, the most minute
that can be separated, is amply sufficient to give rise to all the
phenomena of the cow pock, by a process which we can compare
to nothing but the transmission of fermentation from one vessel
into another, by the transport to the one of the torula particles
which exist in the other. And it has been shown to be true of
some of the most destructive diseases which infect animals,
such diseases as the sheep pox, such diseases as that most terrible
and destructive disorder of horses, glanders, that in these, also,
the active power is the living solid particle, and that the inert part
is the fluid. However, do not suppose that I am pushing the
analogy too far. I do not mean to say that the active, solid parts
in these diseased matters are of the same nature as living yeast
plants; but, so far as it goes, there is a most surprising analogy
between the two; and the value of the analogy is this, that by
following it out we may some time or other come to understand
how these diseases are propagated, just as we understand, now,
about fermentation; and that, in this way, some of the greatest
scourges which afflict the human race may be, if not prevented, at
least largely alleviated.
This is the conclusion of the statements which I wished to
put before you. You see we have not been able to have any
accessories. If you will come in such numbers to hear a lecture
of this kind, all I can say is, that diagrams cannot be made big
enough for you, and that it is not possible to show any experi
ments illustrative of a lecture on such a subject as I have to deal
with. Of course my friends the chemists and physicists are very
much better off, because they can not only show you experiments,
but you can smell them and hear them ! But in my case such aids
are not attainable, and therefore I have taken a simple subject
and have dealt with it in such a way that I hope you all under
stand it, at least so far as I have been able to put it before you in
words; and having once apprehended such of the ideas and
simple facts of the case as it was possible to put before you,
you can see for yourselves the great and wonderful issues of such
an apparently homely subject.
�SCIENCE LECTURES
FOR
THE
PEOPLE.
THIRD SERIES-1871.
ON COAL COLOURS.
A
LECTURE,
By Professor
Roscoe,
F.R.S.,
Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall. November 10th, 1871.
The subject of coal has naturally attracted much of our attention
in these Science Lectures. In the first series, Professor Jevons,
than whom no one in the country is more able to speak upon the
economic aspects of the question, discoursed of the importance of
coal in manufactures and trades ; whilst in the last series Mr.
Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Green unfqjded some of the secrets which
lie hidden in a piece of coal. I propose to take up the subject
this evening from another point of view, and to endeavour to open
out to you still more wonderful, and, if possible, still more interest
ing fields than they did, inasmuch as I shall attempt to give you
an account of the composition of coal, and of one or two of the
very large number of derivatives which we can obtain from coal.
You are all aware that from coal we get the magnificent colours
which are so much admired, and which are used so much in silk,
woollen, and cotton dyeing. You know also, perhaps, that even
certain essences and sweet savours can be obtained from this
dirty-looking substance—a piece of coal.
To tell you all about the bodies which have been got from coal
would take me a very long time, I therefore only propose to give
you a short history of the mode in which these bodies are obtained,
choosing out one or two for our more special study.
In order to commence the study of our subject, I will, in the first
place, take here two tobacco pipes, in each of which I have placed
a. small quantity of coal. In the one I have placed a small quan
tity of the kind of coal which is found in South Wales, and which
is called anthracite coal; whilst in the other pipe we have placed
�i6
some coal which is found at Wigan, and is called cannel coat
The difference between the effect of heat upon these two kinds of
coal will very soon be visible to you. We shall be able to get
from the pipe in which we have placed the cannel coal a quantity
of brown vapour, which on bringing a light to it will take fire;
■whilst from the other pipe we shall not get any such brown vapour
at all. Now this shows us at once that coals differ very widely
in their properties.
Coal, as you have been told in the previous lectures, is a body
made up of several elementary constituents. It contains carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen; and the quantities of these
elements which the coals contain varies very much. In this
cannel coal there is a much larger quantity or proportion of
hydrogen and oxygen than there is in the anthracite coal. There
is much more of what we call volatile or bituminous matter; and
therefore this cannel coal will yield us a much larger quantity of
gas than can be got by the use of anthracite coal. Anthracite
coal is almost pure carbon.
[The experiment with the coal in the pipes and all the subse
quent experiments were very successful, and were much ap
plauded.]
The quantity of gas or volatile products which can be obtained
from different kinds of coal depends in the first place, then, upon
the composition of the coal. I have here a small model of a
gas making apparatus; in which the same process is going on
which occurs in an enormously larger scale in the gas works of the
Corporation of Manchester. And for this purpose I have used
cannel coal, because the anthracite coal does not yield us any
supply of gas. Let us now examine what takes place in the gas
works—what is going on when we make this coal gas. We may
divide the products of the gas works into four classes: —first, the
coke, which is left behind in the retort; secondly, the gas which
comes off; thirdly, the watery liquid which is formed; and
fourthly, the tarry matter which comes with the gas, but which,
together with the watery liquid, is not sent through the mains,
but is condensed before it leaves the gas works.
Let us now notice what is. the chemical composition, first of the
coal gas itself; secondly, of the watery portions, called the
ammonia water; and thirdly, of the gas tar. On the side of the
room I have suspended a large diagram of the various products
of coal, some of them having rather curious names (see Table on
page 5). I am afraid that it may frighten some of you if you think
that I am going to talk about all these substances. I do not intend
�i7
to do so; but I wish you to see what a very large number of chemi
cal substances exist as the products of the destructive distillation of
coal. Mark the words “ destructive distillation,” because I shall
have to speak of this again. In the destruction of the coal by
distillation, all these products can be got, and are found either in
the gas or in the coke, or in the ammonia liquor, or in the tar.
Here I have two pounds of cannel coal. I have here a large
white cube, each of whose sides is 26 inches in length, which
represents the quantity of gas which can be got from these two
pounds of cannel coal. I have in this bottle the exact quantity of
coke, namely, 19 ounces, which would be left behind in the retort
when this quantity of coal is heated. Here is three ounces of
watery ammonia liquor which would come away; and this is the
21 ounces of tar which would.be formed by the destructive distil
lation of two pounds of coal. You will see from the diagram
below that 100 tons of cannel coal distilled to yield 10,000
cubic feet of gas, having a specific gravity of o-6, gives the following
products : about 60 tons of coke, 9^ tons of ammonia water, 8^
of tar, and 22^ of gas, by weight. This expresses in numbers
what you there see illustrated by the model.
Destructive Distillation of Coal.
zoo tons of cannel and coal distilled to yield 10,000 cubic feet of gas of specific
gravity, o'6 gives the following products:—
GAS.
I
2
3
4
5
22’25
20’01
20’40
2r7O
I6-5O
TAR.
8-5
7-85
640
7’5°
10-70
AMMONIA
WATER.
9'5
714
5’4°
580
800
COKE.
SOURCE.
59’75
65-00
Average (Muspratt)
Manchester
67’84
6500
6500
Dukinfield
Macclesfield
First, then, with regard to the gas. Coal gas—that with which
we are supplied and lighted at the present time—is not one
definite chemical compound, but is a mixture of several component
chemical substances, and the composition of coal gas varies very
much. Here in the north of England we get a better gas than those
who live in the south, because here we have the command of a better
sort of cannel coal. In London the ordinary illuminating power of
the gas is about 12 J candles; whilst in Manchester the gas has an
illuminating power of about 20 candles ; that is, a jet of gas
burning at the rate of 5 cubic feet per hour gives a light equal to
�i8
that given by 20 standard candles. I mention this to show that gas
is not the same all the world over, but that it depends both upon
the quality of the coal employed, and upon the mode of its
manufacture.
Now the substances which coal gas contains may be divided
into three classes; first, those parts of the gas which give off light,
or the illuminating constituents; secondly, those parts of the gas
which burn, but which do not give off light, and which may be
termed heating constituents ; and thirdly, those portions of the
gas which neither give off light nor heat, that is to say, which do
not burn at all, and these may be termed the impurities contained
in the gas, which require to be removed, or ought to be removed
completely in the process of gas making, and before the gas is
distributed to the town. Here we have one of the luminous con
stituents of coal gas. This is termed ethylene or olefiant gas.
You see it burns with a very bright and brilliant light. This is the
chief illuminating constituent of coal gas. Here we have another
constituent of coal gas, termed carbonic oxide gas, which burns with
a very pale blue flame, as you will observe, but which scarcely gives
off any light. This is one of the heating constituents of the coal
gas or diluents, as they have been termed, because they dilute the
illuminating constituents. Here we have another constituent
which requires removal from the coal gas, namely, carbonic
acid gas; and this you see extinguishes the taper the moment
I place it in the gas. This, together with sulphuretted hydrogen
and the vapour of bisulphide of carbon, ought to be removed in
the process of gas making, and this is more or less completely
done by the scrubbers and the lime—or oxide of iron—purifiers.
In the following table you will see first the names of the
three illuminating constituents; the next four are the heating
constituents; and the next three are the impurities which have to
be removed.
We have here an arrangement for making gas : the fire is burn
ing and heating the cannel coal contained in this iron retort; here
is uhat is termed the tar well, for the first thing that is deposited
from the heated gas when it cools is the tar. These tubes are
termed atmospheric condensers, where the gas is cooled and
more of the tar deposited; and here we have the purifiers for
the purpose of ridding the gas of the three impurities to which I
have referred; and here we have the gas holder, into which the
gas is now passing, and from which we can now pass it through
our system of mains and light it, as you see here. [Gas made in
the room was then ignited.]
�Now, passing down the list, the next material we reach is
the ammonia water.
PRODUCTS FOUND IN THE DESTRUCTIVE DISTILLATION
OF COAL.
Coal Gas.
Terpenes.
Ethylene,
Tritylene,
Tetralene,
Illuminating
constituents.
Marsh gas,
Acetylene,
Carbonic oxide,
Hydrogen,
Diluents
or
heating
constituents.
Benzene Series.
Benzene.
Toluene.
Xylene.
Isoxylene.
Pseudo-cumene.
Mesitylene.
Carbonic acid,
I
Sulphuretted hydrogen, I Impurities.
Carbon dishulphide, )
Napthaline.
Ammonia Water.
Pyrene.
Tar-Pitch.
Anthracene.
Chrysene.
Phenols.
Coal-Tar.
Paraffines.
Amyl hydride.
Hexyl hydride.
Heptyl hydride.
Octyl hydride.
Nonyl hydride.
Decatyl hydride.
Olefines.
Amylene.
Hexylene.
Heptylene.
Octylene.
Nonylene.
Decatylene
Acetylene Series.
Phenol, or Carbolic Acid.
Cresol.
^Xylenol.
Bases.
Aniline.
Tolindine, &c.
Pyridin.
Picolin.
Lutidin.
Collidin.
Parvolin.
Coridin.
Rubidin.
Viridin.
Leucolin.
Iridolin.
Cryptidin.
This ammonia water is a very important part of the gas
products, because from this a number of very interesting sub
stances are obtained. Now what is the ammonia water?
The ammonia water is a liquid coming from the coal, for a
good deal of moisture, which the coal contains, comes over with
�20
the products, and this moisture condenses or absorbs the gas
called ammonia, forming what I dare say most of you know as
spirits of hartshorn. Now this gas-ammonia is a compound
body, and contains nitrogen and hydrogen. The nitrogenous
portion of the coal is converted in the process of distillation into
this ammoniacal gas, which is taken hold of by the water, and the
solution flows down as a brownish coloured, strongly smelling
liquid, known as “ gas water,” which is pumped off and sold for
purposes of manufacturing the ammoniacal salts and alum. We
have here specimens of sal-ammoniac and of carbonate of ammoniac
and also a large lump of alum, which I have to thank Mr. Spence
for sending. All these substances are made from the ammonia
liquor. N ow I wish to show you that this ammonia gas which is
given off will dissolve in water, and that is the reason why it does
not come off with the rest of the gas, but is kept back as a liquid ;
in order to show that I will make a simple experiment: we have
got here a large globe, filled with this gas ammonia, which as you
see is a colourless, invisible gas, but possesses a very pungent
smell, aud has the power of dissolving very rapidly in water.
Now in the lower vessel I have got some water, and I am going
to blow a little of this reddened water up into this upper globe,
filled with the ammoniacal gas, and you will see that the whole of
this water will rush up into the upper globe, because the ammonia
dissolves in the water, and the water therefore takes the place of
the gas, and we shall have a very beautiful fountain produced.
[Experiment very interesting and successful.] There now you see
that the ammonia has been absorbed by the water, and the effect
of the alkaline nature of this substance is seen, inasmuch as the
red liquid has turned blue.
Now we get to the next part of our subject—the coal-tar,
and the greater part of what I have to say will be with regard to
the tar contained in the products of the distillation of coal. In
the first place, with regard to the tar, let me say this, that we can
obtain from tar a great variety of very beautiful white colourless
substances. For instance, this white crystalline body here is
carbolic acid, so largely used for disinfecting purposes; this
beautiful white crystalline substance napthaline; this beautiful
clear, colourless liquid benzole, all come from that dirty sub
stance—coal tar—which you see, and which you rather avoid
when you do see it, going along the streets in those very black,
dirty-looking barrels. Nay, even from similar products of coal
tar this beautiful white body—paraffin—can be got. It was the
great chemist Liebig who some years ago said that the man who
�21
should be able to liquify coal gas, so that it could be carried about
readily from place to place, would be a great benefactor to his
species. This has now been done, mainly through the labours of
one man, Mr. James Young, who first began this conversion of
coal into oil. These products of the distillation of coal are not
obtained in gas making, it is true, but they are obtained by quite
a similar process—the destructive distillation of a coal-like sub
stance, at a lower temperature than that used for making coal-gas.
It seems, I dare say, hard for you to understand how such
a beautiful white body as this paraffin can be got from black
coal. But I will show you a few experiments which I think will
render this subject clearer to you. We have here a very wellknown substance—sugar. This white sugar I will now dissolve
in a little hot water, and I think in a few moments I can show
you that this white sugar contains carbon. I am now going
through the opposite process to that which is done by Mr. Young
in distilling his shale. I am going to convert a white substance
into carbon. The point I wish to illustrate is, that it is possible
to get a white substance like paraffin from a black one as
coal, inasmuch as the white substance contains carbon, only
in a different state of combination. I have only got now to
pour into this some strong sulphuric acid, when you will see that
this sugar will be converted into charcoal. (The conversion into
a seething, black, frothy substance was instantaneous.] Here you
see that the whole of this white substance has been converted
into charcoal. So much, then, for the fact that a white solid body
contains carbon. I have in this bottle another colourless sub
stance, liquid turpentine, and I wish to show you that turpentine
also contains carbon. I will pour a little of this turpentine on to
a bit of paper, and then plunge it into this cylinder of chlorine
gas, when I think you will see that the carbon of the turpentine
will become visible. (A cloud of black vapour is instantly pro
duced.] In the same way I have got here a colourless olefiant gas,
which also contains carbon, and when I mix this gas together with
chlorine gas, and bring a light to the mixture, I get a large quantity
of carbon set free, and thus we learn that white solids, colourless
liquids, and colourless gases all may contain black carbon; and it
must, therefore, not surprise you to find that from black coal we
can get these beautiful white bodies.
What I have as yet said has reference to the destructive
distillation of coal. I have had to destroy the coal in order to
get these various new and interesting products. Let us now
turn to another question, and let us ask ourselves, can we by
�22
any other process than this destructive action get4iold of new*
bodies ? The first era in chemical science has been what we term
the analytical era. By analysis we mean destruction, breaking up,
pulling asunder. The first object that the chemist had to achieve
was to find what he could get by destroying bodies. We have
destroyed the coal, and we have got this variety of substances
whose names you find on the list. The second era in chemical
science is what we term the synthetic or constructive era, the era
in which we begin to build up. We all know it is very much
more easy to destroy than it is to construct. And as it is in
every-day life, so it is with chemical compounds, as proved by the
history of chemical science. It is very much more easy to find out
what we can get by destroying the coal than it is to find out what
we can make by building up the various substances which are
obtained from coal. Hence it is, as you will easily understand,
that analytical chemistry or destructive chemistry came first in the
history of science, and then came synthetic chemistry.
Within the last forty years very great progress has been made in
this constructive chemistry. Before the year 1828, it was generally
supposed that any chemical substance which was found in animal
or vegetable bodies (which substances you will understand are very
numerous) was constructed in the body of the animal or.plant,
according to laws altogether different from the laws by which the
chemist was able to build up what are termed his inorganic com
pounds. He could bring together oxygen and hydrogen, and form
water; he could bring together sulphur and copper, and get a black
sulphide; but could he obtain such a substance as urea, which was
only found in the products of animal life ? This was the great
question. And this has, by dint of laborious experimental investi
gations, been answered most completely in the affirmative. He can
construct the substances which are found in the bodies of animals and
plants. He has not succeeded in constructing all these substances,
but he has succeeded in constructing a great number. I might
give you instances of hundreds of substances which were first
known as products solely found in animal or vegetable bodies,
but which have since been built up from their constituent
elements. Thus, for instance, that curious acid has been produced
which is found in the bodies of ants, and which we term formic
acid, and which is also found in the sting of the nettle, the sting
being due to the peculiar effect of this acrid liquid. This formic
acid was originally found only in these two sources, hut formic acid
can now be procured from its organic constituents, from carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen. So too with alcohol, about which Professor
�23
Huxley discoursed in his lecture on yeast, last week. He showed
you that the process by which alcohol is ordinarily formed is a very
complicated one, and one which it is altogether beyond the power
of the chemist to follow. The chemist cannot tell you the exact
process by which theyeast particles decompose the sugar and liberate
the alcohol, carbonic acid, glycerine, succinic acid, and other pro
ducts. That is a process not perhaps so completely dark to us as the
processes which go on in the animal and vegetable bodies, but it is a
process about which chemists know very little, and is doubtless a
process analogous to those which go on in the living body. But this
alcohol can now be built up from its elements, or from mineral
constituents, from charcoal, hydrogen, and oxygen. And so I
might go on with illustrations of substances which were supposed
originally to be only the sole products of that action which-is
termed vital action, but which now we find can be formed in the
ordinary way of chemical synthesis. For instance, only the other
day the beautiful and singular substance known as essential essence
of the Tonka bean was prepared artificially! Those persons who
take snuff are very fond of carrying this bean in their snuff boxes,
because it imparts to the snuff a still more pungent and agreeable
odour. It is a white crystalline body, termed coumarine, and this
has been quite recently prepared artificially, and found to possess
all the properties of that contained in this peculiar bean. In
short, as far as regards the artificial construction of liquid or
crystalline products produced in vital processes, the chemist’s
power seems boundless, though, when we come to organised
bodies—such as the yeast globule or the starch grain, our domain
seems to end, for the chemist knows nothing about the artificial
formation of the simplest organised structure.
Well, then, let us see what we can learn with regard to con
structive chemistry as applied to the coal products. We shall
find that the substances which can be artificially built up from
the bodies contained in coal-tar possess most interesting properties ;
thus, for instance, they exhibit the most remarkable colouring
powers.
In the year 1825, our great English philosopher Faraday dis
covered benzole. This benzole was then a chemical rarity ; now
it is prepared by thousands of tons for the production of the
beautiful aniline colours which you know so well. From the
crude benzole contained in the tar we can build up, by a process of
addition, the details of which I have not time to describe to-night,
this heavy liquid aniline; and this has the power, after it has been
subjected to another additive process, of producing the most
�24
beautiful colours. I have in this jar a small quantity of aniline ;
I will add a drop or two to the water in this large glass globe; and
now I will add some of this colourless liquid, hypochlorite of sodium,
and after a while you will see that the colour of this water will be
changed, and that we shall have a splendidly violet-coloured liquid,
containing the well-known colour, mauve, which was discovered
by Mr. Perkin, in 1856, and this will give you an idea of the beauty
of the colours which are got from coal. By a modification of the
constructive processes to which the crude aniline is subjected a
great variety of differently-coloured substances can be got thus.
There we have the beautiful aniline blue colour. Here we have
got the celebrated aniline red, known as magenta, and a bloody
red it is. Here we have another coloured derivative—the aniline
violet. In these compounds which we can thus build up we have
not. only a mine of interest, but also a mine of wealth, for the
money value of these aniline colours is enormous. And how
interesting it is to think that this body, aniline, which a few years
ago was a curiosity, and only found in the laboratories of the
chemists, is now a substance which is manufactured by tons, and
thousands of tons, and which can be thus made to minister to our
gratification, and appeal to our sense of beauty !
Another interesting point I must not forget to mention, and
that is, that these beautiful colours are compounds of bodies
which are perfectly colourless! Through the kindness of my
friends, Messrs. Roberts, Dale, and Co., who are one of the
largest manufacturers of these beautiful colours in England, I
have here some of these bodies in their colourless state. Let me
show you how these colourless bodies can be made to become
brightly coloured. It is on combining these colourless bodies
with acids that their colouring power first becomes evident.
Here is a colourless liquid. I pour a little of it on to this piece
of white blotting paper, and on warming the paper over a lamp a
bright green colour becomes at once apparent. This is because
the base of the green-coloured compound does not possess any
colour whatever, and it is only when this base is by drying con
verted into a salt that the colour appears. Again, I take a colour
less solution—rosaniline, and I have only to heat it to convert it
into salt, and the beautiful bright red colour at once is seen. A
very small quantity of this, placed on a piece of white paper, will,
in a moment or two, when dried, turn the colourless paper into a
bright crimson. This, then, is a very interesting and singular
property of these colours. I may show it to you in another way.
I will write on this large sheet of white calico, stretched on a
»
�25
L
frame, the three words f<blue,” and “red,” and “green,” in large
letters, with the colourless solutions of the bases, and then if I
rub a little acid on the back of the paper you see that it instantly
brings out these three colours. This illustrates the fact that the
colour of a chemical substance, is not, as it were, an essential
or necessary characteristic of it, the colour in this case depends
upon an acid being present, for the pure bases of these colours
are colourless.
Now, I might, if I had time, tell you much more respecting these
splendid blue, red, and violet colours which are derived from the
aniline. I will, however, now describe to you another and perhaps
a still more interesting colouring matter, which has been more
recently obtained from coal tar. I suppose you all know what
madder roots are. Madder is the root of a plant termed the rubia
tinctorum. . It grows in Turkey, France, Russia, and various other
countries, and is imported into England in large quantities for the
sake of the beautiful and valuable dye which can be got from it.
Everybody in Manchester, I suppose, knows what madder pinks
and madder purples are. Now, what is it in the madder which
gives these peculiar and beautiful colours ? It is a red crystalline
substance which has been prepared from madder, and to which
the name of alizarine has been given ; but we knew nothing of the
mode of action of this colour until the year 1848, when Dr.
Schunck, of Manchester, showed that all the finest madder colours
contain this alizarine as their colouring principle. Dr. Schunck
and Mr. Higgin next showed that this alizarine was not contained
in the fresh madder root, but that the colour was only got when the
substance of the madder root had undergone a peculiar kind of
change—a sort of fermentation, in which a kind of maddersugar or glucoside yielded, amongst other products, alizarine.
And Dr. Schunck showed that it is to this alizarine that is to be
ascribed the power which madder possesses of producing these
distinct and beautiful tints which we know either as madder pinks
or madder purples, as well as the brighter colour which we all
know as Turkey red. Now the mode in which the colouring
matter of madder, this alizarine, is brought on to cotton goods, is
the point to which I wish to draw your attention. The colouring
matter itself will not fasten on the cotton ; it is not “ fastthat is
to say, it will wash out; and therefore it is necessary, in order that
we should get the colour fixed in the cloth, that it should be held
down by something in the cloth, in a similar way to that in which the
ammonia was held by the water. And this is done by what the
dyers and calicq printers term mordants. A mordant is a body
�26
which enables the colouring matter to be fixed upon the cloth, to
be laid hold of, as it were. And this is because the colouring
matter forms with the mordant a solid substance, which is thereby
fixed in the little pores and tubes of the cotton fibre. Thus the
colour does not escape when the goods are washed, because it is
held fast in the tubes as a coloured solid body, which is generally
termed a “lake.” These mordants are “printed” on the
cloth in various patterns; where a red or pink colour is required,
there the alumina mordant is impressed on the cloth ; where a
purple colour is needed there the iron mordant is printed, and this
explains the fact that by dyeing the cloth thus prepared, in one
dye beck with one colouring substance, madder, such different
tints are obtained.
But now to get to our point with regard to the other example
from the coal tar series of constructive chemistry. You will easily
understand how desirable it would be to get these madder colours
from the coal tar, for although not so beautiful and bright as the
aniline colours, yet they possess properties which render them still
more valuable; for we in this country prefer, as a rule, colours
which are not so bright or glaring as the aniline colours; and,
therefore, the reds and purples of madder will always be in
large demand in this country as well as elsewhere. If now we
could obtain from the coal oil this beautiful and valuable colour
which is found in madder, the advantage would be of course very
great. The truth of this will at once be evident when we learn
that the total growth of madder in the world is estimated at
47,500 tons per annum, worth about ^45 per ton, and having
therefore a value of ^2,150,000. Of this nearly one half is used
in this country, so that no less than ^1,000,000 is now paid each
year by us for madder grown in foreign countries. Now two young
German chemists, Messrs. Graebe & Liebermann, set to work to
endeavour to perform this chemical synthesis; they began in a very
workmanlike and a very scientific way; for instead of trying all
the various bodies which are found in the coal tar to see which of
them would yield this colouring matter, they began the other way
about, and first took some of the natural colouring matter itself and
tried to decompose it or split it up, in order that they might
see what sort of a body this colouring matter would yield
them ; and they found that in reality this body when it was
decomposed gave rise to a white substance, which, on analysis,
they found to be identical in composition with one of these
bodies which had been formerly found in coal tar, which
had been named anthracene, a specimen of which you see
�in that bottle. Here, then, was the first step; for they had
proved that anthracene could be got from the colouring matter of
the madder plant. Next, these two German chemists set them
selves the opposite problem, which now had become much easier,
inasmuch as they now knew the kind of skeleton, as it were, from
which they had got to work to build up their wished-for structure ;
they set to work, I say, to endeavour by bringing together other
compounds with this anthracene, to build up the colouring matter,
of which, remember, they knew the composition, from the coaltar product. And this they succeeded in doing. They actually
obtained this beautiful red crystalline body from coal tar; which
body possesses every property of that got from the madder
plant, that essential which gives to madder its peculiar and its
valuable qualities. Here, then, we have indeed a triumph of
synthesis, and another proof, if one were needed, of the value
of the results of constructive chemistry. This is the first
case of a colouring matter contained in a plant having been
artificially made. The beautiful colours derived from crude
aniline do not exist in nature; they are altogether new, and are
not found in any plant. But many other colours, besides
alizarine, which are used largely in dyeing, occur only in plants.
Thus indigo is another well-known colour, but indigo has not
yet been artificially prepared, though there is very little doubt that
before long we shall be able to do so. Indigo is as yet only
produced as the result of the life of a plant, and the artificial
production of this valuable dye is a problem which yet remains to
be solved.
Now this anthracene, although it is contained in compara
tively small quantities in coal tar (ioo tons of tar yielding
only about half a ton of anthracene, or one ton of anthracene
being got from the distillation of 2,000 tons of coal), yet still it
can be got in absolutely large quantities, because such an enormous
quantity of coal is distilled for gas making all the world over;
and therefore if the processes of building up the alizarine from
this anthracene be not too costly, there is little doubt that the
artificial colour will be made in quantity, and a part at least of the
money which we now send out of the country to buy madder roots
will go to benefit our own population, as we can now transform
our coal into this invaluable colouring matter.
Well, now, let me try to show you that the artificial alizarine
which is got from coal tar possesses similar, or rather identical,
colouring properties with the alizarine got from madder. It is
impossible for me to enter into the minutiae of the mode in which
�28
anthracene can be converted into alizarine, for I should have to
use formulae, which I am afraid many of you would not under
stand, and I must be content with referring those who wish for
information on this subject to the annexed diagram, or to treatises
on organic chemistry.
In the following Table we have a statement of the synthetic
production of alizarine from its constituent elements.
Synthesis
of
Alizarine.
1. Acetylene by direct union of Carbon and Hydrogen in Electric ArcC2 + H2 = Ca Ha
(Berthelot, 1862.)
2. Benzol (Tri-acetylene) from Acetylene by Heat.
3 C2 Ha = C6 He
(Berthelot, 1866.)
3. Anthracene from Benzol and Ethylene.
2C{H6 + Ca H< — C14 H10 + 3 II2
(Berthelot, 1866.)
4. Alizarine from Anthracene. (Process No. 1.)
(Graebe and Liebermann, 1869.)
(A) Oxyanthracene or Anthraquinone by Nitric Acid.
C14 H6 (O H)a
(Anderson, 1861.)
(B) Bibromanthraquinone by action of Bromine.
C14 Hg O2 + 2 Bra = C14 Hg Bra O2 + 2 Br H
(C) Alizarine by action of Caustic Potash.
Cu II6 Bra O2 + 4 K H O = Cu Hg (O K)a O2 + 2 K Br + 2 Ha O
Potassium alizarate.
5. Alizarine from Anthracene. (Process No. 2.)
(Graebe and Caro, Perkin, Schorlemmer and Dale.)
(A) Disulphoanthraquinonic Acid from Anthraquinone.
C14 He (O H)a + 2 Ha S O4 = C14 H6 O2 j s O3 H j + 2 Ha °
(B) Alizarine from the above by the action of Potash.
Ci* He Oa | § Os LI I +4&H O = C14 H6 O2
j +2K0S03 + 2HaO
Alizarine.
Contributions
1825.
1831.
1832.
1848.
1850.
1862.
1865.
1866.
1868.
1868.
i860.
to the
History
of
Alizarine.
Cu He O<
Faraday discovered Benzol in Coal-gas Oil. Ce Hg
Robiquet and Colin discovered Alizarine in Madder Root
Dumas and Laurent discovered Anthracene in Coal Oils
Schunck gave the Composition of Alizarine. Cu H10 O4
Sirecker
„
„
„
Ci0 Hg O8;
Anderson examined AnthraceneCompounds. Cu H10
Kekule explained the constitution of the Aromatic Compounds
Baeyer obtained Benzol from Phenol
Graebe investigated.the Quinones.
Graebe and Liebermann obtained Anthracene from Alizarine.
,,
,,
tf
Alizarine from Anthracene
�29
The point, however, which all of you can understand is that we
are now using this method of constructive chemistry for the purpose
' of building up substances which up to this time have only been
found in the bodies of plants or animals.
One of the most remarkable properties of the alizarine got from
madder is its power of forming an insoluble compound with a
mordant. I have here the alumina mordant, or red liquor, which
forms, with alizarine, a pink insoluble lake; and here I have th'e
iron liquor, or iron mordant, a solution of a salt of iron, which
forms, with alizarine a purple insoluble lake. I pour some of these
mordants into both these bottles of water; next I bring into one
some extract of madder root, some of the natural alizarine got from
the plant. You will observe we get here a bright red precipitate.
Next I take the artificial alizarine made from coal tar, and I pour
this into the other globe of water to which I added some alumina
mordant. You will see that I get exactly the same sort of red
. coloured precipitate. One is the natural, the other the artificial,
and both give exactly the same kind of colour. In the same way,
if I take and compare the effect of the iron mordant, I shall find
that both the natural and the artificial colour give exactly the same
purple precipitate.
Now in order to show you in another way the identity of these
two things, we have written here on this screen the words “natural
alizarine ” and “ artificial alizarine,” and when these are sponged
at the back with alkali you will see that we get the same colour
exactly produced by the two kinds of alizarine. By burning a
bit of magnesium wire the purple colour of the alkaline alizarine
will be better seen, and you will observe that we have got exactly
the same tint in both cases. I will show you the same thing by
dyeing some cloth with the artificial and with the natural alizarine.
Here we throw a very small quantity of the madder alizarine into
a basin-full of boiling water, and here do the same with the
artificial colouring matter, then I bring into each basin a little bit
of mordanted cloth. I won’t say that we can get a very fine
colour, but you will see that the colour we get is equal in the two
cases, that the artificial alizarine produces the same colour as the
natural. We will allow these cloths to remain a little while in the
boiling liquor, and now on taking them out you see that the
alumina pinks are in both cases equally bright and the iron
purples also exactly of the same shade and tint. Thus, then, we
see that the artificial alizarine is exactly identical in its dyeing and
colouring power with the colouring matter contained in and
derived from the madder root. How far the artificial alizarine
�3°
will in time displace the madder it is not for me to say; this is a
question which I will leave to the calico printers and dyers of this
great district; but certain it is, that the two are chemically the
same substance, and that this production of alizarine from coal tar
is one of the greatest triumphs of modern synthetical chemistry.
This new dyeing substance is now being largely used on all
hands, especially for what is called topical printing and for
Turkey red dyeing, and I am told that the colours which can be
obtained from the artificial alizarine are quite equal, if not
superior, to those which can be obtained from the natural madder.
And now if we are to draw a moral from all this, I think that
we shall have little difficulty in doing so. These facts show us the
truth of the old saying that great results come from small begin
nings ; they teach us that nothing in science is unimportant; that
no one can foresee the benefits which to-morrow may spring from
our apparently abstruse discoveries of to-day. Science is advancing,
and its progress, unlike that of so many human institutions, is
without the possibility of retrogression. Boldly, then, may the
least of its votaries step forward, in the firm conviction that the
degree, however insignificant, by which he may be able to advance
the boundaries of science is a certain progress, and one which
must add its share towards the enlightenment and benefit of
mankind.
�THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE.
A LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR A. S. WILKINS, M.A.
Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, November ibth,
I have undertaken to speak to you this evening on a branch of
science which I think has not before been brought under your
notice. This course of lectures has hitherto been confined to
those branches of science which deal especially with the things
which we see around us. To-night I am going to confine your
attention almost entirely to things which you hear round about
you. And I want to discuss these things that you hear—the
words that we are using in daily life—somewhat after the manner
in which other scientific men deal with things which we see, the
objects of sight. You know that chemists such as Dr. Roscoe,
and the distinguished chemist whom we are to have next Friday
evening, Dr. Odling, make it their business to examine into
everything which they can find in the heavens above, in the earth
beneath, and in the waters under the earth. They will tell you
what these things are composed of; they will split them up,
analyse them, as they call it, into their remotest and most ultimate
constituents. Now, the geologists, on the other hand, may be
said not to trouble themselves quite so much with the composition
of the substances they deal with; but they are concerned perhaps
more with the manner in which they got into their present
position.
I want to try this evening to show you, as far as I may be able
in the short time during which I can hope to have your attention—
�32
for the lecture is necessarily not illustrated by any experiments—
both how those words which we are using are made up ; and also
how they came to be in their present position. I have said that
I am not able to show you anything to see. I had hoped that I
should have had a map which would have enabled me to explain
at least some of the facts which I wish to bring before you a little
more clearly than I shall now be able to do; but in this I have
been disappointed, so I must, I suppose, ask for your special
indulgence, on the ground that you will have to listen and not to
see during almost the whole of the time allotted to us.
Now if we begin to split up, or to analyse, or to examine closely,
the words which we are using in daily life, we shall find that a fair
proportion of them, quite a considerable proportion, are very closely
akin to the words which Welshmen would use. I do not mean
to say that we use them in exactly the same form in which
Welshmen would use them; but at all events the words are very
strikingly like Welsh words. This is the case with the English that
is spoken all over this country of ours. For instance, when you
want to speak of an article of dress, you may talk about a coat;
you may talk about a gown; you may talk about frieze, from which
you would make the coat; and to come to smaller points, you
may talk about a button, a tassel, of the gussets in shirts, of welts
on shoes, and of clouts and dishclouts. In all these cases we are
using words which are almost exactly like words which Welshmen
would use in such cases. If we come to our household things, if
we talk about a basket, a barrow, a funnel, a pitcher, or if we talk
about crockery—in all these cases we are still using the same class
of words. And here in Lancashire we use a good many of these
Welsh-like words, which scientific scholars call Keltic words, which
are not known or understood in the rest of England. If I were
talking to people in the south, I dare say they would not under
stand what I mean by bamming You may know, perhaps. So
in the same way they do not know what boggarts are. They
would not understand what I meant if I talked about a man being
a farrant or a gradely man; if we talked about setting craddies;
if we talked about cobbing, or wapping, or punsing—all these
vords would be unknown in the south; and I think I may
suppose they are pretty well known here. If we hear that a man
is a cunningyfZ?, it has nothing whatever to do with the file that a
blacksmith would use. That again is only another form of a
Welsh word, meaning a twisty fellow. In the same way, if you
talk about going out for a spree, and of playing fine pranks, in all
these instances you are talking Welsh or Keltic words. The same
�33
thing would be true, if in your business you talked about a cotton
gin, or a weaver spoke about his picking stick. Here again we
still keep to the Keltic element of our language.
Now, one of the first questions that men ask who wish to go
into a subject of this kind scientifically is—How did these words
get into our language ? Of course there are several ways in which
words not belonging to a language originally may come into it.
We may borrow them. For instance, we use the word gntta
percha to describe a substance well known to all of us. That
is not an old English word, we get the name from the country
where we get the thing from. Just in the same way with
coffee; where we get the coffee berry we also get its name.
There is another way in which words may be borrowed, that is,
from fashion. For instance, we have borrowed a great many
French words, and many people now-a-days very foolishly, I think
we may say, prefer to use French words where good English
words would do as well. Nobody, I suppose, imagines that coats
were never known in England until Welshmen came here and
brought them, or gowns or buttons; that cobbing or wapping was
unknown until Welshmen taught it us. We must try to find some
other method of explaining the presence of these words in our
language. That is one of the questions that we shall have to try
to answer to-night.
But now, when we go on and try to analyse or to account for
other words in the language that we are talking about, we find a
good many of them come from the Latin. Some of them come
straight away, very little changed in their passage, so that the man
who knows Latin, whatever country he belongs to, would be able
to understand this sort of English words. A good number of
them are words that everybody knows now, words like science, or
student, or origin, or admit, or adopt—plenty of words of that kind
which have become part and parcel of our everyday English talk.
And there are a great number of other Latin words which are
used perhaps solely in sermons or solely in scientific treatises,
which are not known to us usually in everyday talk, but which we
have to learn specially, and which have come directly from the
Latin to us. But besides this kind of Latin words, we have
another set of words which scholars are able to derive from the
Latin, but not directly; they have got so much changed on their
■way, that they seem to have gone through a different kind of
process, have been sifted or moulded in some way, generally cut
.shorter at the head or the tail, or at both. Such words, for
instance, as cover, or obtain, complain, hour, flower—words of that
�34
kind are abundant, and certainly they are not old-fashioned
English words; they are the children, perhaps in this case I ought
rather to say the grandchildren, of Latin words; but they have
taken such a changed form in their passage from Latin into
English, that we cannot suppose they were borrowed straight from
the one language for the use of the other. When we examine
these words further we find that they are not exactly like Latin
words, but they are almost exactly like French words. I can give
you some instances of words which we have got straight from the
Latin, and words which originally come from Latin have come
to us through French. For instance, we may talk about food
being nutritious, or we may talk about food being nourishing.
These words have precisely the same origin, and have precisely
the same meaning; but one of them has come to us through the
French, and so it has got a little bit changed on its way. In the
same way, to give you a more striking instance of the same kind,
we have the word preach. We have another word which has come
directly from the Latin, not through the French, and therefore is
longer and fuller,—a word which is not commonly used, but may
be found sometimes in the leading articles in newspapers, and
other writings of that kind—the word predicate. These words are
the same in origin, but have got a good deal changed one from the
other. So, again, the poor man is not always a pauper, but the
word poor is only a shortened form of the word pauper, that has
come to us through the French. Story is not quite the same
thing now-a-days as history, and the shortening is to be explained
in the same way. So a mayor, the chief magistrate of a borough,
is a different person from a major now-a-days, but originally they
were the same. So, to give a more striking instance—one which
might not have struck you at first when you saw it—the word
spice, which we now apply to fragrant things like nutmeg and
pepper, &c., is exactly the same word as the word species—of
which we have heard a great deal lately—modified both in form
and in meaning on its way to us.
Well, now, you see we have two more questions to solve, if we
can. Not only are there these Keltic or Welsh-like words in our
language, but there are Latin words very little changed, and Latin
words a great deal changed—so that they are very much more like
French words than Latin words.
You may naturally ask here what proportion of words in our
language can thus be traced back to the Latin. That depends to
a certain extent upon the way in which you count words. Suppose
you put all the different words you find in any writer into a
�35
dictionary or an index, not repeating the same word more than
once, you will find perhaps one word in four Latin. The pro
portion varies very much, the simpler and plainer and the more
straightforward the style of the writer, the fewer of these Latinised
words he will use; the more involved and pompous and formal
and generally unintelligible his writing is, the more of these Latin
words he will use : so that in our old English Bible—which is
among other things just the very finest specimen of the English
language that we have—sometimes out of a hundred words you
will only find four that are not good plain English; and in the
hardest places, where Latin words seem almost necessary, you will
not find more than ten in a hundred. Shakspere, too, who
usually says what he means in a way which most of us can under
stand easily, will only use perhaps from nine to a dozen out of a
hundred words. Milton, who was more stately and formal in his
style than Shakspere, will use generally about twenty. Dr. John
son twenty-five, and the great historian who wrote about a
hundred years ago, Gibbon, will use sometimes thirty. But this
is when you arrange the words in a sort of index, counting
each word only once. But suppose, on the other hand, you take
a piece of English just as it is written, then plain, simple English
words will come over a good deal oftener than that. To get a
fair specimen of the English that is talked now-a-days, when a
man wishes to make his meaning as plain as he can, I took a
speech which was delivered a little while ago by the Bishop of
this diocese. You know that he always tries to make himself
understood as plainly as he can; and out of some three hundred
words that he used, I find there are about fifty belonging to this
class which we are now discussing. What are we to say of the
rest ? Well, of course, we have here and there a word got from
almost every language under heaven; because, generally, wherever
we have got anything new, there we get the name for it; but
almost the whole of the rest of our language, that is to say, perhaps
two words out of every three, belong to what is called the
German class of languages—not quite the German that is spoken
now-a-days by the educated people in Germany, for our language is
based upon what is called the Low German. No disrespect is in
tended to it by that phrase; it simply means the sort of German that
is talked in the low region near the sea, and not in the more hilly
region inland. The High German, as it is called, differs from the
LowGermanin several ways, some of which it would take me perhaps
too long to explain now ; but I think I can give you with very little
trouble an idea of one of the main differences between the Low Ger
�36
man on which our language is based, and which our English really is,
and the High German which Germans now-a-days speak. Suppose
you pronounce any vowel sound, say a; as long as you pronounce
that vowel sound you are letting one uninterrupted stream of
breath come out of your lungs, play on a little instrument at the
top of your throat which determines the sound you produce, and
then pass into the air unchecked. So if you simply content
yourself with pronouncing a vowel, you can go on as long as you
please with it—a-d-a—as long as you have breath. But you can
check that stream of air, producing sound, in three different ways.
You may check it in your throat, and then let it go on again, and
then you will pronounce a consonant like k. Or you may check
it at the top of your tongue, and then you will pronounce the
consonant t. Or you may check it with your lips and then you
will pronounce the consonant/. You can say kay, tay, pay. But
then checking it in just the same place you can produce sounds
that are a little different from those. I can say in my throat not
only kay but also gay; not only pay but also bay. Well, those
who are concerned with the scientific examination of sounds have
given names to these different letters. Those which I gave at
first they call properly surds; those which I gave in the second
instance they call sonants ; for this reason, when you pronounce
b or g or d you make a vocal sound in your throat at the actual
time you are pronouncing that letter; but when you say
/, /, or k, you do not. Now it is a little more trouble to
pronounce those which make a sound in your throat, which
we call sonants, than those which do not produce a sound in
your throat, which we call surds. You can easily test that
for yourselves. It is a little more trouble to say bad than it
is to say pat, and the people who talk the High German language
have got into this lazier or more slovenly way of pronouncing, using
the surd instead of the sonant letters. And you will find that that is
really the main difference between the High German the Germans
talk and the Low German that we English still talk. For instance,
when we talk about a dale they will talk about a tai; if we say
door they will say tor; if we talk about daughter they will say
tochter; if we say drink they will say trink, and so on. Then
further, when we get the t sounds they will soften them down still
more into th or z, not completely cutting off the stream. Foi
instance, our ten is their zehn ; our tongue is their zunge; our tear
is their zerren. When the t, instead of beginning a word, comes
in the middle or at the end, they make a further change. You
know now-a-days instead of saying he hath, or he loveth, we
�31
generally say he has, or he loves. The Germans have adopted
just the same change, changing our t's into s's; so that when
we say white they will say weiss; for water they will say wasser,
and so on. But with these exceptions, we are talking in the
basis of our language, that is to say, in simple, every-day
words, mainly the same sort of language as our German
cousins.
Now we have to consider how to explain these facts. We have
got a fourth one now in addition to our three problems before.
How is it we use Welsh words? How is it we use Latin words?
How is it we use Latin words that seem to have come to us
through the French ? And how is it, finally, that the basis of our
language is just the same as the German which is spoken on the
coast of Germany? History has to help us to explain these facts.
If we go back as far as ever we can in the history of man—I do not
mean as far as Mr. Darwin would take us back, but as far as we
can go back with the men with whom we have any sort of concern
as our fellow men—we find that there must have been some great
hive somewhere about the middle of Western Asia, which was
constantly sending forth swarms of people, for the most part
always westward. Then when one swarm—if I may use the
language they would use of bees—had come out, they would
settle down in some territory which they liked, until another
swarm came from behind, and finding this territory suited them
also, they would drive those who had gone before them a little
further to the west; and so on, until we are able to trace at least
five distinct waves of people coming one after the other from this
part of Asia that I speak of—very much that same part where the
Bible tells us Noah landed out of his ark—and always pushing
before them those who had gone first. Now you know that those
who live furthest to the west of all the people of Europe are the
people of Ireland; therefore we think we are justified in assuming
that the Irish were probably the first to leave, and then they got
pushed further and further on towards the west always, till jthey
got pushed so far that they could not go any farther without
being pushed into the sea. Then, of course, they had not dis
covered the way to America; now they are pushed right beyond
the sea into America. We know this principally because we find
them at the extreme west. We know they could not have come
over the water from America ; we know that they did not grow
as a nation where they are now ; therefore they must have come
the other way. We have additional proof of this in the fact that all
about the continent of Europe there are names which we can showto
�38
be properly Irish names. I shall come back to this question if I
have time this evening—this question of the meaning of local
names. The Irish have left very few traces of their passage
through England; but I think we may find one or two traces of
the time when England was peopled principally by those who are
now living in Ireland, but they are not at all certain, and I should not
like to give them to you as facts. But we do know that there are
plenty of traces of the next great wave, and those are the people
who are now the Welsh. They live the next towards the west.
The people at the top of Scotland were probably originally the
same as the people of Wales. We judge of that also by the
evidence of local names, the names of places. About 1,400 or
1,500 years ago, some tribes of Irishmen who called themselves
Scots—because you must remember that the Scotch came first
from Ireland—came back into Scotland, and practically absorbed
or exterminated the Welsh folk who lived in Scotland then, and
took the country for themselves; so that now-a-days the people in
the north of Scotland, the Highlands, and the people in Ireland
speak languages which are very closely akin to each other, but
not so closely akin to the Welsh as the language of the High
lands used to be. Then, just about 1,800 years ago, the Romans
came—they had been here a hundred years before that, but their
expedition failed—and theyconquered all those Welshmen, or Kelts,
as we call them sometimes, who dwelt in England and Wales—it
was not England then, it was Britain—and subdued them entirely
under their dominion. They remained about 400 years, and then
they withdrew. And before they had gone long, swarms of these
Low Germans came over. I use the word Low, you must re
member, always in its technical sense, meaning the Germans living
by the sea coast, not in the way of disparagement. They lived in
that part of Germany which is just at the bottom of Denmark,
where Denmark joins on to the main land, just about Schleswig
Holstein, of which we heard so much six or eight years ago.
They came over in their families and tribes, as I shall be able to
show you by this same evidence of names of places, and conquered
England by degrees. There were two tribes; one called them
selves Saxons, and the other called themselves Angles, from which
we get our name of England. They did not come over all
together; they kept coming over for nearly a hundred years, one
swarm after another, moving with their wives and their children,
and perhaps their cattle also, and settling here, driving the old
Welsh people, who lived all about the country then, before them,
till they cooped them up into the western parts, i.e., Cornwall,
�39
Wales, Cumberland, and Westmorland. They left a good many
of them in Lancashire. To speak very roughly, if you draw a line
from Chester to London, you will find that the Saxons lived to the
south-west of this line, and the Angles, or the English, lived in the
north-eastern part, right away up as far as Edinburgh. I will show
you one means by which you can tell that at once. Look at those
places which end in sex; Sussex, South Saxons lived there; Essex,
East Saxons lived there; Middlesex, the Middle Saxons lived
there. And in the old days, before these counties were so split
up, all this part was called Wessex, that is to say, where the West
Saxons lived. On the other hand, as you may know still from
the name of one of our railways, all this part was called East
Anglia, and by degrees the name Anglia in Latin, or in English
Angle Land, spread over the country.
There is a subject which has been much discussed by scholars
as to how it was that we came to be called English and not
Saxons. If you are going about in Wales and you meet one of
the rough peasantry and you ask him the way to any place, the
answer you will probably get will be Dim Sassenach—I know no
English; in other fashion, I know no Saxon—another proof, as I
have shown you, that the people with whom the Welsh came into
contact were the Saxon people.
Two theories have been started to explain this; there may be
something in both of them. In the first place there were a good
many more Angles than there were Saxons. In the second place
those people who first came into contact with the missionaries
who came over from Rome to convert the German invaders to
Christianity (for when they came over they were pagans) were
the Angles, and so the missionaries called the whole people
Angles, and the name came to be gradually accepted ; it got used
in books, and then by degrees it was used generally. The Angles
and Saxons founded several small kingdoms : one of them, the
kingdom of Northumberland, stretched to the south and west
beyond Manchester; and in an old book I have read of Man
chester in Northumberland, not because they thought it was up
there, but because in that time Northumberland stretched froip
here right away to Edinburgh. And just about the time when
these various kingdoms were first brought under one king, other
swarms, very much resembling those Saxons and Angles which had
first come over, came from Denmark and Norway; and they pil
laged the coasts when they came in small numbers, and when
they came in large numbers they formed armies which conquered
large portions of the country for themselves ; so that after nearly
�40
a hundred years’ hard fighting between them and the English
people they succeeded in getting a firm footing on the ground.
And almost the same part of the country which I said was held
by the Angles was given up to the Danes, under the name of the
Danelagh. At the same time the Norwegians came sailing round
Scotland and conquered the Isle of Man, and settled in large
numbers in Cumberland and Westmorland and North Lancashire,
and all along this part of the coast, in fact: and I shall be able
in a minute or two, I hope, to show you what tokens we have
still of their presence.
Our English kings—the old English race of kings—reigned for
nearly 300 years after England had been made a united monarchy,
and then the last of them, Edward the Confessor, died without
leaving any children. The English people in those days had the
right of choosing their kings freely. They always exercised it by
choosing one of the royal family, but they chose not always the
eldest son, but the man whom they thought fittest to rule, the
bravest, the wisest, and strongest. But now all the old English
royal family was extinct, except one distant relation, who was a
mere boy, and whom the English people did not think worthy to
rule over them. So they chose a great earl of the time, Earl
Harold, whose father had been the son of a swineherd, and had
raised himself by his valour and ability to the rank of the first
man in the kingdom. But there was some sort of claim upon the
crown—not a very good one—on the part of the Duke of Nor
mandy, and he put forth his claim. He said that as there was
no nearer heir to the crown, it fell by right to him. The English
people held firmly to the king they had chosen ; but William, the
Duke of Normandy, gathered a large body of French troops, and
came over, and, as most of you know, defeated the English king,
Harold, at the great battle of Hastings, and killed him, and
succeeded in compelling the English to choose him as their king.
This is what is meant by the Norman Conquest. The word has
often been misunderstood; it is not very happily chosen perhaps,
because it was not that the English people were conquered by a
foreign people, but rather that the foreign king was strong enough
to make the English people choose him as their king. However,
the result was at first sight very injurious to the English language
and laws, because the foreign king was surrounded by a large
body of French nobles and captains, to whom were given large
estates, and French and not English was made the prevailing
language for something like two centuries. This Duke of Nor
mandy had also large possessions in France, and the first six of
�4i
these Norman kings were much more Frenchmen than English
men. We read in our history books about Richard the Lion
Hearted, and think him a fine specimen of an English king, but
it is extremely doubtful whether he could ever speak a word of
English in his life ; and it is very certain that he only spent two
or three months in England, and that was when he came over
here to get money out of the people. However, his brother, the
bad John, lost all his dominions in France, and was driven out of
them by the French king, and so England became again an inde
pendent kingdom, without any possessions other than those within
her own boundaries. The result of this was that there was no
longer any occasion for French to be the language of the court
and of the nobles. It continued to be so for a short time, because
they were accustomed to speak it; but it was not very long before
the English language raised its head again. It had never been
disused; it had always held its own among the common
people. Their songs were written in English—we have many
of them remaining to us—and they had always talked it among
themselves, but it had been looked down upon. Now that the
English noblemen were shut out from their foreign possessions
they began to be proud of the name of Englishmen, and they
began to learn by degrees to talk the English language. But they
mixed it up with a great many of the French words which they had
been accustomed to use. And now I think you will be able to
see how it is that we have got these four elements in our language
which I was speaking about. I do not know whether you noticed
when I was talking about the Keltic words, that they were either
words relating to home affairs, or else familiar and somewhat
vulgar phrases. A large number of the coarse and bad words
that we use now-a-days are Keltic words. That points to the fact,
which you would naturally expect, that when the Saxons and
English people who came over (after the Romans had left this
country) and conquered the Welsh people, those whom they left
in the land they made their slaves ; and so they would naturally
get from them just those words which were necessary to explain
to their slaves what they wanted. The words which I named
before, like coat, or gown, or basket, or barrow, are the words
which would be common among the household slaves, and they
would be used by the Keltic or Welsh slaves who were made so
by the Anglo-Saxons. You see also how it is we have so many
German words, because these people, when they came from
North Germany and crossed over to conquer England (Britain as
it then was), would naturally bring their own language with them.
�42
The French words came in from the Norman Conquest; and
though it is not true to speak of English as a mixture of this
Low German and French, yet it has borrowed a good many
French words which are incorporated with its own, and are made
one with its own substance. And then the Latin words are to be
explained from this fact, that for many hundred years Latin was
the only language that was written and used by learned men in all
the countries of Europe; and whenever they wanted a word for
something which they did not know how to express in the plain
English of the common folk, they would borrow it from the Latin
with which they were familiar. That is the way in which we
explain the four elements which we get in our language.
Now I want to show you another side of this question, and
that is, the light which the names of places throw upon the origin
of the English people. The first population of this country, you
will remember (supposing we put aside for a moment the possi
bility, or I should rather say the probability, that the Irish people
lived here before they were driven across to their own country),
was the Welsh division of the Keltic stock. Now the first places
which would require names, of course, would be the rivers and
mountains. When the Welsh came to the country they would
want a name of course for a river, and a name for a mountain,
for there were no towns as yet; and so we find that almost all the
names of rivers and mountains in England are nearly Keltic.
Take for instance a few of the Keltic words that we find in pro
per names. One of the Welsh words now-a-days for a river is
avon. Well, however little you know about the rivers of our
English country, you must remember several of them that are
called Avon. There is the Avon on which is Stratford, Shakspere’s
birthplace; there is the Avon in Somersetshire, where Bristol is;
and there are several others. This word avon simply means river,
and we call the river by Bristol Avon simply because the Welsh
men who lived in our country 2,000 or 2,500 years ago called the
river by a name which in their language meant river. There is
another word, dwr, which means water. We get that in plenty of
our words. In the Lake country we have the Derwent and Derwentwater. Derwent simply means clear water. In the same way
that other beautiful lake is named Windermere, which is simply
beautiful water. Wyn is beautiful, dwr is water in the language
of old Welsh, and mere,—you know that from Rostherne Mere, and
so on. We get the same in the names of many rivers. You know
the Calder here, it flows along by Todmorden; that is again a
crooked or winding water. And wherever we have a word with a
�43
meaning of this kind in Welsh, we may be quite sure that it was
Welsh people who gave it that name. Therefore, if we find a
river called the Calder, we may be quite sure that the first people
who came to that river were Welshmen. There is another name
which has got a good deal changed, but perhaps it is the most
widely-spread of all, and that is Wysg—which also means “water.”
If I should have any Irish people here to-night, they will pretty
well understand, I think, what is meant by usquebagh; that has
the same root—water. Well, this occurs in many of the names
of rivers in England, only a little modified. There are two
or three rivers called Ouse; other rivers called Exe, Axe, Esk,
or Usk. All these names of rivers simply show that Welsh or
Keltic people came there, and when they found a stream
of water they: called it in their language river, or water. The
Ribble, which flows by Preston, is again another Welsh word,
which means simply “fast river.” Then the same word Avon,
which I spoke to you about before, comes in in a good many
compound names. Take, for instance, this county in which we
are in now. It is called Lancashire because it is the shire of
Lancaster. I will talk about the second part of it afterwards.
Lancaster is called so because it is on the Lune, which, in old
days, used to be called Alauna. Words always have a tendency to
grow shorter the longer they live. A distinguished English scholar
said once that letters were like soldiers, they had a great tendency
to drop off on a long march. And I could find dozens, hundreds,
thousands, literally, of instances in our English language in which
words have got shorter. To give you just one example. Our
word “ ma’am,” which some persons would use in addressing a lady,
is cut short from a phrase which originally had five syllables at
least. So the name of the Lune was Alauna, and that in the
language of the Welsh people simply means “ white water.” So
we call the county town Lancaster—that is, the camp or castle
that is on the white water river. Then there is the opposite word
in Welsh, dhu, which means black. Thus we get Douglas, or in
the shorter form, Diggles, meaning “ black water.” There is a
word which you have still in Lancashire, cam, which means crooked.
It is a word that Shakespere uses. We get that in several forms,
Camden, for instance. Another instance which most of you
remember is Morecambe Bay, that is, the crooked sea. You
remember how the sea goes in and out there, and Morecambe
must have been called the crooked sea at the time when Welsh
people lived there, to whom this word Morecambe would mean
crooked sea. If time would allow me, I could show you in the
�44
■same way that Irwell (the quick, winding stream), Irk (the leaper),
Med-lock (the full pool), all preserve in their names signs that the
Welsh were here before us. But to pass on from rivers to hills, we
have pen the Welsh word for hill; which of course we get in
Pendleton, which is simply hill town; Pendlebury, another form
of the same name; and the hill which is above Clitheroe, Pendle
Hill. In Wales and Cornwall it is a very common name—
Penrhyn, Penmaenmaur, Pendennis : in all cases pen meaning hill.
And wherever we find this word pen it means simply that the
Welshman was there before us and talked about the “hill.”
Coniston Old Man is called so simply from the Welsh Alt Maen
(high mountain), and has nothing to do with any old gentleman.
Of town names we have very few that are Keltic, for the natural
reason that the Welsh folk who lived here in Lancashire once had
very few towns to give any names to. Ip Doomsday Book, which
gives us a very complete account of the country a few years after
the Normans came here, I find that only 16 villages are mentioned
as existing then in the whole of Lancashire. So that it need not
surprise us if we find that Wigan is about the only instance of a
Keltic name for a town: this means “ battles,” and the place is
so called because of some battles that were fought there in very
early times.
Now, let us pass on. We have seen that the Kelts were here ;
the Romans came after them. They have left us very few names.
One or two will be of interest here. Their word for camp was
castra, which we get in Lancaster. We know that Lancaster must
have been at least as old as the Roman times, because no other
people but Romans would have talked about “castra” for camp,
therefore it must have been Romans who gave the name of
Lancaster to the city or town which was built on the river which
before then the Welsh people had called the Lune or the Alauna—
the “ white water.” So with the name of this city, Manchester.
“ Chester” is only the softened form of this same “castra.” In
all languages that I know anything about there are instances of
this changing of sounds. The k sound gets softened by degrees
either into j or ts or ch. So Manchester means a camp or fortified
place. But what does the “ man ” mean ? If you believe
that the Welsh word man means a plain, and if you will just
ride from Cheetham Hill down to here, you will, I think, easily
see why Manchester was called “the camp at the edge of the
plain.” If you go to the north of Manchester, you get into the
hill country at <: nee ; if you go south—as those know who live on
this side, you get very little hill, but just a broad, flat plain.
�45
Manchester means a camp, or a fortified place which was built by
these Romans, just at the place where the great flat plain of
South Lancashire and Cheshire begins.
We have only one other instance perhaps worth troubling you
about, and that because of its local interest. We have another
Roman word remaining to us, in street. “Street” is an old Roman
word for road. Some of you may know High Street, in Westmor
land, the high mountain over which the Roman road runs at the
top; and an old Roman road runs down to Stretford, that is,
where the “street” went over the river. Camp Field is a later
name; it has nothing to do with the Romans; here we get the
English again. Now we have plenty of local names which are
English. And here is one thing to be noticed at once—we do
not talk now-a-days about Avon, but rather the River Avon, the
River Usk, and so on. That points us to this fact, that when the
English people came here, if they saw a river they asked what it
was called. The Welsh people would say “avon,” that is “river,”
Now the English did not know that avon meant river; they
thought that was the proper name of it, just as we say Irwell, or
Irk; and they would put their word “river” on to this word,
whatever it might be—Ouse, or Avon, or so on. So we get
River Ouse, River Avon. In just the same way we get Pendle
Hill. The English people on coming would ask what that hill
was called. The people there would say it was pen. Then the
English coming would call it Pen Hill, and that would soon get
changed into Pendle, and the hill which is near Clitheroe is still
often called Pendle, and when hill gets mixed up with pen, the
people forget that there is the word hill in the name; and so they
put another hill, and talk of Pendle Hill, which simply means
Hill, Hill, Hill! Just the same with Pendleton ; that is Hill, Hill
Town; Pendlebury, Hill, Hill Borough. We have a curious
instance of this, which may have escaped many of you, here in
Combrook. Brook is intelligible enough, but what is the “ corn ?”
Of course, we suppose at first sight that it is a brook that ran
through cornfields; it must have been a long time ago if it did !
But we should be going quite wrong if we judged so hastily.
Com is simply our old word avon cut short, with the Welsh prefix
cor, which means narrow. Now there is the Irwell, a compara
tively broad stream, and the cor-an, narrow stream flowing into it
The old Welsh people called it the Corn, that is, the narrow
stream. The people coming afterwards asked what stream that
was, and were told the Corn, or narrow stream. The English put
on “brook,” and so we get Cornbrook, narrow stream brook
�46
We can tell very well wherever the English people proper have
been by the terminations. There is an old rhyme that runs—
In Ford, in Ham, in Ley, in Ton,
The most of English surnames run.
And whenever we find any words with these endings, you may be
sure that there the English people settled, not Welsh people, not
Danish people, not French people, but simply the English, either
Angles or Saxons. Wherever we have a word ending in ton, as
we have abundantly here, Pendleton, Bolton, Middleton ; when
ever we have them ending in ley, as in Alderley and Timperley,
and so many places in Cheshire; wherever we have ham, and in
most cases where we have ford*—in these instances you may be
sure that the words are of English origin. I am not sure whether
I shall have time to explain all these terminations. Ton simply
means a sort of enclosure, more like a farmyard than a town. We
have Barton-on-Irwell. Bar, the first part of it, is simply bear, and
ton is the enclosure; and so Barton means the enclosure for what
was borne by the ground, that is to say, for the harvest or the
crop. Barton means a sort of farm yard or rick yard. That
accounts for the fact that we have so many Bartons all over
England, because there are so many enclosures where people put
up their harvest produce. In “ Broughton,” near here, we have
the same ending; and if any of you had the misfortune to live in
Lower Broughton during the floods, you will understand why it
was called Broughton, when I tell you that the first part of it
means marshy ground.
In one name that we have near here, we get an instance of whatis
extremely important and interesting in its way—that is, Withington.
Now here we have not so many of them, but in some parts of
England there are a great many names ending in this ington. We
have a fair number of them about here. You know we have
Bollington, Carrington, Doddington, Rivington, Warrington. And
then we have some in ham—Altringham, Aldingham, and Bir
mingham. And besides these, we have some words which end
simply in ing—Melling, Pilling, and Billing, all just about this
part of Lancashire. But as I have said, there are nothing like so
many in Lancashire as in some other parts of England. In all
Lancashire we have only 19 names with this ing in them, but
in the little county of Bedfordshire we have 63; in HuntingdonFords by the sea are of Danish origin, and contain their word fiord, oxafrith.
�47
shire we have 57; and in Kent 51 names having this ing in them.
Well, of course, just as the chemist as soon as he gets hold of
any substance whatever, no matter whether animal, vegetable, or
mineral, wants to find out what its composition is, so we want
to find out what this ing means. And we go back as far as
we can, and we find that our old English forefathers used
this termination ing to denote the son of a person. Suppose
a man was named Eoppa, his son would be named Eopping,
and all his sons would be named Eoppings. Suppose it was
Boll, his family would be named Bollings. For instance, in
our. oldest version of the list of fathers and sons at the
beginning of our New Testament, we have just the same form
used; they would put ing on to the name of the father to denote
the son. Wherever we have this ing we have an intimation and a
proof, we may say, that the people who founded the town were all
of one family, one little tribe, the children of a man called Boll,
or something of the kind. Warrington is the ton, the enclosure,
the village, we may say, of the children of Wara ; and that is a
proof of the fact which I told you on other authorities, that when
our English forefathers came over from Germany, they did not
come separately, like the Danes, but they came in families, alto
gether, “ clans/’ as the Scotchmen call them, /ng means just the
same thing as the Scotch “ Mac,” or the Irish “ O’. ”
The Danes, I told you, lived in this part (north and east), and
the Saxons in this (south and west). I will just mention the fact,
though I cannot bring out the full meaning of it now, that here
(north) you will find lots of bys, and in this part (south) lots of
tons. Wherever you find places ending in by, as Whitby, Derby,
Rugby, there you find Danes have been. By is the old Danish
form for town or borough ; and when you talk about “ by laws”
you simply mean the borough laws as distinguished from the laws
of the country. Of course now we use the phrase for the laws of
a railway or a club ; but originally by-law meant borough law, as
distinguishing it from the national law of the great Parliament.
Here you find lots of bys, and here lived the Danes j here you
will find tons, and English folk settled there. In Lancashire you
will find bys, as Crosby, Formby, in the West Derby Hundred,
and so on; that means that the Danes, sailing round the country
with their ships, came and settled just on the sea coast, but could
not get any further inland, because the English people drove
them away. Hence you find them chiefly on the coast.
I meant to tell you much more about these Danish settlements,
and also about the manner in which local names bear witness to
�48
the presence of Norwegians rather than Danes in Cumberland
and Westmorland. I should like also to show you how we know
from names where the Angles settled and where the Saxons, but
I cannot allow myself to try your very great patience any longer.
I will simply assure you I have only given you this evening a very
slight sample of the interest you may find in the scientific
study of language.
�THE FOOD OF PLANTS,
A LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR
ODLING,
F.R.S.,
Delivered, in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, 24th November, i$7r.
You all know that a piece of wood, or any quantity of wood, when
set fire to, is capable of being burned entirely away, with the
exception of a small—almost insignificant—residue of white ash
which is left. [Holding up a piece of burning wood.] This
white ash is spoken of as the mineral matter of the wood, from
the circumstance of its being of the same nature as the matter of
which our most common rocks and minerals are composed; whereas
that portion of the wood which burns away is called the organic
matter of the wood, from its being the matter of which the living,
growing plant, with its different parts or organs, is mainly con
stituted. Now, when a piece of wood is exposed to the action of
heat—by being thrust into the fire, for example—it gives off gases,
and these gases, taking fire, bum with flame. A short time back
Professor Roscoe showed you that when coal was heated in the
bowl of a tobacco pipe, it gave off inflammable gases which might
be burnt at the other end of the pipe; and, in the same manner
that the coal when heated gave off inflammable gases, so also this
wood, when heated, gives off inflammable gases ; and when we
say, in ordinary language, that a piece of wood is burning with
flame, our language is not strictly correct; we should rather say
that the heated wood gives off gases, and that those gases burn with
flame,—and they burn with flame you perceive on the surface of the
wood where they are discharged into the air, much in the same
manner that the gas of the coal heated in the tobacco pipe burnt at
�5°
the other end of the pipe where it was discharged into the
air. Now you will observe that where the piece of wood is
subjected to heat, and more particularly where it is subjected to
the hot flame of tfie burning gases surrounding it, it becomes
blackened, or charred, or converted into charcoal. And the
point of interest in connection with this charring process is
that it does not take place where the wood itself, or the
partly burnt wood, comes into contact freely with the air;
but that it takes place where the wood is separated from
the air by these burning gases. Where the wood is subjected to
the heat of the burning gases, or to heat of any kind, and is kept
out of contact with the air by the burning gases, or by some other
means, there it becomes charred or converted into charcoal. But
where the gases are burnt out, the charred residue, now left in
contact with the air, quickly disappears, leaving only the white
ash of which we spoke a moment ago. The same principle is
made use of in the production of charcoal for manufacturing
purposes. When manufacturers want to produce charcoal, they
resort to one or other of two principal methods. One of these
methods is to heat the wood to redness in an iron box or oven,
entirely excluded from the air, with the exception of a pipe allow
ing the gases to escape; and after these gases have been driven
off through the pipe, nothing is found left in the iron box or oven
but a quantity of charcoal. Another way of making charcoal
consists in piling the wood up into a large heap, and setting fire to
it. By this means the outside wood, in contact with the air, gets
burnt away to a greater or less extent; but the inside wood, being
simply heated by the burning which is taking place upon the out
side of the heap, does not get burnt away, but gives off its
gases which bum on the outside; and what is left in the inside is
this substance—charcoal, produced by the action of heat upon
wood out of the access of air. Now if you examine a piece oi
charcoal obtained in one or other of these ways, and compare it
with the wood out of which it was produced, you will observe
that in the conversion of a particular piece of wood into a cor
responding piece of charcoal, there has been an appreciable
shrinking or loss of bulk; so that the resulting charcoal is consider
ably less in size than the original wood. It is also very much less
in weight than the original wood ; or, in the course of the process
of its manufacture, there has been a certain shrinking in bulk, and
a very much greater diminution oi weight. But you will observe that
the resulting charcoal presents exactly the form Oi the original piece
of wood ; so that yuo can recognise in it the stem and
�51
branches and knots of the wood, the bark, and the pith, and even
the longitudinal fibres and concentric laminae of which the wood
was constituted. From the circumstance, then, of charcoal, having
these characters, being produced from wood by the driving
away of certain of its component parts, so as to leave the charcoal
behind, we come to the conclusion that wood is a substance
partly composed of charcoal; or in other words, that charcoal is
one of the constituents of wood.
But the charcoal obtained from wood is not itself a pure
substance; it is contaminated, for instance, with the ashes of the
wood; and, accordingly, when we burn the charcoal away these
ashes are left as a white residue. In its pure state the black com
bustible matter of the charcoal is known by the name of “ carbon,”
and we say accordingly that charcoal is an impure form of carbon.
Now this substance, “carbon,” in its pure state, is what chemists
call a “ simple substance,” that is to say, a substance which they
have not yet succeeded in breaking up, or resolving into two or
more different kinds of substance. Wood, on the contrary, is a
compound substance; and, when subjected to the action of heat,
breaks up into charcoal, which remains behind, and certain
gaseous products which are driven off. We take away something
from the wood which is not wood, and thereby leave charcoal.
But with regard to this substance—charcoal, or rather with
regard to carbon in its pure state,—we cannot take anything away
from it but carbon, and we cannot alter it in any way by the
taking away of something from it, so as to leave anything but
carbon. It is a substance which we may alter by adding some
thing else to it—by combining something else with it—but which we
cannot alter by taking anything else away from it. Therefore, in
practical effect, if not in actual fact, carbon is a simple substance.
It is a substance which has not yet been decomposed, and is not,
so far as our present knowledge goes, decomposable into two or
more different kinds of substance.
Now charcoal is not only a constituent of wood, but also
of hay and corn, and indeed of vegetable produce generally.
[A bundle of hay and a glass jar of corn were exhibited
on the platform.] You know that hay has the property of under
going by itself, under certain conditions, a process of heating,
which sometimes results in its actually taking fire; and on cutting
into a haystack, it is not an uncommon occurrence to find the
interior portion of the stack completely charred by the heating
which has taken place. Much in the same manner, then, that
wood charcoal is produced by the heating of wood in heaps, pur
�52
posely set fire to—so is hay charcoal produced by the spontaneous
heating of hay in haystacks; access oi air to the interior being,
in both cases, more or less completely prevented. And in the
same way, if we take wheat grain and expose it to the action of
heat, out o; access of air, we get the grains completely charred or
converted into charcoal. Here we have some wheat charcoal,
presenting the lorm of the original grains of wheat—just as wood
charcoal and hay charcoal present the forms of the original wood
and hay respectively.
But it is important, in reference to the rest of the story I have
to tell you this evening, that we should know, not only that
vegetable produce—wood, and hay and corn—contain charcoal, but
that we should be able also to form some notion of the amount of
charcoal or carbon which they contain.
Now it is round that pure dry woody matter contains very
nearly half its weight of carbon. It contains in reality 45 parts in.
100, or, as we say, 45 per cent. If it contained 50 parts in 100,
that would be exactly half its weight; but it does not contain
quite this, but only 45 instead of 50 parts in 100. Now, if we
pass from the consideration of pure woody matter to the con
sideration of other forms of vegetable produce, such for instance,
as starch, of which here is a specimen, we find that starch
contains exactly the same proportion of charcoal as woody matter;
and that sugar, of which here is a specimen, contains very nearly
the same proportion. Only a few lectures back, Professor Roscoe
showed you that when sugar was acted upon by a certain
chemical agent, it underwent a great swelling up, and became
changed into a black spongy mass of charcoal, one of the
constituent parts of the original sugar. And the proportion
of charcoal, I repeat, in starch and sugar, is the same or very
nearly the same as the proportion in pure woody matter.
But we are acquainted with other vegetable substances which
contain a much larger proportion of charcoal; such substances,
for instance, as rosin and turpentine, and the oils expressed
uom seeds and fruits, as linseed oil, cabbage seed oil, and olive
oil, &c. All these substances contain a much larger propor
tion of carbon than is contained in wood; and when they
are set on fire, the smoke or soot they evolve in burning is some
evidence to you of the large proportion of carbon which they
originally contained. Now, just as certain vegetable products con
tain more carbon than wood, so there are other products which
contain less; and among these I may reier to the different acids,, or
sour substances, which are iound more particularly in the juices of
�53
unripe fruit There, for example, is a fine specimen of tartaric
ac’d—an acid which exists in the juice of the grape, and is pro
duced on a large scale, in wine-growing countries, in the process of
converting the juice of the grape into wine. In the same way
we meet with citric acid in the juice of lemons, and other
vegetable acids in other vegetable juices. Now all these vegetable
acids contain a smaller proportion of carbon than is contained in
wood. But having regard to the fact that the great mass of vege
table produce is composed of woody matter, or of substances such
as starch and sugar, having substantially the same composition as
wood ; and having regard further to the circumstance that, of other
vegetable products, some of them contain a larger and some of
them a smaller proportion of carbon than is contained in wood, it
results that the amount of carbon contained in woody matter may
be taken as a fair representative of the amount of carbon con
tained in vegetable produce generally, viewed as a whole. We
may say, then, that the dry organic substance of a growing plant
contains on an average about 45 parts in 100, or rather less
than half of its weight of charcoal
Now it is found that on an acre of meadow land, or arable land,
or wood land, there are produced in the course of a single season
several thousand pounds weight of vegetable produce, con
taining not unfrequently as much as two thousand pounds weight
of charcoal; while the charcoal of an average crop may be taken
at over 1,600 pounds, or nearly three-quarters of a ton per acre. In
illustration of the large quantities of vegetable matter, and of its
constituent carbon, produced annually on an acre of land,l et me
call your attention to the table before you, which shows the
numbers deduced by Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert, from their many
determinations of the quantities and compositions of actual crops
of wheat, barley, and oats, as representing the average weights of
produce obtained under the ordinary system of rotation of crops
and moderately good farming.
Wheat.
Gross produce...............
Dry organic matter.......
Carbon...........................
Barley.
4,800
3,869
1,734
4,5 80
3,7U
1,663
1o 1 Pouhds
3,328 r per acre.
L495 )
From results obtained then, on Mr. Lawes’ experimental farm at
Rothamstead—a farm conducted for the purpose of knowledge
and not for the purpose of profit—Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert
have arrived at the conclusion that, taking one year with another,
the average weight of wheat, including grain and straw, produced
�54
from an acre of land in a single season, amounts to 4,800 pounds.
But the gross produce, as it is removed from the land, still contains,
although seemingly dry, a considerable proportion of water; and
if from the weight of gross produce there be deducted the weight of
water which it contains, and if from the resulting weight of perfectly
dry substance there be further deducted the weight of mineral
matter or ash which it yields when burnt, there will be left 3,869
pounds as the weight of dry organic matter, and 1,734 pounds as
weight of carbon contained in this organic matter. Similarly
with regard to barley, the average weight of dry organic matter is
3,714 pounds per acre, including 1,663 pounds of carbon; while
with regard to oats, the average weight of dry organic matter
is 3,328 pounds per acre, including 1,495 °f carbon. From
results of this kind then, obtained in the cultivation of ordinary
crops grown in a single season, you may form some notion
of the large amounts of charcoal or carbon accumulated somehow in vegetable produce. And when we pass to the consideration of
vegetation, not as we see it here, but as it manifests itself in the
luxurious growth of tropical climates, the amounts of produce, and
consequently of carbon contained in the produce, become yet more
astounding. The celebrated naturalist and traveller, Humboldt,
among his experiences in South America, records the existence there
of forests so huge and so thick that monkeys might run on the tops
of the trees for a hundred miles in a straight line, without a single
break. And the millions of tons of dry wood, capable of
being furnished by these forests, are composed, we know, to the
extent of nearly half their weight, of charcoal I You perceive,
then, that the growing plant, whether large or small, tree of the ,
forest or grass of the field, may be regarded by us simply as a
contrivance for producing carbon.
Reverting once more to the case of crops that are grown in a
single season, it is evident that we remove from the land at the
end of the season, several thousand pounds weight of vegetable
produce which did not exist in the form of vegetable produce a
few short months previously. Nevertheless the actual substance, or
weight of matter, constituting this produce must have existed
before the growth of the crop, although in a very different form.
The several thousand pounds weight of wheat and barley and
oats, grown on an acre of land in a single season, were not pro
duced out of nothing; but were produced out of many thousand
pounds weight of somethingpre-existing at the beginning of the season
in the form of certain very different kinds of matter, out of which
this matter of wheat and barley and oats was somehow constituted.
�55
In the same manner, when, in course of time, the acorn grows
into a tall oak tree, the several tons of matter, which go to compose
the woody tissue of the full-grown oak, were not produced out of
nothing, but out of many tons of matter which existed, though in
a different form, before the acorn was even planted; and which have
been accumulated, and transformed into woody matter, by the plant
or tree, during the period of its many years growth.' For the matter
or substance of which the grown oak is finally composed, was
not furnished by the acorn, but was furnished to the acorn, or
young plant springing from the acorn, by external and very
different forms of pre-existing matter. The problem then which I
wish to put to you is this—what is the external matter or substance
out of which the matter of wheat and barley and oats and hay
and wood is ultimately produced ? And more particularly, what
is the sufficiently abundant substance containing carbon, out of
which the carbon of all this vegetable produce is accumulated ? for
I need scarcely tell you that this carbon can only be got from some
substance already containing carbon. Iron, you know, can only be
produced from iron stone, or matter containing iron ; copper can
only be produced from copper ore, or matter containing copper; and
in the same way, it is evident that the carbon of vegetable produce
can only be obtained from matter containing carbon. What, then,
is the primitive matter, containing carbon, out of which, in the
course of the growth of the plant, this carbon of vegetable matter
is ultimately produced ?
It is well known that in forest lands, there exists a large
amount of rich vegetable mould, the produce mainly of the
decay of leaves; and this vegetable mould, which has received
the name of humus, is found to be exceedingly rich in carbon.
Further, richly carbonaceous vegetable matter of much the same
kind is found in a sod of grass turf; and again matter of a not
dissimilar kind is commonly added to arable land in the form of
farmyard manure. Now, until about thirty years ago, the prevalent
notion was that the carbon of vegetable produce was furnished to
the plant by the carbonaceous matter of the soil called humus, or
by matter of a similar nature. The vegetable matter of the grow
ing plant was conceived to be formed out of pre-existing vegetable
matter; and plants, like animals, were thus supposed to live upon
food more or less resembling in composition the tissues or parts
of the plants and animals respectively nourished. Now, notwith
standing the inadequacy of this notion, and notwithstanding its
discordance with well-known facts, and with facts that had been
for a long time well-known, it prevailed for very many years almost
�56
•without question. About thirty or more years ago, however, the
consideration of eminent agricultural chemists both in England
and in France was directed to this view of the subject, and very
serious doubts of its truthfulness began to be entertained. But
the notion was not ultimately exploded until the year 1840, by the
celebrated German chemist, Liebig. Now I do not propose to
take you over all the arguments which may be employed to show
inadequacy of this humus theory to account for the accumula
tion of carbon in plants; but I will direct your attention for a
short time to some of the most prominent reasons only. First
of all it is probable that in certain rich soils there does exist
an amount of humus, or such like vegetable matter containing
a quantity of carbon sufficient to furnish the crop grown
upon the soil, with the carbon j which it ultimately contains.
But this vegetable humus is exceedingly insoluble in water; and
Liebig made the curious calculation that if all the rain,, that falls
upon the land during the period of the growth of the crop, were
to remain upon the land and to dissolve as much of this humus
matter as it is capable of dissolving, so as to become thoroughly
saturated with humus ; and then, if all this water, so saturated with
humus, instead of draining away, as we know that most of it does,
and evaporating from the surface, as we know that much of it does,—
it all of this so saturated water were absorbed into the tissues
of the plants, nevertheless there could not be dissolved in
this water, and so supplied to the plant, a sufficient quantity of
humus to furnish the quantity of carbon ultimately found in the
crop. This of course does not amount to a demonstration that
the plant cannot get its carbon froip the humus of the soil; it
is only a demonstration that the plant cannot get its carbon
from this humus by the only process of absorption of which we
have any knowledge; and accordingly it comes to this, that if
plants do acquire their carbon from humus, they must get it there
from in a manner with which we are totally unacquainted.
But another argument, and a much more striking one, has reference
to the fact, that the carbon of the crop may be increased two-fold,
and even three-fold, by adding to the soil matters which contain
no carbon whatever. And this is very well shown in the table
before you, which records some more of the results of Messrs.
Lawes and Gilbert’s work at Rothamstead. This table gives an
account of experiments made on a tolerably large scale of experi
mental farming during the year 1868 and the 16 years preceding, in
the case of wheat, making 17 years altogether; for 1868 and the
16 years preceding, in the case of barley; and for 1868 and the
12 years preceding, in the case of hay:—
�1
57
Rothamstead Field Experiments, 1868.
Results in Pounds per Acre.
Gross Produce.
Wheat.
Barley.
Hay.
17 years. 17 years. IS years.
Unmanured .............. • 2,434
2,532
2,55s
Mineral Salts........
. 2,912
3,260
3,9X4
Do. + Ammonia...... • 6,394
5,821
5,92i
Farmyard Manure..... • 6,059
4,804
5,903
Dry Organic Matter.
Unmanured .......... .... 1,963
2,054
i,995
Mineral Salts.......... .... 2,347
2,645
3,053
Do. + Ammonia .. .... 5U49
4,618
4,720
—
Farmyard Manure.. .... 4,883
4,788
Carbon.
Unmanured ..........
880
920
902
Mineral Salts.......... .... 1,052
1,186
1,380
Do. + Ammonia .. .... 2,308
2,088
2,115
—
Farmyard Manure.. .... 2,183
2,341
For the purpose of these experiments, considerable strips of land
have been treated every year, each strip in exactly the same way,
for 17 years continuously, up to and including the year 1868 ; and
indeed the experiments have been similarly carried on, and with
similar results, up to the present year, 1871; and are likely to be
similarly carried, on with similar results, for a good many years yet
to come. And I would call your attention simply, as time is
getting on so rapidly, to the case of wheat. You will then be
able to make out for yourselves what were the results of the similar
experiments made with the crops of barley and hay. Messrs.
Lawes and Gilbert have found that, taking the average of these
17 years, the gross amount of produce removed from an acre
of continuously unmanured land, in the case of wheat, was
2,434 lbs., and that when from this gross produce they sub
tracted the amounts of water it contained, and of ash which
it yielded, there remained 1,963 pounds of dry organic matter;
and when they came to analyse these 1,963 pounds of dry
organic matter, they found them to contain 880 pounds of
carbon. And this, mind, is the average produce of 17 years con
tinuous growth of wheat, on land to which nothing whatever was
added. Now to a similar strip of land Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert
added every year a certain quantity of mineral matter, correspond
�58
ing to the ashes yielded by each successive crop removed ; and on
the strip so treated, the amount of gross produce was found to be
increased from 2,434 pounds to 2,912 pounds, the amount of dry
organic matter to be increased from 1,963 pounds to 2,347 pounds;
and the amount of carbon to be increased from 880 pounds to 1,052
pounds. Now to another slip of land they added year by year
exactly the same quantity of mineral matter, and in addition, a
considerable quantity of ammonia salts,—the ammonia salts and
mineral matter being alike absolutely free from carbonaceous
organic matter. And in the case of this strip, they found that the
amount of gross produce was increased to the surprising extent of
6,394 pounds, while the amount of dry organic matter was increased
to 5,149 pounds, and the amount of carbon to 2,308 pounds.
These results, you will observe, are fully as high—in most cases
indeed somewhat higher—than are results obtained on a fourth
strip of land, supplied year by year with an abundance of farm-yard
manure, containing not only the mineral matter and ammonia
added to the third strip, but rich also, as you know, in carbonaceous
organic matter. It is inconceivable then that the plant should
acquire its carbon from these organic matters of the soil,
seeing that the amount of carbon in. the crop may be increased
twofold and in some cases nearly threefold, by adding to the
soil substances such as mineral salts and ammonia which
are entirely free from organic matter.
And this table further illustrates another point. We have
admitted that the amount of humus or carbonaceous vegetable
matter existing in the soil, might in some cases be sufficient to
furnish the organic matter and the carbon for a single year’s crop;
but you observe that these 880 lbs. represent the average amount
of carbon which has been produced for 17 years, and up to the
present time, 21 years in succession; and which now seems to
undergo from year to year no appreciable decrease. So that,
although it is conceivable that the amount of humus in the soil might
furnish the amount of carbon contained in a single crop, it is
quite inconceivable that the original humus in the soil could
furnish the carbon contained in a succession of crops for 17 years
consecutively, and for the several years beyond that to which the
experiment has now been carried, and for the indefinite number
of years to which it will continue to be carried.
A still more cogent argument against this notion of the origin
of the carbon of vegetation directly from organic matter in the soil,
is afforded by the fact, established both by experiments specially
made, and by the observation of nature, that plants and crops
�59
have been, and in many cases habitually are, grown upon soils
which are either absolutely free, or which are practically, and to all
intents and purposes, free from organic vegetable matter. Very
many such experiments have been made by the French chemist,
Boussingault, who has grown plants from seeds in artificially
prepared soils, which had been subjected to a red heat, and from
which the whole of the organic carbonaceous vegetable matter
had been so removed and burned away; and yet the plants have
not only grown in these soils, but have thriven and arrived
at maturity. It is found, moreover, that many plants flourish
best, in a state of nature, upon soils which, if not like the experi
mental soils of Boussingault, absolutely free from organic matter,
are yet to all intents and purposes free. Thus, according to
Darwin, rich harvests of maize are yielded in the interior of Chili
and Peru by soils consisting of the merest quicksand, never
enriched by manure. According to Colonel Campbell, the soil of
the cinnamon gardens at Colombo, and where else the tree is
cultivated, is pure quartz sand, as white as snow. Dr. Schleiden,
again, observes that the oil palms of the western coast of Africa
are grown in moist sea-sand; and that from the year 1821 to the
year 1830, there were exported, as produce of these palm-trees,
into England alone, 107,118,000 lbs. of palm oil, containing 76
million lbs. or 32 thousand tons of carbon; these thousands of
tons of carbon being furnished by trees grown in a soil that was
practically free from organic or carbonaceous matter of any
kind whatever.
The only further argument with which I will trouble you is
based on the observation that when plants are grown upon soils
actually containing organic vegetable matter, so far from this
vegetable matter in the soil being used up or decreased by any
feeding of plants upon it, it is very much increased; so that the
more vegetation we get from the surface the more humus we get
accumulated in the soil; and we say, therefore, that so far from
humus being the cause of vegetation, vegetation, on the contrary,
is the cause of humus—the humus being produced chiefly by the
decay of matter formed by vegetation.
I think, then, I have now brought before you, not all the
arguments which might be adduced, but a sufficient number of
them to satisfy you that the quantities of carbon accumulated
in the crop or tree are not derived from carbonaceous matter
existing in the soil; and seeing, in this way, that the solid substance
of the earth does not suffice to furnish the carbon required, our atten
tion is next directed to the liquid water which falls upon the earth,
�6o
as a possible source of all this carbon. Nowwater—pure water, that
is to say—is a substance which itself contains no carbon,and there
fore cannot furnish any carbon to the plant. But certain natural
waters are found to contain carbon in small quantity. For
instance, the drainage water of peat bogs, and land-drainage water
in general, contains a certain amount of carbonaceous organic
matter derived from the land; but we have already seen that the
land does not contain enough of this organic matter to furnish the
carbon of vegetation directly, and cannot therefore furnish it
indirectly through the intervention of water, taking up organic
matter from the land.
But we find that rain water does contain carbon derived
from another source. The rain, in falling through the air,
acquires different impurities or additions from the air; and
more especially it takes up a certain carbonaceous constituent of
the air, on which I shall have to dwell more particularly in a
minute or two’s time. And I am not merely speaking of the rain
which has fallen in great cities like this, and has so become con
taminated with the carbonaceous soot and smoke of imperfectly
burnt coal; but I am speaking of rain wherever it falls, whetheron
land or ocean, in town or country, at the end of a period of
drought when the air is foul, as at the end of a period of wet, when
it has been washed clean by continuous showers. Pure water I
have said, is quite free from carbon in any form whatever. But
all water that has been left in contact with the air, and especially
water that has been condensed from and fallen through the air,
contains, in small proportion, a particular definite compound of
carbon, namely, carbonic acid, very different indeed in its nature
from the indefinite compounds of carbon we have hitherto spoken
of under the name of humus and vegetable organic matter. .
In this way our attention is necessarily directed to the air as a
possible source of all the millions of tons of carbon that are
accumulated in forest trees and annual crops, growing on
extensive areas of land. And although at first sight it must
strike us all as being improbable — scarcely, we should think,
possible — that any such quantity of solid earbon could be got
from the fresh, transparent, intangible, fleeting air, yet, when we
consider that upon setting fire to a heap of wood, or of the char
coal produced from wood, and letting it go on burning, it is
mainly resolved into matters which are dispersed into the air, and
are themselves aerial, we begin to perceive that the improbability
is not in reality so great as at first it appears. When we burn,
however large a quantity of wood, or of the charcoal produced
�6i
from wood, there is nothing, you know, left behind but an insig
nificant quantity of ashes; there is no solid body formed; there
is no liquid body formed; there is nothing but an aerial body
formed, which is discharged into the air.
Now this aerial
body used actually to be called air—fixed air, to distinguish it
from ordinary atmospheric air — but is now-a-days called car
bonic acid gas. This carbonic acid gas is possessed of many very
curious properties, and is more especially characterised by two
properties, to which I am desirous of calling your attention. The
first of these is the property which it has of extinguishing
the flame of any burning body. On introducing a lighted gas
jet into this bottle of carbonic acid gas, the flame, you observe, is
at once extinguished. [An experiment illustrated this fact.]
Another property of carbonic acid gas is the property it has of
combining with lime, to produce carbonate of lime, or chalk. Now
lime is a substance which dissolves in water to form a clear trans
parent liquid; but chalk is a substance that will not dissolve in
water. You may observe, when you go to the sea-side, that the
sea-salt remains dissolved in the water, while the sea-sand remains
undissolved upon the shore. Now lime, like salt, dissolves in
water, though, indeed, to a much less extent than salt, to furnish
a perfectly bright solution known as lime-water. Chalk, on the
other hand, like sand, is a substance which does not dissolve in
water, but remains simply mixed up with it for a time, in
the form of a white milky opaque liquid. The property,
then, which carbonic acid has of combining with lime to produce
chalk, is manifested to you in this way—that upon adding our
clear lime water to the carbonic acid in the bottle, carbonate
of lime or chalk is formed, and this chalk, not being soluble
in water, is deposited so as to form the milky liquid which
you see we have now produced. [Experiment made.] This other
bottle also contains carbonic acid, but mixed with a considerable
excess of air; so that in this case, there is not a sufficient amount
of carbonic acid present to cause the extinction of flame. When
I put in the gas-flame you see that it continues burning. But that
the bottle really does contain some carbonic acid, I can show you
by adding in this case also our lime water ; and now, on shaking
up the bottle, the lime water is at once rendered milky. You see
in this way, we have two tests for carbonic acid. When the
carbonic acid exists in a large proportion, it has the property of
rendering lime water milky and also of extinguishing the flame;
but when the proportion of carbonic acid is not sufficient to
extinguish flame, we are able, nevertheless, to recognise its presence
�62
by the property it has of converting our clear lime water into an
opaque white mixture of chalk and water.
Now I told you a few moments ago that the aerial substance
into which solid charcoal was converted, when it underwent the
process of being burnt in air, was carbonic acid gas. And,
accordingly, when I put some pieces of red hot charcoal into this
upright glass tube, through which a gentle current of air is being
blown, so as to keep the charcoal burning, and when I cause this
same air, now charged with the aerial matter furnished by the
burning charcoal, to bubble up through lime water, you perceive
the lime water is quickly rendered milky, showing you the forma
tion of carbonate of lime or chalk, a substance producible only
from lime by the addition of carbonic acid to it. [Experiment
made.]
I want next to call your attention for a moment to what takes
place in the act of burning. Ordinary atmospheric air consists
substantially of two distinct kinds of air or gas—one is called
nitrogen and the other oxygen. Now when our charcoal or carbon
burns in the open air, or in the tube through which we are blowing
a current of air, that carbon enters into combination with the
oxygen of the air, and forms a compound of oxygen and carbon,
which is, indeed, sometimes called oxide of carbon, but more
commonly, as I have said, carbonic acid. If, instead of burning
our carbon in the air, which contains only one-fifth of its bulk of
oxygen, we burn it in pure oxygen, it burns with greatly increased
brilliancy, but furnishes exactly the same product, namely, car
bonic acid. Here we have the chalk, which we produced a
moment ago, by taking lime water and adding to it the carbonic
acid we made by combining our carbon or charcoal with the
oxygen of the air; and here we have some charcoal that is
already ignited; and on passing the pure oxygen gas over it, you
observe the very greatly increased brilliancy with which, under
these circumstances, it bums. We next cause the air which is
left by this burning of the charcoal in oxygen, to bubble up through
lime water; and the abundant presence in it of oxide of carbon, or
carbonic acid gas, is at once manifested to you by the immediate
deposition of carbonate of lime or chalk. [Experiment made.] I
venture to impress upon your attention the fact that carbonic acid
gas is a compound of the solid substance carbon with the aerial
or gaseous substance oxygen; and that when carbon or charcoal
burns in ordinary air, it unites with the oxygen of the air to form
the aerial substance, carbonic acid gas, which is discharged into
the air.
�Now, if we reflect for a minute or two, we shall see that inasmuch
as wood and charcoal, and I may add coal (although we are not
talking about coal on the present occasion), when they are burned,
produce the aerial substance, oxide of carbon, or carbonic acid;
and inasmuch as they discharge this carbonic acid into the air; it
is a matter of necessity that the air itself should contain some
carbon in this particular form. And not only is it a matter of
necessity that it must contain, but it is also a matter of easy ex
perimental demonstration that it actually does contain this aerial
compound of carbon, namely, carbonic acid. One rough way of
establishing the fact is this :—If we take some clear, transparent,
colourless lime water, and pour it into a dish, and expose it to the
air for several hours, the top layer of the lime water in contact
with the air, gradually becomes converted into an opaque white
scum of chalk; and chalk, we know, is producible only from
lime, by the acquisition of carbonic acid, which can in this case
have been acquired from no other source than from the air with
which the surface of lime water was in contact. That the air,
then, must contain some carbonic acid is a matter of argument:
and that it does contain some is a matter of experimental fact.
But although the air does, beyond question, contain carbon in
the form of carbonic acid, the proportion that it contains is exceed
ingly small; as you may infer from the length of time we
require to keep lime water exposed to the air, in order for it to
acquire a thick scum; and from the circumstances that we
may even blow a current of air through lime water for a con
siderable time, without producing any sensible effect. [Further
experiments.] We are now blowing ordinary air through this
lime water; and I might go on blowing for a great length of
time, before I should get any appreciable turbidity. This shows
you that although the air does contain carbonic acid, it must
contain it in an exceedingly small proportion. We require, then, to>
know what this proportion is. Now it is found that the amount of
carbonic acid gas in the open air varies within a certain range, but
that it amounts on the average to somewhat less than one-half
part in a thousand parts by volume: or we may say more ac
curately that it constitutes four parts in ten thousand. Here the
composition of the air is written up :—
COMPOSITION OF AIR.
| Oxygen..
4 Nitrogen
Carbonic acid
790
nearly
> Parts per 1000,
�64
Nitrogen gas 790 parts, or about four-fifths; oxygen 210 parts, or
about one-fifth; and carbonic acid gas not quite one-half part.
If it contained exactly one-half part, that would of course be five
parts, instead of only four parts, in 10,000. Now the expression of
four parts in 10,000 does not convey a very definite idea to the
mind, but I may perhaps render it more definite to you in this way.
Imagine four farthings among ten thousand farthings, or, what comes
to the same thing, imagine one penny piece among two thousand five
hundred penny pieces. If you were to take 2,500 penny pieces
and pile them on the top of each other you would produce a
column of pence some 15 or 16 feet high—about as high as this
rod, and considerably more than twice the height of the tallest
man in the room—and if from such a pile of 2,500 pence
you were to remove one penny, that would represent to you
the bulk of carbonic acid gas contained in a similar column of
air : that is, the one part of carbonic acid in 2,500 parts of air,
or, of course, four parts of carbonic acid in 10,000 of air.
But although the proportion is exceedingly small, a little con
sideration will suffice to show us that the absolute quantity is
exceedingly great. I have said that the proportion is four parts
of carbonic acid in 10,000. Now, consider for a moment what
is the quantity existing in the air of a moderately sized room.
A room 25 feet long, 25 feet broad, and 16 feet high, would hold
io,oco cubic feet of air, containing, of course, four cubic feet of
carbonic acid gas. And these four cubic feet of carbonic acid gas
would weigh 2,465 grains, and contain 607 grains of charcoal—
that is to say, the quantity of charcoal I now hold in my
hand (about the size of an egg). This Town Hall holds, in
round numbers, about 150,000 cubic feet of air, and, con
sequently, the amount of carbonic acid contained in it will
be fifteen times four, or 60 cubic feet; and the amount of charcoal
contained in this carbonic acid will be fifteen times 607 grains,
or the weight of the bundle of charcoal, considerably more than a
pound and a quarter, I now hold in my hand. And when we pass
from the consideration of the air in rooms, small or large, to the
consideration of the air pressing everywhere upon the surface
of the earth, we shall get to results great almost beyond concep
tion. You know that the weight of air overlying every square
inch of the earth’s surface is 15 lbs., and that this is what we mean
by saying, as we commonly do, that the atmospheric pressure is
15 lbs. on the square inch. Now, 15 lbs. on the square inch is
2,160 lbs. on the square foot; so that every square foot of the
earth’s surface has overlying it 2,160 lbs. of air, and these
�65
2,160 lbs. of air contain about 1| lbs. of carbonic acid gas,
equivalent to very nearly halt a pound of carbon. I showed
you a few minutes ago that there are produced, in many
cases, from an acre of land, some 2,000 lbs. of carbon in a
single season. Now, reckoning from feet to acres, we find that
not merely at the first instant of the growth of the crop, but that
during every instant of the period of its growth—at the end no less
than at the beginning—there is overlying the acre of land furnishing
those 2,000 lbs. of carbon some 20,000 lbs. of carbon in the form of
carbonic acid, existing, though in such small proportion, in the air.
Calculating in this way, we find that the amount of carbon existing
in the atmosphere, in the form of carbonic acid gas, is not only
enormous in its absolute quantity, but that it is far in excess of
the wants of vegetation, and far in excess, moreover, of the quan
tities of carbon contained in all living beings, both plants and
animals, existing on the surface of the earth, and in inflammable
carbonaceous minerals, such as coal, which exist buried beneath
the surface.
In this way, then, we come to the conclusion that by their
contact with the air, plants are at any rate afforded the
opportunity of getting that carbon, which constitutes so large a
proportion of their structure. The question now is, do they avail
themselves of the opportunity afforded them—do they actually
absorb carbonic acid gas from the atmosphere, and extract the
carbon of the gas which they absorb. Now, the evidence on this
point dates from the latter end of the last century; when it was
ascertained by the older chemical philosophers, and more particu
larly Dr. Priestley, and by Saussure and Sennebier, that when
growing plants are exposed, under the influence of sunlight, to air
containing carbonic acid, they do as a matter of fact absorb some
of this carbonic acid; and, that having absorbed it, they do not
discharge it again into the air, but instead discharge only its one
constituent oxygen; the necessary inference being that its other
constituent, carbon, is retained in their tissues. 'Here you
have an imitation of one of these early experiments, showing
the removal of carbonic acid from, and the restoration of oxygen
to, a confined amount of air, by means of a fresh sprig of mint or
parsley. [Experiment.] Of late years, the subject has been
investigated with great care and elaboration by the French
chemist Boussingault, who has shown not merely that plants
have this property of absorbing carbonic acid from the air,
and of discharging the constituent oxygen of the gas into
the air and retaining the constituent carbon of the gas in
�66
their tissues, but that they do this with extreme rapidity. The
mode of experimenting which he adopted is illustrated to you
here. Taking a growing plant, such as this, he enclosed one
or more branches of the plant in a glass vessel, and through
that glass vessel passed a current of air, which was subjected
to analysis both before and after its passage through the vessel.
[Experiment to show the process of sucking air through a globe
holding the branch of a growing plant.]
I cannot trouble you at this late hour with the details of his
experiments, but will call your attention only to one or two of the
results. In the case of some oleander leaves, enclosed in a glass
globe of this kind, he found, by measuring the leaves and analyzing
the air passing over them, that under exposure to sunlight, there
was an absorption of carbonic acid from the air at the rate of 56^
cubic inches, or a fixation of carbon at the rate of 11| grains per
hour, per square yard of leaf surface exposed, showing the extreme
rapidity with which the absorption of carbonic acid from the air
and the retention of its carbon actually took place. Moreoyer, he
made a great number of other experiments, that I cannot refer to
in detail, which established not merely the general fact that plants
can absorb carbonic acid gas from the air, and can discharge
the oxygen and retain the carbon of the gas so absorbed; but,
operating with seeds, and more particularly with peas and vetches,
and growing them in artificial soils quite free from carbon, he
found that the entire weight of the carbon ultimately accumulated
in the grown plant was identical with the weight of carbon con
tained in the carbonic acid gas which the growing plant had
absorbed from, and the oxygen of which alone it had discharged
back into the atmosphere. In this way, then, Boussingault
established the important fact that plants acquire their carbon
from the carbonic acid of the abundant ever-changing air, in which
they are grown.
We have thus considered the source from which the carbon of
vegetation is obtained. But we have yet another point to consider,
and that is—what becomes of it ? Now, a little consideration, I
think, will show you, that just as the carbon of vegetation is
produced from the aerial substance, carbonic acid gas, so the
destiny, if I may so say, of the carbon of vegetation is to be recon
verted into this same aerial substance. First of all, let us see
what becomes of the most abundant of vegetable products, namely,
wood. You know that a great deal of fresh wood is put to no
intermediate use, but is at once chopped up for the fire ; and when
this wood is burned, its carbon combines with the oxygen of the
�67
from the lungs in the act of respiration. Another portion gets
accumulated in his body, whereby it is fattened and rendered fit
to become the food of the flesh feeder. And when the flesh-feeding
animal eats up the bodies of the vegetable feeders, their vegetablederived fat and lean that becomes assimilated in his body is
found to suffer there a speedy oxidation. Store animals, intended
for food, increase gradually in weight; but hard-working animals,
whether vegetable feeders like the horse, or mixed feeders like
ourselves, or animal feeders like the hound, go on eating day
after day, year after year, without any sensible increase of bodily
weight—the carbonaceous matter of the food continually eaten,
sufficing only to replace that continually destroyed in the
process of gradual oxidation or burning away to which the
substance bf our blood and tissues is ever subjected, in order
that the temperature and activity of our bodies may be main
tained. Accordingly, we find the air expired from the lungs
of both vegetable and animal feeders, to be charged with
carbonic acid, produced by the oxidation of carbonaceous
organic matter—furnished directly or indirectly by the vege
table kingdom, out of aerial carbonic acid, and restored by
the animal back into the same carbonic acid. On breathing into
this lime water for a little time [Experiment made] we have shortly
a dense milky deposit of carbonate of lime, or chalk, produced—the carbonic acid, thus serving to convert the lime into chalk, being
supplied by the' oxidation within our bodies of carbonaceous
organic matter, accumulated in the first instance by the growing
vegetable. So that in the case of food consumed in our bodies,
as in the case of wood consumed on our fires, the carbon ot
vegetable produce is directly or indirectly converted back intc
the aerial carbonic acid from which it was originally formed.
I
need only detain you a few minutes longer. When we burn char
coal in the fire, it evolves in the act of burning a considerable
amount of heat The temperature produced in this way varies
considerably, accordingly to circumstances. We may have a fire
in which the charcoal is just glowing, and the temperature com
paratively low—hardly sufficient to raise a piece of metal to a
visible red heat; and with another quantity of charcoal on the fire,
urged by the blast of powerful bellows, we may obtain an intense
degree of temperature, capable Oi melting that most difficultly
fusible metal—wrought iron. Now, whether we obtain a high
or a low degree of temperature depends mainly upon the
rapidity with which we burn the charcoal. If we take a quan
tity of charcoal and burn it away slowly, it gives out its
�68
air, and is so re-converted into carbonic acid. Again, a considerable
quantity of wood is manufactured into charcoal, and this charcoal
is then burned and so converted into carbonic acid. And with regard
to the diverse applications of wood, we know that much of it is made
into furniture, and that this furniture does not last for ever, but finds
its way from the best rooms to the attics, and at last to the fireplace.
Wood is also used for the building of ships, and in the construc
tion of houses ; but in course of time, the ships get broken up, and
the houses get pulled down, and the wood of both ships and houses
becomes ultimately sold for firewood, and then the carbon of
this wood gets burnt into the very carbonic acid from which
it was long years before produced. In other cases, the wood
or woody matter, although it never undergoes a process of actual
burning, nevertheless undergoes an equivalent process of oxidation.
At the present season, or but very recently, we had large falls oi
autumn leaves, and those leaves are still accumulated in many
places, and undergoing not burning but decay. Now the process
of decay consists really in a slow combination of the carbon of
the leaves with the oxygen of the air, whereby carbonic acid is
produced. Here we have some fallen leaves in a flask; the air
of which you will find is now sufficiently charged with carbonic
acid gas, produced by the union of the carbon of the decaying
leaves with the oxygen of the original air, as to be no longer
capable of maintaining the flame of a taper or gas jet. [Experi
ment.] The moment I introduce the taper you see that its flame
is at once extinguished. Here again we have some sawdust
which is undergoing the same process. ’The moist sawdust
gradually undergoes decay; whereby the oxygen of the air is
gradually absorbed and the carbon of the sawdust gradually
converted into carbonic acid, so that the flame of the taper is in
this case also at once extinguished. [Experiment.] And, indeed,
woody matter of all kinds exposed to the weather, to the action,
that is, of air and water, gradually undergoes decay or oxidation,
and, if left to itself, crumbles away, and in course of time,
disappears altogether, being converted into the invisible aerial
matter carbonic acid.
When we pass from the consideration of wood to that of the
hay and grain eaten by different classes of animals, and mark what
becomes of all this food, we shall find that so much of it as is both
eaten and made part of the blood and substance of the vegetable
feeding animal, undergoes one or other of two principal changes.
A large portion of it gets oxidised in the body of the vegetable
feeder, with production of carbonic acid, discharged principally
�69
heat over a length of time, and at no one instant is there a
very high degree of temperature; but if we take that same
quantity of charcoal and, setting it on fire, burn it rapidly
away, we get a very high degree of temperature; soothat the
degree of temperature produced by the burning of charcoal
depends upon the quantity of charcoal that is burned within a
limited space and time. But if we take any quantity of charcoal,
say an ounce, and burn it in one case very slowly, and in another
case very quickly, and do this in a vessel surrounded on all sides
by water, so that all the heat produced in the hour say, or in the
few minutes, shall be taken up and retained in the water, we shall
find that the quantity of heat imparted to the water is exactly the
same in both cases. So that whether we burn the charcoal
quickly, so as to get a high temperature, or bum it slowly, so as to
get a low temperature, the quantity of heat which that charcoal
produces in burning, as measured by the quantity of water it is
capable of heating through a given rise of temperature is exacty
the same in both cases. And this is true, not only when we actually
burn charcoal upon a fire, but in all cases of the conversion of carbon
or charcoal into carbonic acid, by the act of oxidation. And
indeed the temperature of our own bodies is maintained in a great
measure by the slow oxidation, or quasi-combustion of carbon
aceous matter going on within us. Whether, then, we burn our
charcoal in an open fire rapidly, so as to produce a high tempera
ture, or whether we burn it in our bodies slowly, so as
to produce a low temperature, we find that for so much
carbon converted into carbonic acid, there is exactly the
same quantity of heat produced. For example—In burning one
ounce of charcoal into about 3I ounces of carbonic acid, a
quantity of heat is evolved, sufficient to raise the temperature of
100 pounds, or 10 gallons of water ten degrees; and this, whether
the act of burning takes place quickly or slowly, with production of
a high or of a low degree of temperature. N ow it is a well-established
law in chemistry, established, I mean, by the careful examination
of a great number of instances, that whenever heat is given out by
the act of combination, as of charcoal and oxygen to produce
carbonic acid, exactly the same quantity of heat is absorbed in
the corresponding act of separation, as of charcoal and oxygen,
out of carbonic acid. The conversion of carbon into carbonic
acid, on the fire, is a burning process, attended with the evolution
of heat. The conversion of carbonic acid into carbon and
oxygen, in the tissues of a growing plant under the influence of
the sun’s rays, is an unburning nrocess attended, not with an
�7°
evolution of heat, but with an absorption of heat from the solar
rays : and it follows that there is just as much disappearance of
solar heat in the production of the charcoal, as there is evolution
of heat in the ultimate combustion of the charcoal produced. So
that, you see, the quantity of heat which the charcoal eventually
gives out in burning on the fire, is the exact equivalent of the
quantity of solar heat which disappeared in the act of growth of
the wood, from which the charcoal furnishing our fire was
obtained.
�SCIENCE
LECTURES FOR
THE
PEOPLE.
THIRD SERIES—1871.
THE UNCONSCIOUS ACTION OF THE BRAIN.
A LECTURE
BY
DR.
CARPENTER,
Registrar of the University
of
F.R.S.,
London.
Delivered in the Httlnie Town Hall, Manchester, December 1st, 187r.
Many of you, I doubt not, will remember that I had the pleasure
of addressing you in this hall some months ago, with reference to
researches which I had a share in carrying on into the Depths off
the Ocean; when I endeavoured to give you some insight into the
conditions of the sea bottom as regards temperature, pressure,
animal life, and the deposits now in process of formation upon it.
Now I am going this evening to carry you into quite a different
field of inquiry, an inquiry which I venture to think I have had
some share in myself promoting, into what goes on in the Depths;
of our own Minds. And I think I shall be able to show you that
some practical results of great value in our own mental culture, as
training and as discipline, may be deduced from this inquiry. I
shall begin with an anecdote that was related to me after a lecture
which I gave upon this subject about five years ago, at the Royal
Institution, in London. As I was coming out from the lecture
room, a gentleman stopped me and said, “A circumstance occured
recently in the North of England, which I think will interest you,
from its affording an exact illustration of the doctrine which you
have been setting forth to-night.” The illustration was so apposite,
and leads us so directly into the very heart of the inquiry,
that I shall make it, as it were, the text for the commence
ment of this evening’s lecture. The Manager of a bank in a
certain large town in Yorkshire could not find a key which gave.
access to all the safes and desks in the bank. This key was a
duplicate key, and ought to have been found in a place accessible
�only to himself and to the assistant-manager.
The assistant
manager was absent on a holiday in Wales, and the manager’s
first impression was that the key had probably been taken away
by his assistant in mistake. He wrote to him, and learned to his own
great surprise and distress that he had not got the key, and knew
nothing of it. Of course, the idea that the key, which gave access
to every valuable in the bank, was in the hands of any wrong
person, having been taken with a felonious intention, was to him
most distressing. He made search everywhere, thought of
every place in which the key might possibly be, and
could not find it.
The assistant-manager was recalled,
both he and every person in the bank were questioned,
but no one could give any idea of where the key could be.
Of course, although no robbery had taken place up to this point,
there was the apprehension that a robbery might be committed
after the storm, so to speak, had blown over, when a better oppor
tunity would be afforded by the absence of the same degree of
watchfulness. A first-class detective was then brought down from
London, and this man had every opportunity given him of making
inquiries; every person in the bank was brought up before him;
he applied all those means of investigation which a very able man
of this class know how to employ; and at last he came to the
manager and said, “ I am perfectly satisfied that no one in thebank knows anything about this lost key. You may rest assured
that you have put it somewhere yourself, and you have been
worrying yourself so much about it that you have forgotten where
you put it away. As long as you worry yourself in this manner,
you will not remember it; but go to bed to-night with the
assurance that it will be all right; get a good night’s sleep ; and
in the morning I think it is very likely you will remember where
you have put the key.” This turned out exactly as it was pre
dicted. The key was found the next morning in some extra
ordinarily secure place which the Manager had not previously
thought of, but in which he then felt sure he must have put it
himself.
Now, then, ladies and gentlemen, this you may say is merely
a remarkable case of that which we all of us are continually
experiencing; and so I say it is. Who is there among you who
has not had occasion some time or other to try to recall some
thing to his (or her) mind which he has not been able to bring
to it? He has seen some one in the street, for instance, whose
face he recognises and says, “ I ought to know that person
and
thinks who it can be, going over (it may be) his whole list of friends
�□
and acquaintances in his mind, without being able to recall who it
Is; and yet, some hours afterwards, or it may be the next day, it
flashes into his mind who this unknown person is. Or you may
want to remember some particular and recent event; or it may
be, as I have heard classical scholars say, to recall the source of
a classical quotation. They “ cudgel their brains,” to use a
common expression, and are unsuccessful; they give their minds
to something entirely different; and some hours afterwards, when
their thoughts are far away from the subject on which they had
been concentrating them with the idea of recovering this lost
clue, the thing flashes into the mind. Now this is so common
an occurrence, that we pass it by without taking particular note of
it; and yet I believe that the inquiry into the real nature of this
occurrence may lead us to understand something of the inner
mechanism of our own minds which we shall find to be very useful
to us.
There is another point, however, arising out of the story
which I have just told you, upon which again I would fix your
attention :—Why and how did the detective arrive at this assurance
from the result of his inquiries ? It was a matter of judgment based
upon long practice and experience, which had given him that kind
of insight into the characters, dispositions, and nature of the persons
who were brought before him, -which only those who have got
that faculty as an original gift, or have acquired it by very long
experience, can possess with anything like that degree of assurance
which he was able to entertain. I believe that this particular power
of the detective is, so to speak, an exaltation in a particular direc
tion of what we call “common sense.” We are continually
bringing to the test of this common sense a great number
of matters which we cannot decide by reason; a number of
matters as to which, if we were to begin to argue, there may be
so much to be said on both sides, that we may be unable to
come to a conclusion. And yet, with regard to a great many of
these subjects—some of which I shall have to discuss in my next
lecture—we consider that common sense gives us a much better
result than any elaborate discussion. Now I will give you an
illustration of this which you will all readily comprehend. Why
do we believe in an external world ? Why do I believe that I
have at present before me many hundreds of intelligent auditors,
looking up and listening to every word that I say? Why
do you believe that you are hearing me lecture ? You will say at
once that your common sense tells you. I see you ; you see and
hear me ; and I know that I am addressing you. But if once this
�4
subject is logically discussed, if once we go into it on the basis of
a pure reasoning process, it is found really impossible to construct
such a proof as shall satisfy every logician. As far as my
knowledge extends, every logician is able to pick a hole in every
other logician’s proof. Now here we have then a case obvious to
you all, in which common sense decides for us without any doubt
or hesitation at all. And I venture to use an expression upon
this point which has been quoted with approval by one of the
best logicians and metaphysicians of our time, Archbishop
Manning; who cited the words that I have used, and entirely con
curred in them, namely, that “in regard to the existence of
the external world the common-sense decision of mankind is
practically worth more than all the arguments of all the logicians
who have discussed the basis of our belief in it.” And so, again,
with regard to another point which more nearly touches our
subject to-night—the fact that we have a Will which dominates
over our actions; that we are not merely the slaves of automatic
impulse which some philosophers would make us—“ the decision
of mankind (as Archbishop Manning, applying my words, has
most truly said) derived from consciousness of the existence of
our living self or personality, whereby we think, will, or act, is
practically worth more than all the arguments of all the logicians
who- have discussed the basis of our belief in it.”
Now, then, my two points are these—What is the nature of
this process which evolves, as it were, this result unconsciously
to ourselves, when we have been either asleep, as in the case
of the banker, or, as in the other familiar case I have cited,
when we have been giving our minds to some other train of
thought in the interval? What is it that brings up spontaneously
to our consciousness a fact which we endeavoured to recall with all
the force of our will, and yet could not succeed ?
And then again:—What is the nature of this Common Sense, to
which we defer so implicitly and immediately in all the ordinary
judgments of our lives ?
Now, in order that we may have a really scientific conception
of the doctrine I would present to you, I must take you into
an inquiry with regard to some of the simpler functions of our
bodies, from which we shall rise to the simpler actions of our
minds. You all know that the Brain, using the term in its general
sense, is the organ of our Mind. That every one will admit. We
shall not go into any of the disputed questions as to the relations
of Mind and Matter; for the fact is that these are now coming to
take quite a new aspect, from Physical philosophers dwelling so much
�5
more upon Force than they do upon Matter, and on the relations
of Mind and Force, which every one is coming to recognise. Thus
when we speak of nerve-force and mind as having a most intimate
relation, no one is found to dispute it; whereas when we talk
about Brain and Mind having this intimate relation, and Mind
being the function of the brain, there are a great many who will
rise up against us and charge us with materialism, and atheism,
and all the other deadly sins of that kind. I merely speak of the
relation of the brain to the mind, as the instrument through which
the mind operates and expresses itself. We all know that it is in
virtue of the impressions carried to the brain through the nerves
proceeding from the different sensory organs in various parts of
the body, that we become conscious of what is taking place around
us. And, again, that it is through the nerves proceeding from the
brain that we are able to execute those movements which the Will
prompts and dictates, or which arise from the play of the Emotions.
But I have first to speak of a set of lower centres, those which
the Will can to a certain extent control, but which are not in
such immediate relation to it as is the brain. You all know
that there passes down our backbone a cord which is com
monly called the “Spinal Marrow.” Now this spinal marrow gives
off a pair of nerves at every division of the backbone ; and these
nerves are double in function—one set of fibres conveying impres
sions from the surface to the spinal cord, the other motor impulses
from the spinal cord to the muscles. Now it used to be considered
that this Spinal Cord (I use the term spinal cord, which is the same
as spinal marrow, because it is just as intelligible and more correct)
was a mere bundle of nerves proceeding from the brain ; but we have
long known that that is not the case, that the spinal cord is really a
nervous centre in itself, and that if there were no brain at all the
spinal cord would still do a great deal. For example, there havebeen infants born without a brain, yet these infants have breathed,
have cried, have sucked, and this in virtue of the separate
existence and the independent action of this spinal cord. Let
us analyse one or two of these actions. We will take the act of
Sucking as the best example, because experiments have been
made upon young puppies, by taking out the brain, and then
trying whether they would suck ; and it was found that putting
between the lips the finger moistened with milk or with sugar
and water, produced a distinct act of suction, just as when
an infant is nursed. Now how is this ? It is what we calL
a “reflex action.' I shall have a good deal to say of reflex
action higher up in the nervous system, and therefore I must
�6
explain precisely what we mean by that term. It is just this.
There is a certain part of the spinal cord, at the top of the neck,
which is what we call a ganglion, that is, a centre of nervous power :
in fact the whole of the spinal cord is a series of such ganglia;
but this ganglion at the top of the neck is the one which is the
centre of the actions which are concerned in the act of sucking.
Now this act of sucking is rather a complicated one, it involves
the action of a great many muscles put into conjoint and harmo
nious contraction. We will say then that here is a nervous centre.
[Dr. Carpenter made a sketch upon the black board.] These are
nerves coming to it, branches from the lips; and these another set
going to the muscles concerned in the movement of sucking from
it. Thus, by the conveyance to the ganglionic centre of the
impression made on the lips, a complicated action is excited,
requiring the combination of a number of separate muscular
movements. We will take another example—the act of Coughing.
You feel a tickling in your throat, and you feel an impulse
to cough which you cannot resist; and this may take place
not only when you are awake and feel the impulse, but when
you are asleep and do not feel it. You will often find persons
coughing violently in sleep, without waking or showing any
sign of consciousness. Here, again, the stimulus, as we call it,
produced by some irritation in the throat, gives rise to a change in
the nerves going towards the ganglionic centre, which produces
the excitement of an action in that centre that issues the
mandate, so to speak, through the motor nerves to the muscles
concerned in coughing, which actions have to be united in a very
remarkable manner, which I cannot stop to analyse; but the
whole action of coughing has for its effect the driving out a violent
blast of air, which tends to expel the offending substance. Thus
when anything “ goes the wrong way,” as we term it,—a crumb
of bread, or a drop of water finding its way into the windpipe,
then this sudden and violent blast of air tends to expel it.
Now these are examples of what we call “reflex action”; and
this is the character of most of the movements that are immediately
concerned with the maintenance of the vital functions. I might
analyse other cases. The act of breathing is a purely reflex action,
and goes on when we are perfectly unconscious of exerting any effort,
and when our attention is entirely given up to some act or thought;
and even when asleep the act of breathing goes on with perfect
regularity, and if it were to stop, of course the stoppage would
have a fatal effect upon our lives. But most of these reflex actions
are to a certain degree placed under the control of our Will. If it
�7
were not for this controlling power of will, I could not be address
ing you at this moment. I am able so to regulate my breath as
to make it subservient to the act of speech; but that is the case
only to a certain point. I could not go on through a long sentence
without taking my breath. I am obliged to renew the breath
frequently, in order to be able to sustain the circulation and other
functions of life. But still I have that degree of control over the
act of respiration, that I can regulate this drawing in and expulsion
of the breath for the purposes of speech. This may give you
an idea of the way in which Mental operations may be indepen
dent of the Will, and yet be under its direction. To this we
shall presently come.
Now those reflex actions of the spinal cord, which are
immediately and essentially necessary to the maintenance of
our lives, take place from the commencement without any
training, without any education ; they are what we call “ instinc
tive actionsthe tendency to them is part of our nature ; it is
born with us. But, on the other hand, there are a great many
actions which we learn, to which we are trained in the process of
bodily education, so to speak, and which, when we have learned
them, come to be performed as frequently, regularly, methodically,
and unconsciously as those of which I have spoken. This is the case
particularly with the act of walking. You all know with how
much difficulty a child is trained to that action. It has to be
learned by a long and painful experience, for the child usually
gets a good many tumbles in the course of that part of its educa
tion ; but when once acquired it is as natural as the act of breath
ing, only it is more directly under the control of the will; yet so
completely automatic does it become, that we frequently execute
a long series of these movements without any consciousness
whatever. You start in the morning, for instance, to go from
your home to your place of employment; your mind is occupied
by a train of thought, something has happened which has interested
you, or you are walking with a friend and in earnest conversation
with him; and your legs carry you on without any consciousness
on -your part that you are moving them. You stop at a.certain
point, the point at which you are accustomed to stop, and very
often you will be surprised to find that you are there. While your
mind has been intent upon something else, either the train of
thought which you were following out in your own mind,
or upon what your friend has been saying, your legs move
on of themselves, just as your heart beats, or as your muscles
of breathing continue to act. But this is an acquired habit;
�8
this is what we call a “secondarily automatic” action. Now
that phrase is not very difficult when you understand it. By
automatic we mean an action taking place of itself. I daresay
most of you have seen automata of one 'kind or another, such
as children’s toys and more elaborate pieces of mechanism,
which, being wound up with a spring, and containing a com
plicated series of wheels and levers, execute a variety of move
ments. In each of the Great Exhibitions there have been
very curious automata of this kind. We speak then of the
actions being “automatic,” when we mean that they take place
of themselves, without any direction on our own parts; such as the
act of sucking in the infant, the acts of respiration and swallow
ing, and others which are entirely involuntary, and are of this
purely reflex character. Now those are “primarily automatic,”
that is originally automatic; we are born with a tendency to
execute them ; but the actions of the class I am now speaking of
are executed by the same portion of the nervous system—the
spinalcord—and are “secondarily automatic,” that is to say, we have
to learn them, but when once learned, they come very much into
the condition of the others, only we have some power of will over
them. We start ourselves in the morning by an act of the'will;
we are determined to go to a particular place; and it may be that
we are conscious of these movements over the whole of our walk ;
but, on the other hand, we may be utterly unconscious of them, and
continue to be so until either we have arrived at our journey’s end
or begin to feel fatigued. Now when we begin to feel fatigued, we
are obliged to maintain the action by an effort of the will; we are
no longer unconscious, and we are obliged to struggle against the
feeling of fatigue, to exert our muscles in order to continue the
action.
Now, having set before you this reflex action of the Spinal
Cord, you will ask me perhaps what is the exciting cause of this
succession of actions in walking. I believe it is the contact of the
ground with the foot at each movement. We put down the foot,
that suggests as it were to the spinal cord the next movement of
the leg in advance, and that foot comes down in its turn, and 'so
we follow with this regular rhythmical succession of movements.
We next pass to a set of centres somewhat higher, those which
form the summit, as it were, of this spinal cord, which are really
imbedded in the brain, but which do not form a part of that
higher organ, which is in fact the organ of the higher part of our
mental nature, yet which are commonly included in that which we
designate the brain. In fact, the anatomist who only studies the
�9
human brain is very liable to be misled in regard to the character
of these different parts, by the fact that the higher part—that which
we call the Cerebrum—is so immensely developed in Man, in pro
portion to the rest of the animal creation, that it envelopes, as it
were, the portion of which I am about to speak, concealing it
and reducing it apparently to the condition of a very subordinate
part; and yet that subordinate part is, as I shall show you, the
foundation or basis of the higher portion—the Cerebrum itself.
The brain of a Fish consists of very little else than a series of these
ganglia, these little knots—the word “ganglion” means “knot,”
and the ganglia in many instances, when separated, are little
knots, as it were, upon the nerves. The brain of a fish con
sists of a series of these ganglia, one pair belonging to each principal
organ of sense. Thus we have in front the ganglia of smell, then
the ganglia of sight, the ganglia of hearing, and the ganglia of general
sensation. These constitute almost entirely the brain of the fish.
There is scarcely anything in the brain of the fish which answers
to the Cerebrum or higher part of the brain of man. I will
give you an idea of the relative development of these parts. [Dr.
Carpenter made other sketches on the black board to represent
these ganglia of sense in man and the lower animals.] Now, the
Cerebrum in most fishes is a mere little film, overlaying the sensory
tract, but in the higher fish we have it larger; in the reptiles we have
it larger still; and in birds we have it still larger; in the lower
mammalia it is larger still; and then as we ascend to man this
part becomes so large in proportion that my board will not take
it in. This Cerebrum, this great mass of the brain, at the bottom
of which these Ganglia of Sense are buried, as it were, so overlies
and conceals them that their essential functions for a long time
remained unknown. Now, in the Cerebrum, the position of the
active portion, what we call the ganglionic matter, that which
gives activity and power to these nervous centres, is peculiar. In
all ganglia this “grey” matter, as it is called, is distinct!
from the white matter. In ordinary ganglia, this grey matter lies
in the interior as a sort of little kernel; but in the Cerebrum
it is spread out over the suiface, and forms a film or layer. If any
of you have the curiosity to see what it is like, you have only
to get a sheep’s brain and examine it, and you will see this
film of a reddish substance covering the surface of the Cere
brum. In the higher animals and in man this film is deeply folded
upon itself, with the effect of giving it a very much more
extended surface, and in this manner the blood vessels come into
relation with it; and it is by the changes which take place between
c
�IO
this nervous matter and the blood that all our nervous power is
produced. You might liken it roughly to the galvanic battery by
which the electric telegraph acts, the white or fibrous portion of
the brain and nerves being like the conducting wires of the telegraph.
Just as the fibres of the nerves establish a communication between
the organs of sensation and the ganglionic centres, and again
between the ganglionic centres and the muscles, so do the white
fibres which form a great part of the brain, establish a communi
cation between the grey matter of the convoluted or folded surface
of the Cerebrum and the Sensory Ganglia at its base. Now I
believe that this sensory tract which lies at the base of the
skull is the real Sensorium, that is, the centre of sensation;
that the brain at large, the cerebrum, the great mass of which I
have been speaking, is not in itself the centre of sensation ; that,
in fact, the changes which take place in this grey matter only
rise to our consciousness—only call forth our conscious mental
activity—when the effect of those changes is transmitted down
wards to this Sensorium. Now this Sensorium receives the nerves
from the organs of sense. Here, for instance, is the nerve from
the organ of smell, here from the eye, and here from the body
generally (the nerves of touch), and here the nerves of hearing—
every one of these has its own particular function. Now these
Sensory ganglia have in like matter reflex actions. I will give
you a very curious illustration of one of these reflex actions. You
all know the start we make at a loud sound or a flash of light; the
stimulus conveyed through our eyes from the optic nerve to the
central ganglion, causing it to send through the motor nerves a
mandate that calls our muscles into action. Now this may act some
times in a very important manner for our protection, or for the pro
tection of some of our delicate organs. A very eminent chemist
a few years ago was making an experiment upon some extremely
explosive compound which he had discovered. He had a small
quantity of this compound in a bottle, and was holding it up to
the light, looking at it intently; and whether it was a shake of the
bottle or the warmth of his hand, I do not know, but it exploded
in his hand, the bottle was shivered into a million of minute
fragments, and those fragments were driven in every direction.
His first impression was that they had penetrated his eyes, but to
his intense relief he found presently that they had only penetrated
the outside of his eyelids. You may conceive how infinitesimally
short the interval was between the explosion of the bottle and the
particles reaching his eyes; and yet in that interval the impression
had been made upon his sight, the mandate of the reflex action,
�II
so to speak, had gone forth, the muscles of his eyelids had
been called into action, and he had closed his eyelids before the
particles reached them, and in this manner his eyes were saved.
You see what a wonderful proof this is of the way in which the
automatic action of our nervous apparatus enters into the
sustenance of our lives, and the protection of our most important
organs from injury.
Now I have to speak of the way in which this Automatic action
of the Sensory nerves and of the motor nerves which answer to
them, grows up as it were in ourselves. We will take this illustra
tion. Certain things are originally instinctive, the tendency to
them is born with us; but in a very large number of things we
educate ourselves, or we are educated. Take, for instance, the
guidance of the class of movements I was speaking of just now—
our movements of locomotion. We find that when we set off in the
morning with the intention of going to our place of employ
ment, not only do our legs move without our consciousness, if
we are attending to something entirely different, but we
guide ourselves in our walk through the streets ; we do
not run up against anybody we meet; we do not strike
ourselves against the lamp posts; and we take the appropiate turns
which are habitual to us. It has often happened to myself, and I
dare say it has happened to every one of you, that you have
intended to go somewhere else—that when you started you
intended instead of going in the direct line to which you were
daily accustomed, to go a little out of your way to perform
some little commission; but you have got into a train ot
thought and forgotten yourself, and you find that you are half way
along your accustomed track before you become aware of it. Now
there you see is the same automatic action of these sensory gan
glia—we see, we hear—for instance, we hear the rumbling of the
carriages, and we avoid them without thinking of it—our muscles
act in respondence to these sights and sounds—and yet all
this is done without our intentional direction—they do it
for us. Here again, then, we have the “ secondarily automatic ”
action of this power, that of a higher nervous apparatus which
has grown, so to speak, to the mode in which it is habitually
exercised. Now that is a most important consideration. It has
grown to the mode in which it is habitually exercised; and that
principle, as we shall see, we shall carry into the higher class of
Mental operations.
But there is one particular kind of this action of the Sensory
nerves to which I would direct your attention, because it leads us
�12
to another very important principle. You are all of you, I suppose,
acquainted with the action of the Stereoscope; though you may
not all know that its peculiar action, the perception of
solidity it conveys to us, depends upon the combination
of two dissimilar pictures—the two dissimilar pictures which we
should receive by our two eyes of an object if it were actually
placed before us. If I hold up this jug for instance before my
eyes, straight before the centre of my face, my two eyes receive
pictures which are really dissimilar. If I made two drawings of
the jug, first as I see it with one eye and, then with the other, I
should represent this object differently. For instance, as seen with
the right eye I see no space between the handle and the body of the
jug; as I see it with the left eye I see a space there. If I were
to make two drawings of that jug as I now see it with my two eyes,
and put them into a stereoscope, they would bring out, even, if
only in outline, the conception of the solid figure of that jug in a
way that no single drawing could do. Now that conception is the
result of our early acquired habit of combining with that which
we sec that which we feci. That habit is acquired during the first
twelve or eighteen months of infancy. When your little children
are lying in their cradles and are handling a solid object, a block
of wood, or a simple toy, and are holding it at a distance from
their eyes, bringing it to their mouth and then carrying it to arm’s
length, they are going through a most important part of their educa
tion; that part of their education which consists in the harmonization
of the mental impressions derived from sight and those derived
from the touch ; and it is by that harmonization that we get that
conception of solidity or projection, which, when we have once
acquired it we receive from the combination of these two dissimilar
pictures alone, or even, in the case of objects familiar to us, without
two dissimilar pictures at all—the sight of the object suggesting to
us the conception of its solidity and of its projection.
Now this is a thing so familiar to you, that few of you have
probably ever thought of reasoning it out; and in fact it has only
been by the occurrence of cases in which persons have grown to
adult age without having acquired this power, from having been
born blind and having only received sight by a surgical
operation at a comparatively late period, when they could describe
things as they saw them—I say it is only by such cases that we
have come to know how completely dissimilar and separate
these two classes of impressions really are, and how important is
this process of early infantile education of which I have spoken.
A case occurred a few years ago in London where a friend of my
�own performed an opeiation upon a young woman who had been
born blind, and though an attempt had been made in early years
to cure her, that attempt had failed. She was able just to dis
tinguish large objects, the general shadow as it were of large
objects without any distinct perception of form, and to distinguish
light from darkness. She could work well with her needle by the
touch, and could use her scissors and bodkin and other implements
by the training of her hand, so to speak, alone. Well, my friend
happened to see her, and he examined her eyes, and told her that
he thought he could get her sight restored ; at any rate, it was
worth a trial. The operation succeeded; and being a man of
intelligence and. quite aware of the interest of such a case, he
carefully studied and observed it; and he completely confirmed
all that had been previously laid down by the experience of similar
cases. There was one little incident which will give you an
idea of the education which is required for what you would
suppose is a thing perfectly simple and obvious. She could
not distinguish by sight the things that she was perfectly
familiar with by the touch, at least, when they were first
presented to her eyes. She could not recognise even a pair of
scissors. Now you would have supposed that a pair of scissors, of
all things in the world, having been continually used by her, and
their form having become perfectly familiar to her hands, would
have been most readily recognised by her sight; and yet she did not
know what they were; she had not an idea until she was told, and
then she laughed, as she said, at her own stupidity. No stupidity at
all; she had never learned it, and it was one of those things which
she could not know without learning. One of the earliest cases of
this kind was related by the celebrated Cheselden, a surgeon of the
early part of last century. Cheselden relates how a youth just in this
condition had been accustomed to play with a cat and a dog; but
for some time after he attained his sight he never could tell which
was which, and used to be continually making mistakes.
One day being rather ashamed of himself for having called the cat
the dog, he took up the cat in his arms and looked at her very
attentively for some time, stroking her all the while; and in this way
he associated the impression derived from the sight of the cat with
the impression derived from the touch, and made himself master
(so to speak) of the whole idea of the animal. He then put the
cat down, saying, “ Now puss, I shall know you another time.”
Now, the reason why I have specially directed your attention
to this is because it leads to one of the most important principles
�that I desire to expound to you this evening—what I call in
Mental Physiology the doctrine of resultants. All of you who
have studied merchanics know very well what a c resultant” means.
You know that when a body is acted on by two forces at the same
time, one force carrying it in this direction, and another force in
that direction, we want to know in what direction it will go, and
how far it will go. To arrive at this we simply complete what is
called the parallelogram of forces. In fact it is just as if a body
was acted on at two different times, by a force driving it in one
direction, and then by a force driving it in the other direction [Dr.
Carpenter illustrated this point by the aid of the blackboard.] We
draw two lines parallel to this, and we draw a diagonal—that
diagonal is what is called the resultant; that is, it expresses the
direction, and it expresses the distance—the length of the motion
which that body will go when acted upon by these two forces.
Now I use this term as a very convenient one to express this—
that when we have once got the conception that is derived from
the harmonisation of these two distinct sets of impressions on our
nerves of sense, we do not fall back on the original impressions,
but we fall back on the resultant, so to speak. The thing has
been done for us ; it is settled for us; we have got the resultant;
and the combination giving that resultant is that which governs
the impression made upon our minds by all similar and
future operations of the same kind. We do not need to go
over the processes of judgment by which the two sets of
impressions are combined in every individual case; but we fall
back, as it were, upon the resultant. Now what is the case in
the harmonisation of the two classes of impressions of sight
and touch, I believe to be true of the far more complicated
operations of the mind of which the higher portion of the brain,
the Cerebrum, is the instrument. Now this Cerebrum we regard
as furnishing, so to speak, the mechanism of our thoughts. I do
not say that the Cerebrum is that which does the whole work of
thinking, but it furnishes the mechanism of our thought. It is
not the steam engine that does the work; the steam engine is the
mere mechanism; the work is done, as my friend Professor
Roscoe would tell you, by the heat supplied ; and if we go back
to the source of that heat, we find it originally in the heat and
light of the sun that made the trees grow by which the coal was
produced, in which the heat of the sun is stored up, as it were,
and which we are now using, I am afraid, in rather wasteful
profusion. The steam engine furnishes the mechanism; the work
�i5
is done by the force. Now in the same manner the brain serves as
the mechanism of our thought; and it is only in that sense that I
speak of the work of the brain. But there can be no question at
all that it works of itself, as it were,—that it has an automatic
power, just in the same manner as the sensory centres and the
spinal cord have automatic power of their own. And that a very
large part of our mental activity consists of this automatic action
of the brain, according to the mode in which we have trained it
to action, I think there can be no doubt whatever. And the
illustration with which I started in this lecture gives you, I believe,
a very good example of it. However, there are other examples
which are in some respects still better illustrations of the
automatic work that is done by the brain, in the state which is
sometimes called Second Consciousness, or Somnambulism—
to which some persons are peculiarly subject. I heard only a few
weeks ago of an extremely remarkable example of a young man
who had overworked himself in studying for an examination, and
who had two distinct lives, as it were, in each of which his mind
worked quite separately and distinct from the other. One of
these states, however,—the ordinary one—is under the control
of the will to a much greater extent than the other; while
the secondary state is purely, I suppose, automatic. There
are a great many instances on record of very curious mental
work, so to speak, done in this automatic condition—a state of
active dreaming in fact. For instance, Dr. Abercrombie mentions,
in his very useful work on the Intellectual Powers, an example of a
lawyer who had been excessively perplexed about a very com
plicated question. An opinion was required from him, but the
question was one of such difficulty that he felt very uncertain how
his opinion should be given. The opinion had to be given on a
certain day, and he awoke in the morning of that day with a feel
ing of great distress. He said to his wife, “ I had a dream, and
the whole thing in that dream has been clear before my mind, and
I would give anything to recover that train of thought.” His wife
said to him, “ Go and look on your table.” She had seen him
get up in the night and go to his table and sit down and write.
He went to his table, and found there the very opinion which he
had been most earnestly endeavouring to recover, lying in his own
handwriting. There was no doubt about it whatever, and this
opinion he at once saw was the very thing which he had been
anxious to be able to give. A case was put on record of a very
similar kind only a few years ago by a gentleman well known in
�i6
London, the Rev. John De Liefde, a Dutch clergyman. This
gentleman mentioned it on the authority of a fellow student who
had been at the college at which he studied in early life. He had
been attending a class in mathematics, and the professor said to
his class one day—“A question of great difficulty has been
referred to me by a banker, a very complicated question of
accounts—which they have not themselves been able to bring to
a satisfactory issue, and they have asked my assistance. I have
been trying, and I cannot resolve it. I have covered whole sheets
of paper with calculations, and have not been able to make it out.
Will you try ?” He gave it as a sort of problem to his class, and
said he should be extremely obliged to any one who would bring
him the solution by a certain day. This gentleman tried it over
and over again ; he covered many slates with figures, but could not
succeed in resolving it. He was a little put on his mettle, and
very much desired to attain the solution ; but he went to bed on
the night before the solution, if attained, was to be given in,
without having succeeded. In the morning, when he went to his
desk, he found the whole problem worked out in his own hand.
He was perfectly satisfied that it was his own hand ; and this was
a very curious part of it—that the result was correctly obtained by
a process very much shorter than any he had tried. He had
covered three or four sheets of paper in his attempts, and this was
all worked out upon one page, and correctly worked, as the result
proved.
He inquired of his “ hospita,” as she was called—-I
believe our English equivalent is bedmaker, the woman who
attended to his rooms—and she said she was certain that no one
had entered his room during the night. It was perfectly clear
that this had been worked out by himself.
Now there are many cases of this kind, in which the mind has
obviously worked more clearly and more successfully in this auto
matic condition, when left entirely to itself, than when we have
been cudgelling our brains, so to speak, to get the solution. I
have paid a good deal of attention to this subject, in this way:—I
have taken every opportunity that occurred to me of asking
inventors and artists—creators in various departments of art—
musicians, poets, and painters, what their experience has been in
regard to difficulties which they have felt, and which they have
after a time overcome. And the experience has been almost
always the same, that they have set the result which they have
wished to obtain strongly before their minds, just as we do when
we try to recollect something we have forgotten: they think of
�i7
everything that can lead to it; but if they do not succeed, they put
it by for a time, and give their minds to something else, and en
deavour to obtain as complete a repose or refreshment of the mind
upon some other occupation as they can; and they find that
either after sleep, or after some period of recreation by a variety of
employment, just what they want comes into their heads. A
very curious example of this was mentioned to me a few years
ago by Mr. Wenham, a gentleman who has devoted a great deal
of time and attention to the improvement of the microscope, and
who is the inventor of that form of binocular microscope (by which
we look with two eyes and obtain a stereoscopic picture), which is
in general use in this country. The original binocular microscope
was made upon a plan which would suggest itself to any optician. I
shall not attempt to describe it to you, but it involved the use of
three prisms, giving a number of reflections; and every one of these
reflections was attended with a certain loss of light and a certain
liability to error. And beside that, the instrument could only be
used as a binocular microscope. Now Mr. Wenham thought it
might be possible to construct an instrument which would work
■with only one prism, and that this prism could be withdrawn, and
then we could use the microscope for purposes to which the
binocular microscope could not be applied. He thought of this a
great deal, but he could not think of the form of prism which
would do what was required. He was going into business as an
engineer, and he put his microscopic studies aside for more than
a fortnight, attending only to his other work, and thinking nothing
of his microscope. One evening after his day’s work was done,
and while he was reading a stupid novel, as he assured me, and was
thinking nothing whatever of his microscope, the form of the prism
that should do this work flashed into his mind. He fetched his
mathematical instruments, drew a diagram of it, worked out the
angles which would be required, and the next morning he made
his prism, and found it answered perfectly well; and upon that
invention nearly all the binocular microscopes made in this country
have since been constructed.
I could tell you a mumber of anecdotes of this kind which
would show you how very important is this automatic working of
our minds—this work which goes on without any more control or
direction of the Will, than when we are walking and engaged in a
train of thought which makes us unconscious of the movements of
our legs. And I believe that in all these instances—such as those
I have named, and a long series of others—the result is owing to
�i8
the mind being left to itself without the disturbance of any emotion.
It was the worry which the ba nk manager had been going through,
that really prevented the mind Irom working with the steadiness and
evenness that produced the result. So in the case of the lawyer;
so in the case of the mathematician ; they were all worrying
themselves, and did not let their minds have fair play. You have
heard, I dare say, and those of you who are horsemen mry have
had experience, that it is a very good thing sometimes, if you lose
your way on horseback, to drop the reins on the horse’s back and
let him find his way home. You have been guiding the horse
into one path and into another, and following this and that path,
and you find that it does not lead you in the right direction ; just
let the horse go by himself, and he will find his way better than
you can. In the same manner, I believe, that our minds, under
the circumstances I have mentioned, really do the work better than
our wills can direct. The will gives the impulse in the first
instance, just as when you start on your walk; and not only this, but
the will keeps before the mind all the thoughts which it can imme
diately lay hold of, or which association suggests, that bear upon
the subject. But then these thoughts do not conduct immediately
to an issue, they require to work themselves out; and I believe
that they work themselves out very often a great deal better by
being left to themselves. But then we must recollect that such
results as these are only produced in the mind which has been
trained and disciplined; and that training and discipline are the
result of the control of the Will over the mental processes,
just as in the early part of the lecture I spoke to you
of the act of speech as made possible by the control which
the will has over the muscles of breathing.
We cannot
stop these movements—we must breathe—but we can regulate
them, and modify them, and intensify them, or we can check
them for a moment, in accordance with the necessities of
speech. Well, so it is, I think, with regard to the action of our
will upon our mental processes. I believe that this control, this
discipline of the will, should be learned very early; and I will
give to the mothers amongst you, especially, one hint in regard to
a most valuable mode of training it even in early childhood. I
learned this, I may say, from a nurse whom I was fortunate
enough to have, and whose training of my own sons in early
childhood I regard as one of the most valuable parts of their
education. She was a sensible country girl, who could not have
told her reasons, but whose instincts guided her in the right direc-
�*9
tion. I studied her mode of dealing with the children, and learned
from that the principle. Now the principle is this A child falls
down and hurts itself. (I take the most common of nursery
incidents. You know that Sir Robert Peel used to say that there
were three ways of looking at this question; and there are
three modes of dealing with this commonest of nursery inci
dents.) One nurse will scold the child for crying. The child feels
the injustice of this; it feels the hurt, and it feels the injustice of
being scolded. I believe that is the most pernicious of all the
modes of dealing with it. Another coddles the child, takes it up
and rubs its head, and says, “ O naughty chair, for hurting my
dear child ! ” I remember learning that one of the royal children
fell against a table in the Queen’s presence, and the nurse said,
“ O naughty table,” when the Queen very sensibly said, “ I will
not have that expression used; it was not the table that was
naughty ; it was the child’s fault that he fell against the table.” I
believe that this method is extremely injurious ; the result of
it being that it fixes the child’s attention upon its hurt, and causes
it to attain that habit of self-consciousnesswhich is in after life found
to have most pernicious effects. Now,whatdoesthesensibleand judi
cious nurse do? She distracts the child’s attention, holding it up
to the window to look at the pretty horses, or gets it a toy to look at.
This excites the child’s attention, and the child forgets its hurt,
and in a few moments is itself again, unless the hurt has been
severe. When I speak of coddling, I mean about a trifling hurt
such as is forgotten in a few moments; a severe injury is a
different matter. But I believe that the coddling is only next in
its evil resulcs (when followed out as a system) to the evil effects
of the system of scolding; the distraction of the attention is the
object to be aimed at. Well, after a time the child comes to be
able to distract its own attention. It feels that it can withdraw
its own mind from the sense of its pain, and can give its mind to
some other object, to a picture-book or to some toy, or whatever
the child feels an interest in; and that is the great secret of selfgovernment in later life. We should not say, “ I wont think of
of this”—some temptation, for instance ; that simply fixes the atten
tion upon the very thought that we wish to escape from ; but the
true method is—“ I will think of something else ;” that, I believe,
is the great secret of self-government, the knowledge of which is
laid in the earliest periods of nursery life.
Now just direct your attention to this diagram, as a sort of
summary of the whole :—
�20
[Diagram.]
-THE WILLIntellectual Operations-^
'Emotions
Ideas
Sensations
Sensory Ganglia------------------------------ V
centre of sensori-motor reflection.
Impressions—
You see I put at the top the Will. The will dominates everything
else. I do not pretend to explain it, but I simply say, as Arch
bishop Manning said, in applying my own language to this case,
that our common sense teaches us that we have a will, that we
have the power of self-government and self-direction, and that we
have the power of regulating and dominating all these lower ten
dencies to a certain extent, not to an unlimited extent. We cannot
prevent those thoughts and feelings rising in our minds that we
know to be undesirable; but we can escape from them, we can
repress them ; but as I said the effort to escape from them is
much more effectual than the effort to repress them, excepting
when they arise with great power, and then we have immediately,
as it were, to crush them out; but when they tend to return over
and over again, the real mode of subduing them is to determine
to give our attention to something else. It is by this exercise
of the will, therefore, in training and disciplining the mind, that it
acquires that method by which it will work of itself. The mathe
matician could never have worked out that difficult problem, nor
the lawyer have given his opinion, nor the artist have developed
those conceptions of beauty which he endeavours to shape either
in music, or poetry, or painting, but for the training and dis
ciplining which his mind has undergone. The most wonderfully
creative of all musicians, Mozart, whose music flowed from him
with a spontaneousness that no musician, I think, has ever equalled
—Mozart went through, in early life, a most elaborate course of
�21
study, imposed upon him, in the first instance, by his father, and
afterwards maintained by himself.
When his cotemporaries
remarked how easily his compositions flowed from him, he replied,
“ I gained the power by nothing but hard work.” Mozart had a
most extraordinary combination of this intuitive musical power,
with the knowledge derived from patient and careful study, that
probably any man ever attained. Now in the same manner we
have persons of extraordinary natural gifts, and see these gilts
frequently running to waste, as it were, because they have not
received this culture and discipline. And it is this discipline
which gives us the power of performing, unconsciously to our
selves, these elaborate mental operations; because I hold that a
very large part of our mental life thus goes on, not only auto
matically, but even below the sphere of our consciousness. And
you may easily understand this if you refer to the diagram
which I drew just now on the blackboard. You saw that the
Cerebrum, the part that does the work, what is called the convo
luted surface of the brain, lies just immediately under the skull
cap; that it is connected with the sensorium at the base of the
brain by a series of fibres which are merely, I believe, conducting
fibres. Now I think that it is just as possible that the Cerebrum
should work by itself when the sensorium is otherwise engaged or
in a state of unconsciousness, as that impressions should be made
on the eye of which we are unconscious. A person may be
sleeping profoundly, and you may go and raise the lid and
bring a candle near, and you will see the pupil contract; and yet
that individual shall see nothing, for he is in a state of perfect
unconsciousness. His eye sees it, so to speak, but his mind
does not; and you know that his eye sees it by the
contraction of the pupil, which is a reflex action; but his
mind does not see it, because the sensorium is in a state of
inaction. In the same manner during sleep the Cerebrum
may be awake and working, and yet the Sensorium shall be asleep,
and we may know nothing of what the cerebrum is doing except
by the results. And it is in this manner, I believe, that, having
been once set going, and the cerebrum having been shaped, so to
speak, in accordance with our ordinary processes of mental
activity, having grown to the kind of work we are accustomed to
set it to execute, the cerebrum can go on and do its work for
itself. The work of invention, I am certain, is so mainly produced,
from concurrent testimony I have received from a great number of
inventors, or what the old English called “makers”—what the
Greeks called poets, because the word poet means a maker.
�22
Every inventor must have a certain amount of imagination, which
may be exercised in mechanical contrivance or in the creations of
art; these are inventions—they are made, they are produced, we
don’t know how; the conception comes into the mind we cannot
tell whence , but these inventions are the result of the original
capacity for that particular kind of work, trained and disciplined
by the culture we have gone through. It is not given to every
one of us to be an inventor. We may love art thoroughly, and
yet we may never be able to evolve it for ourselves. So in regard
to humour. For instance, there are some men who throw out
flashes of wit and humour in their conversation, who cannot help
it—it flows from them spontaneously. There are other men who
enjoy this amazingly, whose nature it is to relish such expressions
keenly, but who eannot make them themselves. The power of
invention is something quite distinct from the intellectual capacity
or the emotional capacity for enjoying and appreciating; but
although we may not have these powers of invention, we can
all train and discipline our minds to utilise that which we
do possess to its utmost extent. And here is the conclusion
to which I would lead you in regard to Common Sense. We fall
back upon this, that common sense is, so to speak, the general
resultant of the whole previous action of our minds.
We submit to common sense any questions—such questions as I
shall have to bring before you in my next lecture ; and the judg
ment of that common sense is the judgment elaborated as it were
by the whole of our mental life. It is just according as our mental
life has been good and true and pure, that the value of this acquired
and this higher common sense is reached. We may in proportion
I believe to our honesty in the search for truth—in proportion
as we discard all selfish considerations and look merely at this
grand image of truth, so to speak, set before us, with the purpose
of steadily pursuing our way toward it—in proportion as we
discard all low and sensual feelings in our love of beauty,
and especially in proportion to the earnestness of the desire
by which our minds are pervaded always to keep the right
before us in all our judgments—so I believe will our minds
be cleared in their perception of what are merely prudential
considerations. It has on several occasions occurred to me to
form a decision as to some important change either in my own
life, or in the life of members of my family, which involved a
great many of what we are accustomed to call pros and cons—
that is, there was a great deal to be said on both sides. I
heard the expression once used by a naturalist, with regard to
�23
difficulties in classification,—“ It is very easy to deal with
the white and the black; but the difficulty is to deal with
the grey.” And so it is in life. It is perfectly easy to deal
with the white and the black,—there are things which are clearly
right, and things which are clearly wrong; there are things which
are clearly prudent, and things which are clearly imprudent; but
a great many cases arise in which even right and wrong may seem
balanced, or the motives may be so balanced that it is difficult to
say what is right; and again there are cases in which it is difficult
to say what is prudent; and I believe in these cases where we
are not hurried and pressed for a decision, the best plan is to do
exactly that which I spoke of in the earlier part of the lecture—to
set before us as much as possible everything that is to be said on
both sides. Let us consider this well; let us go to our friends;
let us ask what they think about it. They will suggest considera
tions which may not occur to ourselves. It has happened to me
within the last three or four months to have to make a very im
portant decision of this kind for myself; and I took this method—
I heard everything that was to be said on both sides, I considered
it well, and then I determined to put it aside as completely as
possible for a month, or longer, if time should be given, and then
to take it up again, and simply just to see how my mind gravitated—
how the balance then turned. And I assure you that I believe
that in those who have disciplined their minds in the manner
I have mentioned, that act of “ Unconscious Cerebration,” for so
I call it, this unconscious operation of the brain in balanc
ing for itself all these considerations, in putting all in order,
so to speak, in working out the result—I believe that that
process is far more likely to lead us to good and true results
than any continual discussion and argumentation, in which one
thing is pressed with undue force and then that leads us to bring
up something on the other side, so that we are just driven into
antagonism, so to speak, by the undue pressure of the force which
we think is being exerted. I believe that to hear everything that
is to be said, and then not to ruminate upon it too long, not to be
continually thinking about it, but to put it aside entirely from our
minds as far as we possibly can, is the very best mode of arriving
at a correct conclusion. And this conclusion will be the resultant
of the whole previous training and discipline of our minds. If
that training and discipline has all been in the direction of the
true and the good, I believe that we are more likely to obtain a
valuable result from such a process than from any conscious
discussion of it in our minds, anything like continually bringing it
>
�24
up and thinking of it, and going over the whole subject again in
our thoughts. The unconscious settling down, as it were, of all
these respective motives, will I think incline the mind ultimately
to that which is the just and true decision.
There is just one other point I could mention in connection
with this subject: the manner in which the conscious direction
and discipline of the mind will tend to remove those unconscious
prejudices that we all have more or less from education, from the
circumstances in which we were brought up; and from which it is
excessively difficult for us to free ourselves entirely. I have
known a great many instances in public and in private life, in
which the most right-minded men have every now and then shown
the trammelling, as it were, of their early education and early
associations, and were not able to think clearly upon the subject
in consequence of this. These early prejudices and associations
cling around us and influence the thoughts and feelings of the
honestest men in the world unconsciously; and it is sometimes
surprising to those who do not know the force of these early asso
ciations, to. see how differently matters which are to them perfectly
plain and obvious are viewed by men whom we feel we must respect
and esteem. Now I believe that it is the earnest habit of looking
at a subject from first principles, and, as I have said over and
over again, looking honestly and steadily at the true and the right,
which gives the mind that direction that ultimately overcomes the
force of these early prejudices and these early associations, and
brings us into that condition which approaches the nearest of
anything that I think we have the opportunity of witnessing in
our earthly life, to that direct insight, which many of us believe
will be' the condition of our minds in that future state in
which they are released from all the trammels of our corporeal
existence.
�EPIDEMIC
A
By
Dr.
DELUSIONS
LECTURE
CARPENTER,
F.R.S.,
Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, December 8th, 1871.
Our subject to-night links itself in such a very decided manner to
the subject in which we were engaged last week, and the illustra
tions which I shall give you are so satisfactorily explained on the
scientific principle which I endeavoured then to expound to you,
that I would spend a very few minutes in just going over some of
the points to which I then particularly directed your attention.
My object was to show you that between our Mental operations
and our Will there is something of that kind of relation which
exists between a well-trained horse and his rider; that the will,—
if rightly exercised in early infancy in directing and controlling
the mental operations; in directing the attention to the objects to
which the intellect should be applied; in controlling and repress
ing emotional disturbance; restraining the feelings when unduly
excited, and putting a check upon the passions—that the will in
that respect has the same kind of influence over the mind, or
ought to have, as the rider has upon his horse; that the powers
and activities of the mind are to a very great degree independent
of the will; that the mind will go on of itself without any more
than just the starting of the will, in the same manner as a horse
will go on in the direction that it has been accustomed to go with
merely the smallest impulse given by the voice, or the hand, or the
heel of the rider, and every now and then a very slight check (if
it is a well-trained horse) or guidance from the bridle or from a
touch of the spur, and will follow exactly the course that the
rider desires, but by its own independent power. And, again, I
�96
showed you that as there are occasions on which a horse is best
left to itself, so there are occasions when the mind is best left to
itself, without the direction and control of the will; in fact in
which the operations of the mind are really disturbed by being
continually checked and guided and pulled up by the action of
the will, the result being really less satisfactory than when the
mind, previously trained and disciplined in that particular course
of activity, is left to itself. I gave you some curious illustrations
of this from occurrences which have taken place in Dreaming,
or in that form of dreaming which we call Somnambulism: where
a legal opinion had been given, or a mathematical problem had
been resolved, in the state of sleep waking; that is to say the mind
being very much in the condition of that of the dreamer, its action
being altogether automatic, going on of itself without any direc
tion or control from the will —but the bodily activity obeying the
direction of the mind. And then I went on to show you that
this activity very often takes place, and works out most im
portant results, even without our being conscious of any operations
going on; and that some of these results are the best and most
valuable to us in bringing at last to our consciousness ideas which
we have been vainly searching for,—as in the case where we have
endeavoured to remember something that we have not at first been
able to retrace, and which has flashed into our minds in a few
hours, or it may be a day or two afterwards ; or, again, when we
have been directing our minds to the solution of some problem
which we have put aside in a sort of despair, and yet in the course
of a little time that solution has presented itself while our minds
have either been entirely inactive, as in sleep, or have been directed
into some entirely different channel of action.
Now, like the well-trained horse which will go on of itself with the
smallest possible guidance, yet still under the complete domina
tion of the rider, and will even find its way home when the rider
cannot direct it thither, we find that the human mind some
times does that which even a well-trained horse will do—that it
runs away from the guidance of its directing will. Something
startles the horse, something gives it alarm; and it makes a sudden
bound, and then, perhaps, sets off at a gallop, and the rider
cannot pull it up. This alarm often spreads contagiously, as it
were, from one horse to another; as we lately saw in the
“ stampede ” at Aidershot. Or, again, a horse, even if well
trained, when he gets a new rider, sometimes, as we say, “ tries
it on,” to see whether the horse or the rider is really the
master. I have heard many horsemen say that that is a very
�97
familiar experience. When you first go out with a new horse, it
may be to a certain degree restive; but if the horse finds that you
keep a tight hand upon him, and that his master knows well how
to keep him under control, a little struggling may have to be gone
through, and the horse from that time becomes perfectly docile
and obedient. But if, on the other hand, the horse finds that he
is the master, even for a short time, no end of trouble is given
afterwards to the rider in acquiring that power which he desires
to possess. Now that is just the case with our minds; we may
follow out the parallel very closely indeed. We find that if our
minds once acquire habits—habits of thought, habits of feeling—which are independent of the will, which the will has not kept
under adequate regulation, these habits get the better of us; and then'
we find that it is very difficult indeed to recover that power of self
direction which we have been aiming at, and which the well-trained
and well-disciplined mind will make its highest object. So, again,
we find that there are states in which, from some defect in the
physical condition of the body, or it may be from some great
shock which has affected the mind and weakened for a time the
power of the will, very slight impulses—just like the slight
things that will make a horse shy—will disturb us unduly; and
we feel that our emotions are excited in a way that we cannot
account for, and we wonder why such a little thing should
worry and vex us in the way that it does. Even the best
of us know, within our own personal experience, that, when
we are excessively fatigued in body, or overstrained in mind,
our power of self-control is very much weakened; so that
particular ideas will take possession of us, and for a time will
guide our whole course of thought, in a manner which our
sober judgment makes us feel to be very undesirable. What,
for instance, is more common than for a person to take offence
at something that has been said or done by his most intimate
friend, or by some member of his family ; merely because he has
been jaded or overtasked, and has not the power of bringing t«
the fair judgment of his common sense the question whether that
offence was really intended, or whether it was a thing he ought
not to take any notice of? He broods over this notion, and
allows it to influence his judgment; and if he does not in a day
or two rouse himself and master his feelings by throwing it off, it
may give rise to a permanent estrangement. We are all of us
conscious of states of mind of that kind.
But there are states of mind which lead to very much more
serious disorder, arising from the neglect of that primary dis
�98
cipiine and culture on which I have laid so much stress. We
find that ignorance, and that want of the habit of self-control
which very commonly accompanies it, predispose very greatly
indeed to the violent excitement of the feelings, and to the
possession of the mind by ideas which we regard as essen
tially absurd; and under these states of excitement of feeling, and
the tendency of these dominant ideas to acquire possession of
the intellect, the strangest aberrations take place, not only in
individuals but in communities; and it is of such that I have
especially to speak to-night. We know perfectly well, in our
individual experience, that these states tend to produce Insanity
if they are indulged in, and if the individual does not make
an earnest effort to free himself from their influence. But, looking
back at the history of the earlier ages, and carrying that survey
down to the present time, we have experience in all ages of great
masses of people being seized upon by these dominant ideas, ac
companied with the excitement of some passion or strong impulse
which leads to the most absurd results; and it is of these Epidemic
Delusions I have to now speak. The word “epidemic” simply
means something that falls upon, as it were, the great mass of the
people—a delusion which affects the popular mind. And I
believe that I can best introduce the subject to you by showing
you how, in certain merely physical conditions, mere bodily
states, there is a tendency to the propagation, by what is com
monly called imitation, of very strange actions of the nervous
system. I suppose there is no one of you who does not know
what an hysteric fit means; a kind of fit to which young women are
especially subject, but which affects the male sex also. One
reason why young women are particularly subject to it is that in
the female the feelings are more easily excited, while the male
generally has a less mobile nervous system, his feelings being less
easily moved, while he is more influenced by the intellect. These
hysteric fits are generally brought on by something that strongly
affects the feelings. Now, it often happens that a case of this sort
presents itself in a school or nunnery, sometimes in a factory
where a number of young women are collected together; one
being seized with a fit, others will go off in a fit of a very similar
kind. There was an instance a good many years ago in a factory in
a country town in Lancashire, in which a young girl was attacked
with a violent convulsive fit, brought on by alarm, consequent
upon one of her companions, a factory operative, putting a mouse
down inside her dress. The girl had a particular antipathy to
mice, and the sudden shock threw her into a violent fit. Some of
�99
the other girls who were near very soon passed off into a similar
fit; and then there got to be a notion that these fits were pro
duced by some emanations from a bale of cotton; and the conse
quence was that they spread, till scores of the young women were
attacked day after day with these violent fits. The medical man
who was called in saw at once what the state of things was;
he assured them in the first place that this was all nonsense about
the cotton; and he brought a remedy, in the second place, which
was a very appropriate one under the circumstances—namely, an
electrical machine; and he gave them some good violent shocks,
which would do them no harm, assuring them that this would
cure them. And cure them it did. There was not another
attack afterwards.—I remember very well that when I was a
student at Bristol, there was a ward in the hospital to which it was
usual to send young servant girls; for it was thought undesirable
that these girls should be placed in the ward with women of a
much lower class, especially the lower class of Irish women
who inhabited one quarter of Bristol, as I believe there is
an Irish quarter in Manchester. These girls were mostly
respectable, well-conducted girls, and it was thought better
that they should be kept together. Now the result of this
was that if an hysteric fit took any one of them, the others would
follow suit; and I remember perfectly well, when I happened to
be a resident pupil, having to go and scold these girls well,
threatening them with some very severe infliction. I forget what
was threatened; perhaps it would be a shower bath, for
anyone who went off into one of these fits.
Now here the
cure is effected by a stronger emotion, the emotion of the dread of—
we will not call it punishment—but of a curative measure ; and this
emotion overcame the tendency to what we commonly call imitation.
It is the suggestion produced by the sight of one, that brings on
the fit in another, where there is the pre-disposition to it.—Now
I believe that in all these cases there is something wrong in the
general health or in the nervous system; or the suggestion would
not produce such results. Take the common teething fits of children.
We there see an exciting cause in the cutting of the teeth ;
the pressure of the tooth against the gum being the immediate •
cause of the production of convulsive action. But it will not do
so in the healthy child. I feel sure that in every case where
there is a teething fit, of whatever kind, there is always some un
healthy condition of the nervous system—sometimes from bad
food; more commonly from bad air. I have known many instances
in which children had fits with every tooth that they cut, yet
�TOO
when sent into the country they had no recurrence of the fit.
There must have been some predisposition, some unhealthy
condition of the nervous system, to favour the exciting cause,
which, acting upon this predisposition, brings out such very un
pleasant results.
There are plenty of stories of this kind that I might relate to
you. For instance, in nunneries it is not at all uncommon, from
the secluded life, and the attention being fixed upon one subject,
one particular set of ideas and feelings—the want of a healthv
vent, so to speak, for the mental activity—that some particular
odd propensity has developed itself.
For instance, in one
nunnery abroad, many years ago, one of the youngest nuns
began to mew like a cat; and all the others, after a time, did
the same.
In another nunnery one began to bite, and the
others were all affected with the propensity to bite.
In
one of these instances the mania was spreading like wild
fire through Germany, extending from one nunnery to
another; and they were obliged to resort to some such severe
measures as I have mentioned to drive it out. It was set
down in some instances to demoniacal possession, but the devil
was very easily exorcised by some pretty strong threat on
the part of the medical man. The celebrated physician, Boerhaave,
was called in to a case of that kind in an orphan asylum in
Holland, and I think his remedy was a red-hot iron. He heated
the poker in the fire, and said that the next girl who fell into one
of these fits should be burnt in the arm; this was quite sufficient
to stop it. In Scotland at one time there was a great tendency to
breaking out into fits of this kind in the churches. This was
particularly the case in Shetland; and a very wise minister there
told them that the thing could not be permitted, and that the next
person who gave way in this manner—as he was quite sure they
could control themselves if they pleased— should be taken out and
ducked in a pond near. There was no necessity at all to put his
i threat into execution. Here, you see, the stronger motive is
substituted for the weaker one, and the stronger motive is suffi
cient to induce the individual to put a check upon herself. I have
said that it usually happens with the female sex, though sometimes
it occurs with young men who have more or less of the same
constitutional tendency.
What is necessary is to induce a
stronger motive, which will call forth the power of self-control
which has been previously abandoned.
Now this tendency which here shows itself in convulsive
movements of the body, will also show itself in what we may call
�IOI
convulsive action of the Mind; that is, in the excitement of violent
feelings and even passions, leading to the most extraordinary mani
festations of different kinds. The early Christians, you know,
practised self-mortification to a very great degree; and con
sidered that these penances were so much scored up to the credit
side of their account in heaven,—that, in fact, they were earning
a title to future salvation by self-mortification. Among other
means of self-mortification, they scourged themselves. That was
practised by individuals. But in the middle ages this disposition
to self-mortification would attack whole communities, especially
under the dominant idea that the world was coming to an end.
In the middle of the 13th century, about 1250, there was this
prevalent idea that the world was coming to an end; and whole
communities gave themselves up to this self-mortification by whip
ping themselves. These Flagellants went about in bands with
banners, and even music, carrying scourges ; and then, at a given
signal, every one would strip off the upper garment (men, women,
and children joined these bands), and proceed to flog themselves
very severely indeed, or to flog each other. This subsided for a time,
but it broke out again during and immediately after that terrible
plague which is known as the “ black death,” which devastated
Europe in the reign of Edward III., about the year 1340. This black
death seems to have been the Eastern Plague in a very severe
form, which we have not known in this country since the great
plague of London in Charles II.’s time, and one or two smaller
outbreaks since, but which has now entirely left us. The severity
of this plague in Europe was so great that upon a very moderate
calculation one in four of the entire population were carried off by
it; and in some instances it is said that nine-tenths of the people
died of it. You may imagine, therefore, what a terrible inflic
tion it was. And you would have supposed that it would
have called forth the better feelings of men and women generally;
but it did not. One of the worst features, morally, of that terrible
affliction, was the lamentable suspension of all natural feelings
which it seemed to induce. When any member of a family was
attacked by this plague, every one seemed to desert him, or desert
her; the sick were left to die alone, or merely under the charge
of any persons who thought that they would be paid for rendering
this service; and the funerals were carried on merely by these paid
hirelings in a manner most repulsive to the feelings : and yet the
very people who so deserted their relatives would join the bands
of flagellants, who paraded about from place to place, and even
from country to country,—mortifying their flesh in this manner for
�t02
'the purpose of saving their own souls, and, as they said, also
making expiation for the great sins which had brought down this
terrible visitation. This system of flagellation never gained the
same head in this country that it did on the Continent. A band
of about ioo came to London about the middle of the reign of
Edward III., in the year 1350. They came in the usual style,
with banners and even instruments of music, and they paraded
the streets of London. At a given signal every one lay down and
uncovered the shoulders, excepting the last person, who then
flogged every one till he got to the front, where he lay down ; and
the person last in the rear stood up, and in his turn flogged every
one in front of him. Then he went to the front and lay down;
and so it went on until the whole number had thus been flogged,
each by every one of his fellows. This discipline, however,
did not approve itself to the good citizens of Londofl,
and it is recorded that the band of flagellants returned without
having made any converts. Whether the skins of the London
citizens were too tender, or whether their good sense prevailed
over this religious enthusiasm, we are not informed; but at any
rate the flagellants went back very much as they came, and the
system never‘took root in this country; yet for many years it was
carried on elsewhere. One very curious instance is given of the
manner in which it fastened on the mind—that mothers actually
scourged their new-born infants before they were baptised, believing
that in so doing they were making an offering acceptable to God.
Now all this appears to us perfectlyabsurd. We can scarcely imagine
the state of mind that should make any sober, rational persons
suppose that this could be an offering acceptable to Almighty
God; but it was in accordance with the religious ideas of the
time; and for a good while even the Church sanctioned and
encouraged it, until at last various moral irregularities grew up, of
a kind that made the Pope think it a very undesirable thing, and
it was then put down by ecclesiastical authority; yet it was still
practised in secret for some time longer, so that it is said that
even until the beginning of the last century there were small
bands of flagellants in Italy, who used to meet for this self
mortification.
That was one form in which a dominant idea took
possession of the mind and led to actions which might be
called voluntary, for they were done under this impression, that
such self-mortification was an acceptable offering. But there were
other cases in which the action of the body seemed to be in a very
great degree involuntary, just about as involuntary as an hysteric
�i°3
fit, and yet in which it was performed under a very distinct idea;
such was what was called the “ Dancing Mania,” which followed
upon this great plague. This dancing mania seemed in the first
instance to seize upon persons who had a tendency to that complaint
which we now know as St. Vitus’s dance—St. Vitus was in fact the
patron saint of these dancers. St. Vitus’s dance, or chorea, in the
moderate form in which we now know it, is simply this, that there
is a tendency to jerking movements of the body, these movements
sometimes going on independently of all voluntary action, and
sometimes accompanying any attempt at voluntary movement; so
that the body of a person may be entirely at rest until he
desires to execute some ordinary movement, such as lifting his
hand to his head to feed himself, or getting up to walk;
then, when the impulse is given to execute a voluntary movement,
instead of the muscles obeying the will, the movement is compli
cated as (it were) with violent jerking actions, which show that there
is quite an independent activity. The fact is that stammering
is a sort of chorea. We give the name of chorea to this kind of
disturbance of the nervous system, and the action of stammering
is a limited chorea—chorea limited to the muscles concerned in
speech, when the person cannot regulate the muscles so as to
bring out the words desired; the very strongest effort of his will can
not make the muscles obey him, but there is a jerking irregular
action every time he attempts to pronounce particular syllables.
And' the discipline that the stammerer has to undergo in order to
cure or alleviate his complaint is just the kind of discipline I have
spoken of so frequently—the fixing the attention on the object to
be gained, and regularly exercising the nerves and muscles in pro
ceeding from that which they can do to that which they find a
difficulty in doing. That is an illustration of the simpler form of
this want of definite control over the muscular apparatus, connected
with a certain mental excitement; because everyone knows that
a stammerer is very much affected by the condition of his feelings
at the time. If, for example, he is at all excited, or if he appre
hends that he shall stammer, that is enough to produce it. I have
known persons who never stammered in ordinary conversation,
yet when in company with stammerers they could scarcely
avoid giving way to it; and even when the subject of
stammering was talked about, when the idea was conveyed to
their minds, they would begin to hesitate and stutter, unless
they put a very strong control upon themselves. It is just
in this way, then, only in the most exaggerated form, that these
persons were afflicted with what was called the dancing mania.
�104
They would allow themselves to be possessed with the idea that
they must dance; and this dancing went on, bands going from
town to town, and taking in any who would join them.
Instances are recorded in which they would go on for twenty-four
or thirty-six hours, continually jumping and dancing and exerting
themselves in the most violent manner, taking no food all this
time, until at last they dropped on the ground almost lifeless;
and in fact several persons, it is said, did die from pure
exhaustion, and this just because they were possessed with the
idea that they must dance. They were drawn in, as it were, by the
contagion of example; and when once they had given way to it,
they did not seem to know when to stop. This was kept up by
music and by the encouragement and excitement of the crowd
around; and it spread amongst classes of persons who (it might
be supposed) would have had more power of self-restraint, and
would not have joined such unseemly exhibitions. The extraor
dinary capacity, as it were, for enduring physical pain, was one of
the most curious parts of this condition. They would frequently
ask to be struck violently; would sometimes lie down and beg
persons to come and thump and beat them with great force.
They seemed to enjoy this.—In another case that I might mention
this was shown still more. The case was of a similar type, but
was connected more distinctly with the religious idea, and it
occurred much more recently. The case was that knovvn in
medical history as the Convulsionnaires of St. Medard. There was a
cemetery in Paris in which a great saint had been interred, and some
young women visiting his tomb had been thrown into a convulsive
attack which propagated itself extensively; and these convulsiunnaires spreading the contagion, as it were, into different classes
of French society, one being seized after another till the number
became very great in all grades. Here, again, one of the
most curious things was the delight they seemed to take in
what would induce in other persons the most violent physical
suffering. There was an organised band of attendants, who went
about with clubs, and violently beat them. This was called the
grand secours, which was administered to those who were subject
to these convulsive attacks. You would suppose that these violent
blows with the clubs would do great mischief to the bodies of
these people; but they only seemed to allay their suffering.
This, then, is another instance of the mode in which this
tendency to strange actions under the dominance of a particular
idea will spread through a community. Here you have the direct
operation of the perverted mind upon the body. But there are a
�Io5
great many cases in which the perversion shows itself more in the
mental state alone, leading to strange aberrations of M ind, and
ultimately to very sad results in the condition of society
where these things have spread, but not leading to anything
like these convulsive paroxysms. I particularly allude now to
the epidemic belief in Witchcraft, which, more or less, formerly
prevailed constantly amongst the mass of the population, but
every now and then broke out with great vehemence. This
belief in witchcraft comes down to us from very ancient
periods; and at the present time it is entertained by the lowest
and most ignorant of the population in all parts of the world.
We have abundant instances of it still, I am sorry to say, in our
own community. We have poor ignorant servant girls allowing
themselves to be—if I may use such a word—“ humbugged ” by
some designing old woman, who persuades them that she can
oredict the husbands they are to have, or tell where some article
that they have lost is to be found, and who extracts money from
them merely as a means of obtaining a living in this irregular
way, and I believe at the bottom rather enjoying the cheat.
Every now and then we hear of some brutal young farmer who
has pretty nearly beaten to death a poor old woman, whom he
suspected of causing a murrain amongst his cattle. This is what
we know to exist amongst the least cultivated of the savage
nations at the present time, and always to have existed. But we
hope that the progress of rationalism in our own community, will,
in time, put an end to this, as it has in the middle and upper
ranks of society during the last century or century and a half.
It is not very long since almost everyone believed in the
possession of these occult powers by men and women, but
especially by old women. This belief has prevailed generally in
countries which have been overridden by a gloomy fanaticism in
religious matters. I speak simply as a matter of history. There
•s no question at all that this prevailed where the Romish
Church was most intolerant, especially in countries where the
Inquisition was dominant, and its powers were exerted in
snch a manner as to repress free thought and the free exercise
of feeling; and, again, where strong Calvinism has exercised an
influence of exactly the same kind—as in Scotland, a century and
a half ago, and in New England, where there was the same kind of
religious fanaticism. It is in these communities that belief in
witchcraft has been most rife, has extended itself most generally,
and has taken possession of the public mind most strongly;
and the most terrible results have happened. Now I will
�io6
only cite one particular instance, that of New England, in
the early part of the last century and the end of the century before.
Not very long after the settlement of New England, there was a
terrible outbreak of this belief in witchcraft. It began in a family,
the children of which were out of health; and certain persons whom
they disliked were accused of having bewitched them. Against these
persons a great deal of evidence that we should now consider most
absurd was brought forward, and they were actually executed: and
some of them under torture, or under moral torture,—for it was not
merely physical torture that was applied ; in many cases it was the
distress and moral torture of being so accused, the dread, even if
found not guilty, of being considered outcasts all their lives, or of
being a burden to their friends,—made confessions which any
sober person would have considered perfectly ridiculous; but
under the dominant idea of the reality of this witchcraft,
no one interfered to point out how utterly repugnant to
common sense these confessions were, as well as the testimony
that was brought forward. And this spread to such a degree
in New England, one person being accused after another,
that at last, even those who considered themselves God’s
chosen people began to feel, “ our turn may come next;”
they then began to think better of it, and so put an end
to these accusations, even some who were under sentence being
allowed to go free; and to the great surprise of those who were
entirely convinced of the truth of these accusations, this epidemic
subsided, and witchcraft was not heard of for a long time after
wards; so that the belief has never prevailed in New England from
that time to the present, excepting amongst the lowest and most
ignorant class. In Scotland, these witch persecutions attained to
a most fearful extent during the seventeenth century. They were
introduced into England very much by James I., who came to
England possessed by these ideas, and he communicated them to
others, and there were a good many witch persecutions during his
reign. After the execution of Charles I., and during the time of
the Commonwealth and the Puiitans, there were a good many
witch persecutions; but I think after that, very little more was
heard of them. And yet the belief in witchcraft lingered for a
considerable time longer. It is said that even Dr. Johnson was
accustomed to remark, that he did not see that there was any
proof of the non-existence of witches ; that though their existence
could not be proved, he was not at all satisfied that they did not
exist. John Wesley was a most devout believer in witchcraft, and
said on one occasion that if witchcraft was not to be believed, we
�107
could not believe in the Bible. So you see that this belief had a
very extraordinary hold over the public mind. It was only the
most intelligent class, whose minds had been freed from prejudice by
general culture, who were really free from it; and that cultivation
happily permeated downwards, as it were; so that now I should
hope there are very few amongst our intelligent working class in
our great towns—where the general culture is much higher than it is
in the agricultural districts—who retain anything more than the
lingering superstition which is to be found even in the very highest
circles—as, for instance, not liking to be married on a Friday, or
not liking to sit down thirteen at the dinner table. These are
things which even those who consider themselves the very
aristocracy of intellect will sometimes confess to, laughing at it all
the time, but saying, “ It goes against the grain, and I would
rather not do it.” These, I believe, are only lingering super
stitions that will probably pass away in another half century, and
we shall hear nothing more of them; the fact being that the
tendency to these delusions is being gradually grown out of.
Now this is the point I would especially dwell upon. To the
child-mind nothing is too strange to be believed. The young child
knows nothing about the Laws of Nature; it knows no difference
between what is conformable to principles, and what, on the other
hand, is so strange that an educated man cannot believe it. To
the child every new thing that it sees is equally strange; there
is none of that power of discrimination that we acquire in the
course of our education—the education given to us, and the edu
cation that we give ourselves. We gradually, in rising to adult
years, grow out of this incapacity to distinguish what is strange
from what is normal or ordinary. We gradually come to feel—■
“ Well, I can readily believe that, because it fits in with my general
habit of thought; I do not see anything strange in this, although
it is a little unusual.” But, on the other hand, there are certain
things we feel to be too strange and absurd to be believed; and
that feeling we come to especially, when we have endeavoured to
cultivate our Common Sense in the manner which I described to
you in my last lecture. The higher our common sense—that is,
the general resultant of the whole character and discipline of our
minds—the more valuable is the direct judgment that we form by
the use of it. And it is the growth of that common sense, which
is the most remarkable feature in the progress of thought during
the last century. The discoveries of science; the greater ten
dency to take rational and sober views of religion; the general
habit of referring things to principles ; and a number of influences
�ic8
which I cannot stop particularly to describe, have so operated on
the public mind, that every generation is raised, I believe, not
merely by its own culture, but bytheacquired result of the experience
of past ages ; for I believe that every generation is born, I will
not say wiser, but with a greater tendency to wisdom. I feel per
fectly satisfied of this, that the child of an educated stock has a
much greater power of acquiring knowledge than the child of an
uneducated stock; that the child that is the descendant of a
race in which high moral ideas have been always kept before the
mind, has a much greater tendency to act uprightly than the child
that has grown up from a breed that has been living in the gutter
for generations past. I do not say that these activities are born
with us; but the tendency to them,—that is the aptitude of mind
for the acquirement of knowledge, the facility of learning, the
disposition to act upon right principles,—I believe is, to avery great
degree, hereditary. Of course we have lamentable examples to
the contrary, but I am speaking of the general average. I am
old enough now to look back with some capacity of observation
for 40 years; and I can see in the progress of society a most
marked evidence of the higher general intelligence, the greater
aptitude for looking at things as they are, and for not allowing
strange absurd notions to take possession of the mind; while,
again, I can trace, even within the last ten years, in a most
remarkable manner, the prevalence of a desire to do right things for
the right’s sake, and not merely because they are politic. And I am
quite sure that there is a gradual progress in this respect, which
has a most important influence in checking aberrations of the
class of which I have spoken.
Still we see these aberrations; and there is one just now
which is exciting a good deal of attention,—that which you
have heard of under the name of “ Spiritualism.” Now I look
upon the root of this spiritualism to lie in that which is a very
natural, and in some respects, a wholesome disposition of the
kind—a desire to connect ourselves in thought with those whom
we have loved and who are gone from us. Nothing is more
admirable^ more beautiful, in our nature than this longing for the
continuance of intercourse with those whom we have loved on
earth. It has been felt in all nations and at all times, and we all
of us experience it in regard to those to whom we have been most
especially attached. But this manifestation of it is one which
those who experience this feeling in its greatest purity and its
greatest intensity feel to be absurd and contrary to common sense—
that the spirits of their departed friends should come and rap upon
�109
tables and make chairs dance in the air, and indicate their presence
in grotesque methods of this kind. The most curious part of it is
that the spirits should obey the directions of the persons with
whom they profess to be in communication,—that when they say
“ rap once if you mean yes, and rap twice if you mean no/’ and so
on, they should just follow any orders they receive as to the
mode in which they will telegraph replies to their questions. It
seems to me repugnant to one’s common sense; but the higher
manifestations of these spiritual agencies seem to me far more
repugnant to common sense; and that is when persons profess
to be able to set all the laws of nature at defiance; when
it is said, for instance, that a human being is lifted bodily up into
the air and carried, it may be, two or three miles, and descends
through the ceiling of a room. One of the recent statements of
this kind, you know, is that a certain very stout and heavy lady
was carried a distance of about two miles from her own house, and
dropped plump down upon the table round which eleven persons
were sitting; she came down through the ceiling, they could not
state how, because they were sitting in the dark; and that dark
ness has a good deal to do with most of these manifestations.
Now let us analyse them a little. I am speaking now of what I
will call the genuine phenomena—those which happen to persons
who really are honest in their belief. I exclude altogether, and
put aside the cases, of which 1 have seen numbers, in which there
is the most transparent trickery, and in which the only wonder is
that any rational persons should allow themselves to be deceived
by it.
I have paid a great deal of attention during the last twenty
years to this subject, and I can assure you that I have, in many
instances, known things most absurd in themselves, and most
inconsistent with the facts of the case as seen by myself and other
sober-minded witnesses, believed in by persons of very great
ability, and, upon all ordinary subjects, of great discrimination.
But I account for it by the previous possession of their minds
by this dominant idea—the expectation they have been led to
form, either by their own earnest desire for this kind of com
munication, or by the sort of contagious influence to which
some minds are especially subject. I say “the earnest desire,”
for it is a very curious thing that many of those who are the
most devout spiritualists are persons who have been themselves
previously rather sceptical upon religious matters; and many have
said to me that this communication is really the only basis of
their belief in the unseen world. Such being the case, I cannof
H
�no
wonder that they cling to it with very strong and earnest feeling.
A lady, not undistinguished in the literary world, assured me
several years ago that she had been converted by this spiritualism
from a state of absolute unbelief in religion; and she assured me,
also, that she regarded medical men and scientific men, who
endeavoured to explain these phenomena upon rational principles,
and to expose deception, where deception did occur, as the
emissaries of Satan, who so feared that the spread of spiritualism
would destroy his power upon earth, that he put it into the minds
of medical and scientific men to do all that they could to prevent
it. Now that, I assure you, is a fact. That was said to me by a
lady of considerable literary ability, and I believe it represents,
though rather extravagantly, a state of mind which is very preva
lent; the great spread of the intense materialism of our age
tending to weaken, and in some instances to destroy, that
healthful longing which we all have, I believe, in our innermost
nature, for a higher future existence, and which is to my mind one
of the most important foundations of our belief in it. We live
too much in the present; we think too much of the things of the
world as regards our material comfort and enjoyment, instead of
thinking of them as they bear upon our own higher nature.
I believe that this tendency, which I think is especially noticeable
in America—or at least it was a few years ago—from all that I
was able to learn, had a great deal to do with the spread of this
belief in what is called Spiritualism. The spiritualists assert that
in America they are numbered by millions, that there are very
tew people of any kind of intellectual culture who have not
either openly or secretly given in their adhesion to it. I believe
that is a gross exaggeration; still there can be no doubt from the
number of periodicals they maintain, and the advertisements in
them of all kinds of strange things that are done—spirit drawings
made, drawings of deceased friends, and spiritual instruction given
of various kinds—that there must be a very extended belief in
this notion of communication with the unseen world through
these “ media.”
I can only assure you for myself that having, as I have said,
devoted considerable attention to this subject, I have come to
the conclusion most decidedly, with, I believe I may say, as little
prepossession as most persons, and with every disposition to seek
for truth simply—to allow for our knowledge, or I would rather
say for our ignorance, a very large margin of many things that
are beyond our philosophy—with every disposition to accept facts
when I could once clearly satisfy myself that they were facts—I
�Ill
have had to come to the conclusion that whenever I have been
permitted to employ such tests as I should employ in any scientific
investigation, there was either intentional deception on the part
of interested persons, or else self-deception on the part of persons
who were very sober-minded and rational upon all ordinary affairs
of life. Of that self-deception I could give you many very curious
illustrations, but the limits of our time will prevent my giving you
more than one or two. On one occasion I was assured that on
the evening before, a long dining table had risen up and stood a
foot high in the air, in the house in which I was, and to which I
was then admitted for the purpose of seeing some of these mani
festations by persons about whose good faith there could be no
doubt whatever. I was assured by them—“ It was a great pity
you were not here last night, for unfortunately our principal
medium is so exhausted by the efforts she put forth last night
that she cannot repeat it.” But I was assured upon the word of
three or four who were present, that this table had stood a foot
high in the air, and remained suspended for some time, without any
hands being near it, or at any rate with nothing supporting it;
the hands might be over it. But I came to find from experiments
performed in my presence, that they considered it evidence of the
table rising into the air, that it pressed upward against their hands;
—that they did not rest upon their sense of sight; for I was
looking in this instance at the feet of the table, and I saw that
the table upon which the hands of the performers were placed,
and which was rocking about upon its spreading feet, really never
rose into the air at all. It would tilt to one side or to the other side,
but one foot was always resting on the ground. And when they
declared to me that this table had risen in the air, I said, “ I am
very sorry to have to contradict you, but I was looking at the feet
of the table all the time, and you were not; and I can assert most
positively that one of the feet never left the ground. Will you
allow me to ask what is your evidence that the table rose into the
air?” “Because we felt it pressing upwards against our hands.”
I assure you that was the answer I received; their conclusion that
the table rose in the air being grounded on this, that their hands being
placed upon the table, they felt, or they believed, that the table was
pressing upwards against their hands, though I saw all the time that
one foot of the table had never left the ground. Now that is what we
call a “subjective sensation;” one of those sensations which arise
in our own minds under the influence of an idea. Take for
instance the very common case—when we sleep in a strange bed,
it may be in an inn that is not very clean, and we begin to be a
�112
little suspicious of what other inhabitants there may be in that
bed; and then we begin to feel a “ creepy, crawly” sensation about
us, which that idea will at once suggest. Now those are subjective
sensations; those sensations are produced by the mental idea.
And so in this case I am perfectly satisfied that a very large
number of these spiritual phenomena are simply subjective
sensations; that is, that they are the result of expectation on
the part of the individual. The sensations are real to them.
You know that when a man has suffered amputation of his leg,
he will tell you at first that he feels his toes, that he feels his limb;
and, perhaps to the end of his life, every now and then he
will have this feeling of the limb moving, or of a pain in it;
and yet we know perfectly well that that is simply the result
of certain changes in the nerve, to which, of course, there
is nothing answering in the limb that was removed. These subjec
tive sensations, then, will be felt by the individuals as realities, and
will be presented to others as realities, when, really, they are
simply the creation of their own minds, that creation arising out
of the expectation which they have themselves formed. These
parties believed that the table would rise ; and when they felt the
pressure against their hands, they fully believed that the table was
rising.
Take the case of Table-turning, which occurred earlier. I
dare say many of you remember that epidemic which preceded
the spiritualism; in fact, the spiritualism, in some degree, arose
out of table-turning. My friend, the chairman (Dr. Noble), and
I hunted in couples, a good many years ago, with a third friend,
the late Sir John Forbes, and we went a great deal into these
inquiries; and I very well remember sitting at a table with him,
I suppose 25 years ago, waiting in solemn expectation for the
turning of the table; and the table went round. This was simply
the result of one of the party, who was not influenced by
the philosophical scepticism that we had on the subject, having
a strong belief that the phenomenon would occur; and when he
had sat for some time with his hands pressed down upon the
table, an involuntary muscular motion, of the kind I mentioned
in my last lecture, took place, which sent the table turning.
There was nothing to the Physiologist at all difficult in the under
standing of this. Professor Faraday was called upon to explain
the table-turning, which many persons set down to electricity; but
he was perfectly satisfied that this was a most untrue account of
it, and that the explanation was (as, in fact, I had previously
myself stated in a lecture at the Royal Institution) that the move-
�T13
merits took place in obedience to ideas. Movements of this class
are what I call “ideo-motcr,” or reflex actions of the brain; and the
occurrence of these movements in obedience to the idea entertained
is the explanation of all the phenomena of table-turning. Pro
fessor Faraday constructed a very simple testing apparatus, merely
two boards, one over the other, and confined by elastic bands, but
the upper board rolling readily upon a couple of pencils or small
rollers; and resting on the lower board was an index, so arranged
that a very small motion of this upper board would manifest
itself in the movement of the index through a large arc. He
went about this investigation in a thoroughly scientific spirit.
He first tied together the boards so that th°y could not move one
upon the other, the object being to test whether the mere inter
position of the instrument would prevent the action. He had
three or four of these indicators prepared, and he put them down on
the table so fixed that they would not move. He then put the hands
of the table turners on these; and it was found, as he fully expected,
that the interposition of this indicator under their hands did not
at all prevent the movement of the table. The hands were resting
on the indicator; and when their involuntary pressure was exerted,
the friction of the hands upon the indicators, and of the indicators
upon the table, carried round the table just as it had done before.
Now if there had been anything in the construction of the instrument
to prevent it, that would not have happened. Then he loosened the
upper board and put the index on, so that the smallest motion of
the hands upon the board would manifest itself, before it would
act on the table, in the movement of the index; and it was found
that when the parties looked at the index and watched its indica
tions, they were pulled up as it were, at the very first involuntary
action of their hands, by the knowledge that they were exerting this
power, and the table then never went round. One of the strangest
parts of this popular delusion was, that even after this complete
exposure of it by Faraday, there were a great many persons, includ
ing many who were eminently sensible and rational in all the
ordinary affairs of life, who said—“O, but this has nothing at all to
do with it It is all very well for Professor Faraday to talk in this
manner, but it has nothing at all to do with it. We know that we
are not exerting anypressure. His explanation does not at all apply
to our case.”
But then Professor Faraday’s table-turners
were equally satisfied that they did not move the table, until
the infallible index proved that they did. And if any one of
these persons who know that they did not move the table,
were to sit down in the same manner with those indicators, it
�H4
would have been at once shown that they did move the table.
Nothing was more curious than the possession of the minds of
sensible men and women by this idea that the tables went round
by an action quite independent of their own hands ; and not only
that, but that really, like the people in the dancing mania, they
must follow the table. I have seen sober and sensible people
running round with a table, and with their hands placed on it, and
asserting that they could not help themselves—that they were
obliged to go with the table. Now this is just simply the same
kind of possession by a dominant idea, that possessed the dancing
maniacs of the middle ages.
Then the Table-talking came up. It was found that the table
would tilt in obedience to the directions of some spirit, who was
in the first instance (I speak now of about 20 years ago) always
believed to be an evil spirit. The table talking first developed
itself in Bath, under the guidance of some clergymen there, who
were quite satisfied that the tiltings of the table were due to the
presence of evil spirits. And one of these clergymen went further,
and said that it was Satan himself. But it was very curious that
the answers obtained by the rappings and tiltings of the tables
always followed the notions of the persons who put the questions.
These clergymen always got these answers as from evil spirits, or
satisfied themselves that they were evil spirits by the answers they
got. But, on the other hand, other persons got answers of a
very different kind; an innocent girl for instance, asked the
table if it loved her, and the table jumped up and kissed her.
A gentleman who put a question to one of these tables got
an extremely curious answer, which affords a very remarkable
illustration of the principle I was developing to you in the
last lecture—the unconscious action of the brain. He had
been studying the life of Edward Young the poet, or at least had
been thinking of writing it; and the spirit of Edward Young
announced himself one evening, as he was sitting with his sisterin-law,—the young lady who asked the table if it loved her. Edward
Young announced himself by the raps, spelling out the words in
accordance with the directions that the table received. He asked,
“Are you Young the poet?” “Yes.” “The author of the
‘ Night Thoughts ?’ ” “ Yes.” “ If you are, repeat a line of his
■poetry.” And the table spelt out, according to the system of
telegraphy which had been agreed upon, this line :—
“ Man is not formed to question but adore.”
He said, “ Is this in the ‘ Night Thoughts ?’ ” “ No.”
“ Where
�XI5
is it?” “J O B.” He could not tell what this meant He
went home, bought a copy of Young’s works, and found that in the
volume containing Young’s poems there was a poetical commen
tary on Job which ended with that line. He was extremely
puzzled at this; but two or three weeks afterwards he
found he had a copy of Young’s works in his own library,
and was satisfied from marks in it that he had read that
poem before.
I have no doubt whatever that that line
had remained in his mind, that is in the lower stratum of it;
that it had been entirely forgotten by him, as even the possession of
Young’s poems had been forgotten ; but that it had been treasured
ap as it were in some dark corner of his memory, and had
come up in this manner, expressing itself in the action of the table,
just as it might have come up in a dream.
These are curious illustrations, then, of the mode in which
the minds of individuals act when there is no cheating at all,—
this action of what we call the subjective state of the individual
dominating these movements; and I believe that that is really
the clue to the interpretation of the genuine phenomena. On
the other hand, there are a great many which we are assured
of—for instance, this descent of a lady through the ceiling,—
which are self-delusions, pure mental delusions, resulting from
the preconceived idea and the state of expectant attention
in which these individuals are. Here are a dozen persons sitting
round a table in the dark, with the anticipation of some extraordi
nary event happening. In another dark seance one young lady
thought she would like to have a live lobster brought in, and
presently she began to feel some uncomfortable sensations, which
she attributed to the presence of this live lobster; and the fact is
recorded that two live lobsters were brought in ; that is, they
appeared in this dark seance—making their presence known, I sup
pose, by crawling over the persons of the sitters. But that is all
we know about it—that they felt something—they say they
were two live lobsters, but what evidence is there of that ?—the
seance was a dark one. We are merely told that the young lady
thought of a live lobster; she said they had received so many
flowers and fruits that she was tired of them, and she thought of
two live lobsters; and forthwith it was declared that the live
lobsters were present. I certainly should be much more satisfied
with the narration, if we were told that they had made a supper off
these lobsters after the stance was ended.
Now it has been my business lately to go rather care
fully into the analysis of several of these cases, and to inquire
�Ii6
into the mental condition of some of the individuals who have re
ported the most remarkable occurrences. I cannot—it would not
be fair—say all I could say with regard to that mental condition ;
but I can only say this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the result
of my previous studies upon the subject, viz., that there is nothing too
strange to be believed by those who have once surrendered their
judgment to the extent of accepting as credible things which com
mon sense tells us are entirely incredible. One gentleman says he
glories in not having that scientific incredulity which should lead
him to reject anything incredible merely because it seems incredible.
I can only say this, that we might as well go back to the state of
childhood at once, the state in which we are utterly incapable of
distinguishing the strange from the true. That is a low and
imperfect condition of mental development; and all that we call
education tends to produce the habit of mind that shall enable us
to distinguish the true from the false—actual facts from the
creations of our imagination. I do not say that we ought to reject
everything that to us, in the first instance, may seem strange. I
could tell you of a number of such things in science within your
own experience. How many things there are in the present day
that we are perfectly familiar with—the electric telegraph, for
instance—which fifty years ago would have been considered per
fectly monstrous and incredible.
But there we have the
rationale. Any person who chooses to study the facts may
at once obtain the definite scientific rationale; and these things
can all be openly produced and experimented upon, expounded
and explained. There is not a single thing we are asked
to believe of this kind, that cannot be publicly exhibited.
For instance, in this town, last week, I saw a stream of molten
iron coming out from a foundry; I did not see on this occasion,—
but the thing has been done over and over again,—that a man
has gone and held his naked hand in such a stream of molten iron,
and has done it without the least injury; all that is required being
to have his hand moist, and if his hand is dry he has merely to
dip it in water, and he may hold his hand for a certain
time in that stream of molten iron without receiving any
injury whatever. This was exhibited publicly at a meeting
of the British Association at Ipswich many years ago, at
the foundry of Messrs. Ransome, the well known agricultural
implement makers. It is one of the miracles of science, so to
speak; they are perfectly credible to scientific men, because
they know the principle upon which it happens, and that principle
is familiar to you all—that if you throw a drop of water upon hot
�”7
iron, the water retains its spherical form, and does not spread upon
it and wet it. Vapour is brought to that condition by intense heat,
that it forms a sort of film, or atmosphere, between the hand and
the hot iron, and for a time that atmosphere is not too hot to be
perfectly bearable. There are a number of these miracles of
science, then, which we believe, however incredible at first sight
they may appear, because they can all be brought to the test of
experience, and can be at any time reproduced under the neces
sary conditions. Houdin, the conjurer, in his very interesting
autobiography—a little book I would really recommend to any of
you who are interested in the study of the workings of the mind,
and it may be had for 2s.—Houdin tells you that he himself
tried this experiment, after a good deal of persuasion; and he says
that the sensation of immersing his hand in this molten metal was
like handling liquid velvet. These things, I say, can be exhibited
openly—above board ; but these Spiritual phenomena will only
come just when certain favourable conditions are present—con
ditions of this kind, that there is to be no scrutiny—no careful
examination by sceptics; that there is to be every disposition
to believe, and no manifestation of any incredulity, but the most
ready reception of what we are told. I was asked some years ago
to go into an investigation of the Davenport Brothers ; but then I
was told that the whole thing was to be done in the dark, and that I
was to join hands and form part of a circle; and I responded
to the invitation by saying that in all scientific inquiries I
considered the hands and the eyes essential instruments of
investigation, and that I could not enter into any inquiry, and
give whatever name I possess in science to the result of it, in
which I was not allowed freely to use my hands and my eyes. And
wherever I have gone to any of these Spiritual manifestations, and
have been bound over not to interfere, I have seen things which,
I feel perfectly certain, I could have explained, if I had only been
allowed to look under the table, for instance, or to place my leg in
contact with the leg of the medium. And it has been publicly stated
within the last month, that the very medium whom I suspected
strongly of cheating on an occasion of this kind, was detected in
the very acts which I suspected, but which I was not allowed to
examine. I cannot then go further into this inquiry at the
present time; but I can only ask you to receive my assurance
as that of a scientific man, who has for a long course of years been
accustomed to investigate the curious class of actions to which I
have alluded, and which disguise themselves under different names.
A great number of the very things now done by persons professing
�n8
to call themselves Spiritualists, were done 30 years ago, or pro
fessed to be done, by those who call themselves “Mesmerists;”
thus the lifting of the whole body in the air was a thing that was
asserted as possible by mesmerists, as is now done by Mr. Home
and his followers. These things I say, crop up now and then,
sometimes in one form, sometimes in another; and it is the same
general tendency to credulity, to the abnegation of one’s Common
Sense, that marks itself in every one of these epidemics.
Thus, then, we come back to the principle from which we
started—that the great object of all education should be to give
to the mind that rational direction which shall enable it to form an
intelligent and definite judgment upon subjects of this kind,
without having to go into any question of formal reasoning upon
them. Thus, for example, is it more probable that Mr. Home
floated out of one window and in at another, or that Lord
Lindsay should have allowed himself to be deceived as to a matter
which he admits only occurred by moonlight I That is the question
for common sense. I believe, as I stated just now, that the
tendency to the higher culture of the present age will manifest
itself in the improvement of the next generation, as well as of our
own ; and it is in that hope that I have been encouraged on this
and other occasions to do what I could for the promotion of that
desire for self-culture, of which I see so many hopeful manifes
tations at the present day. When once a good basis is laid by
primary education, I do not see what limit there need be to—I
will not say the learning of future generations—but to their wisdom,
for wisdom and learning are two very different things. I have
known some people of the greatest learning, who had the least
amount of wisdom of any persons who have come in my way.
Learning, and the use that is made of it, are two very different things.
It is the effort to acquire a distinct and definite knowledge
of any subject that is worth learning, which has its ultimate effect,
as I have said, upon the race, as well as upon the individual.
But there are great differences, as to their effects upon the mind,
among different subjects of study; and I have long been of opinion
that those studies afford the best discipline, in which the mind is
brought into contact with outward realities,— a view which has
lately been put forth with new force by my friend Canon Kingsley.
You know that Canon Kingsley has acquired great reputation as an
historian. He held the Professorship of History at the University
of Cambridge for many years, and, in fact, has only recently with
drawn from it. Canon Kingsley also early acquired a considerable
amount of scientific culture, and he has always been particularly
�ng
fond of Natural History. Now he lately said to the working men
of Bristol that he strongly recommended them to cultivate Science,
rather than study History; having himself almost withdrawn from
the study of history, for this reason, that he found it more and more
difficult to satisfy himself about the truth of any past event; whilst,
on the other hand, in the study of science, he felt that we were
always approaching nearer to the truth. A few days ago I was
looking through a magazine article on the old and disputed
question of Mary Queen of Scots, which crops up every now and
then. She is once more put upon her trial. Was Mary Queen
of Scots a vicious or a virtuous woman ? The question will be
variously answered by her enemies and by her advocates; and I
believe it will crop up to the day of doom, without ever being
settled. Now, on the other hand, as we study scientific truth, we
gain a certain point, and may feel satisfied we are right up to that
point, though there may be something beyond; while the elevation
we have gained enables us to look higher still. It is like
ascending a mountain; the nearer we get to the top, the clearer
and more extensive is the view. I think this is a far better
discipline to the mind than that of digging down into the dark
depths of the past, in the search for that which we cannot hope ever
thoroughly to bring to light. It so happened that only a fortnight
ago I had the opportunity of asking another of our great historians,
Mr. Froude, what he thought of Canon Kingsley’s remark. He
said, “ I entirely agree with itand in some further conversation
I had with him on the subject, I was very much struck with
finding how thoroughly his own mind had been led, by the very
important and profound researches he has made into our history,
to the same conclusion—the difficulty of arriving at absolute
truth upon any Historical subject. Now we do hope and believe
that there is absolute truth in Science, which, if not at present
in our possession, is within our reach; and that the nearer we
are able to approach to it, the clearer will be our habitual per
ception of the difference between the real and the unreal, the
firmer will be our grasp of all the questions that rise in the ordinary
course of our lives, and the sounder will be the judgment we form
as to great political events and great social changes. Especially
will this gain be apparent in our power of resisting the contagious
influence of “ Mental Epidemics.”
��THE PROGRESS OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
A LECTURE,
By Professor
Roscoe,
F.R.S.,
Delivered in the Town Hall, Salford, December igth, 1871.
Under, the Auspices of
Manchester and Salford Sanitary
Association.
the
The recent illness of the Prince of Wales may be said for
several reasons to have been a good thing for the country;
and, especially, because it has called attention, and that in a
most marked manner, to sanitary matters. We cannot take
up a newspaper now but we see it filled with letters on sewers and
sewer gases. One suggests that every bad smell may bring to us
typhoid fever, or some other disorder; whilst in another we read
that these fears are mere illusions, and that in towns where there
is a great deal of dirt, and -where the ordinary rules of health are
universally disobeyed, none of those dreadful ills occur which are
painted so gloomily. Now, it is important that we should get to
know as much as we can respecting the truth of these two assertions,
so that on the one hand we may not be frightened with the idea
that whenever we smell a bad odour we are sure to take typhoid
fever; nor yet, on the other hand, be lulled into a false repose
with regard to these matters, and think that sanitary laws
can be broken with impunity. Equally false are both these points
of view; and it is with the intention of pointing out some few
of the distinct facts which science has been able to accumulate
respecting the laws of health that I now address you.
In the first place, of the importance of the science of health
there can be no doubt, Everybody wishes to be healthy, and
�t2I
everybody, when he thinks of it at any rate, wishes to avoid such
things as might bring him disease and suffering. How to preserve
the health is not, however, so clear. For the most part men live
in ignorance of those laws of health by which their action should
be guided ; and if we are asked how we should act under certain
conditions, or whether such and such a state of things is an
unhealthy one, many of us are unable to answer the question.
One reason of this is the complicated and changing nature
of the requirements. For instance, a man who lives under
one set of physical circumstances will have to obey one
set of laws of health; whilst men living under different
circumstances will have to observe quite other laws in order to be
healthy. The red Indian, roaming over the prairies, has to look
out for altogether different dangers from those which surround us
who live in crowded cities, where, perhaps, one thousand persons
in some districts live on an acre. That the science of health is
really less developed and less known than many other sciences
lies, then, in the fact that it is more complicated than these other
sciences, and a little reflection will show you why this is so. Thus,
we find that enormous effects are produced by very minute causes;
and this is the case not only when we catch a fever or a particular
disease, without really being able to tell how we have caught it, or
being able to assign to it any origin whatever; but we also find
that this often holds good when we know that we are introducing
a disease, as, for example, by the vaccine lymph, which, when
introduced into the blood, though it be but the smallest particle on
the point of a needle, produces a very extraordinary and valuable
change on the human body. This, I say, shows us that the effect
which is produced is enormously larger than the cause—larger not
only than the apparent cause, but larger than the real cause. Hence,
then, one great difficulty of determining these questions; and
hence it is that men have lived for so many generations, and for
so many hundreds and thousands of years, without having
obtained even an imperfect knowledge of these subjects ; for
it is evident that we are only just at the threshold of know
ledge as regards these matters; we are merely groping in the
dark, and gradually getting hold of facts here and facts there and
putting them together, in order to lay the foundation of this science
of health of which we all stand so much in need.
If we look back we find that in the olden time, we see that when
ever disease and epidemics broke out and spread over the country
without apparent cause, the people attributed these afflictions to the
visitation of God, or in heathen countries to the work of some
�12 2
offended deity; and even now, in our times and in civilised countries,
we find people who ought to know better wearing charms against
certain evils, fancying that they will keep away disease. The first
idea, then,we must get rid ofin our investigationastomattersofhealth
is this notion that disease is brought about by something indefinite
and intangible, something which we must call upon the spirits of
darkness or the spirits of light to deliver us from. We must first
admit that there is a tangible cause for disease, a cause which we
shall probably be able to find if we seek for it properly; but, at any
rate, whether we find it or not, that a cause exists. It would be
useless to attempt investigation unless we believed that there is a
cause for every disease, and for every changing condition of the
body which may occur. Very well, then, the first question is : can
we arrive at such cause ; can we put our fingers upon any cause or
causes which do affect the general health of the community ?
There is no doubt that if we look back at the history of disease,
of epidemic disease especially, we shall find that the older epidemics,
such as the plague, the sweating-sickness, and a number of these
diseases, have, with the progress of time, gradually disappeared.
We no longer hear of the plague in our cities. You have all read
of the great plague of London in 1665, which was followed by the
great fire of London; and it is said that London never would have
been purified had it not been almost burnt down to the ground
after this visitation. But now a-days we do not hear of these out
breaks of plague, at least in this country, and this is, doubtless,
mainly to be attributed to general improvement in the style of
living, and to care and cleanliness in getting rid of the impuri
ties which the body throws off. I mention this to show that these
epidemic diseases are in some way or other connected with causes
which are removable, or, at any rate, which may be mitigated.
Now, another fact that we have learned with regard to these 1
epidemics of olden time is that they were most felt, and the
mortality was always the greatest, amongst the poor, the dirty and
the degraded portion of the population; as a rule these people
suffered more than did those whose circumstances enabled them
to live in a better way. The general conclusion is therefore that
these epidemics are in some way assisted and abetted by dirt and
degradation, and that improvement in the condition and habits of
life of the people does either avert or lessen the virulence of these
outbreaks of epidemic disease. This is shown by a vast number
of facts; and the first that occurs to me is the case of the city of
Buenos Ayres. You are aware that the year before last a most
severe outbreak of yellow fever occurred in the large city of Buenos
�I23
Ayres, in the Brazils; and on investigation it was found that the
sanitary arrangements of that city were of the very lowest and
crudest character, that they had no drains, but only enormous
cesspools which were never emptied, and under their tropical sun
became festering masses of pollution and impurity. So strong
was the conviction that this outbreak was due to the unhealthy
arrangements of their city, that the authorities resolved to spend
an enormous sum, I believe something like four millions
sterling, on a complete system of drainage and water supply
for the city. They are going to remodel their whole arrange
ments, and do away with these festering nuisances, in the
belief, which I have no doubt will be justified by the result, that
they will thereby prevent such an outbreak in the future.
The question as to the mode in which an individual or a
community becomes infected divides itself into two distinct
branches of epidemic diseases. First we have to consider why the
epidemic comes at certain intervals; why, for instance, the cholera
never visited us before 1831, why it then disappeared and
after a lapse of years again breaks out? Next we have to ask how
is the disease propagated when it has once broken out. As
regards the first question I think we have as yet very little safe
ground from which to draw conclusions. That the march of the
cholera in a westerly direction can generally be traced and its
probable occurrence foretold is quite true, and that plausible
theories have been proposed to account for the possibility of the
existence oi cholera in certain countries at certain times is also true.
Still on the whole our knowledge on this quest on is of the
most incomplete character. Not so with regard to the second
part of our inquiry as to how this particular epidemic disease is
propagated. In an inquiry as to the cause of production
of any diseise, we may take it for granted that the material
causing the disease must be brought to the individual
either in the water we drink, or in the air we breathe, or in
the food we eat. I am not speaking now of what are termed
“ hereditary diseases,” whjch are of a totally different character,
and do not come into the class of those which can be removed by
sanitary improvements. Applying this principle to the case of
cholera, as being one of the best investigated of epidemics, we find
that the poisonous matter which is the cause of this disease is
very frequently, at any rate, taken with the water that is drank.
In order to make this matter clear to you I will only call your
attention to two or three cases of evidence as to the truth of the
statement. The first is from that given before the Royal
�124
Commission on the water supply of the metropolis, by Mr. Simon,
the medical officer of the Privy Council. Mr. Simon says :—
“ It is, I believe, a matter of absolute demonstration that in the
old epidemics, when the south side of London suffered so dread
fully from cholera, the great cause of the immense mortality there
was the badness of the water then distributed in those districts of
London. In the interval between the 1849 epidemic and the
1854 epidemic one of the two companies which supply the south
side of London had amended its source of supply; it had gone
higher up the river, and we at once lost a great part of the
mortality on that side of the river. But it was found that this
great difference did not prevail uniformly through the south side
of London, but was confined to those houses which were supplied
from the amended source. There was still a great mortality on
the south side of the river, but this belonged exclusively to the
houses which were still supplied with impure water.”
From a table given in the report from which I quote it is seen
that the number of deaths per thousand from cholera in the visita
tion of 1848, in the houses supplied by the Lambeth Company, was
12’5; at the next visitation the same houses lost only 37 ; that is
to say, that the rate had diminished by three-fourths; whilst in
the houses supplied by the Vauxhall Company the death rate at
the first visitation was n'8, and in the second visitation 13; so
that the death-rate had actually increased in the houses which
were supplied with water from the company which had not
mended its ways.
Another epidemic, that of 1866, only confirmed the conclu
sions drawn from previous experience, for Mr. Simon clearly
shows that the heavy mortality in this year fell in the east of
London, and was distinctly confined to a district supplied by
water drawn from a foul part of the river Lea and containing
sewage impurity.
A third instance is that singular case known as the Golden
Square case. In the course of five or six days, from the 30th
August, 1854, not less than about 500 persons died of cholera in a
district in London, round Golden Square, containing about 5,000
inhabitants. Upon investigation it was found that nearly all the
people who died had been drinking water from a pump in Broad
Street, which was thought to yield very excellent water, but was
afterwards found to communicate with a cesspool in an adjoining
house. These cases clearly prove that contaminated water may
produce cholera.
We will next take the disease from which the Prince of Wales
�I25
has suffered, and which is known as typhoid or enteric fever.
This disease is generally supposed to be caused either by drinking
impure water, or by breathing the foul gases generated in sewers ;
and it is said that 20,000 persons die annually from this
preventable disease. The preventable nature of this disease is so
generally acknowledged, that when an outbreak of typhoid fever
occurs in a district, the medical department of the Privy Council—
a most important department, and one which will become of greater
influence still, from the act of Parliament passed last session—
sends down a duly qualified medical man to inquire into the causes
of the origin and spread of such an epidemic outbreak. Dr.
Buchanan was sent down in September, 1867, to investigate the
cause of the outbreak of typhoid fever at Guildford. He reported
that a new well had been sunk to supply the higher part of
the town, and that water from this well was supplied to about
330 houses for one day only, the 17th August. On the 28th
of August there were several cases of typhoid fever in these
houses, although they are all situated in the highest and
healthiest district in the town. The number daily increased,
and there were in all about 500 cases and 21 deaths. With
three exceptions, all the persons attacked in August and Sep
tember had drank the water exceptionally supplied for one
day only—as just stated. It was subsequently found that a
sewer ran within ten feet of the well, and that the sewage leaked
through the joints of the brickwork and saturated the soil just
above the spring which supplied the well.
I might give you a great number of other instances of a
similar character. I will content myself by stating that Dr. Parkes,
the well known Professor of Sanitary Science in the medical
school at Netley, has collected a good deal of evidence as to
diseases which may be communicated by water, not only to
the troops, but among the civil population ; and he has made a
list of diseases, all of which may be communicated by means of
water, and amongst these he has collected many instances of
local outbreaks of typhoid fever arising from water impregnated
with typhoid sewage or possibly simple sewage. One case quoted
by Dr. Parkes is that of a young ladies’ school, where infiltration
of sewage into the well supplying the house with water was shown
to be the cause of a severe outbreak of typhoid fever.
These cases prove to us that epidemic diseases may be
produced and have been produced by drinking impure water.
Having assured ourselves of this, let us next see what chemistry
can tell us respecting our means of detecting whether the water
�126
used for drinking is pure or impure. You will understand that
the danger lies in the water being impregnated with animal
decomposing matter, and with sewage matters generally. Now, »
although, chemists, like other men, cannot do all that they would
like to do in these investigations, still they can do something;
and I wish to point out to you what chemistry can tell us respect
ing the purity or the impurity of such water. In the first place
let us clearly understand that neither the chemist, nor the
physician, nor the microscopist, nor the physiologist, can tell us
whether the water contains typhoid poison, or whether the water
contains cholera poison or whether the water contains the poison
of any other particular disease. There are no means of ascertain
ing this, even with the most poisonous exhalations from the
cholera patient, except it be the actual test of the action of the
poison on a human subject. The microscopist cannot detect, for
instance, in the rice water from a cholera patient, that there are any
particular germs of cholera poison in that offensive liquid; and
yet if the smallest quantity of it got into the digestive organs of a
man it would produce cholera. But although the chemist is
unable to do this, he is able to tell the difference between a pure
water and a water which contains animal impurity; and if the
water contains cholera poison, or the germs of typhoid, or of
some other disease, or simply animal excrementitious matter, it
is, I need scarcely tell you, unfit to drink; and the chemist can
help us to detect such matters.
Now what is it that the chemist can do in this respect?
You know that all animal matter makes a disagreeable smell
when it is burnt The difference between burning a feather
and burning a piece of wood is evident to your senses. Now,
this burnt feather smell is caused by the presence of a body
which the chemists call Nitrogen, which exists in the air, but
which also enters as a characteristic ingredient into all animal
matter. In this respect animal bodies differ irom the bodies
of vegetables. Now, when the decomposition of an animal
body occurs, the nitrogenous portions which are thrown off,
that is the liquid and the solid products, get into the sewers; ,
and if we can find in water a large quantity of this nitrogenous 4
animal matter, we may be certain that that water is not fit to
drink. I cannot explain to you to-night how the amount of
nitrogenous matter contained in water is ascertained; but if you
will look at these analyses taken from Professor Frankland’s
report on the Chemical Composition of the Lancashire rivers,
you will see what I mean.
�127
Composition of Lancashire Rivers.
Parts in 100,000.
Invell.
♦1
Total solid soluble...................
Organic carbon .......................
Organic nitrogen ...................
Ammonia ................................
Nitrogen as nitrates and nitrites
Total combined nitrogen .......
Chlorine....................................
Hardness temporary...............
Total hardness ........................
7-8
0*187
0*025
0*004
0*021
0*049
VI5
3'72
3‘72
Mersey.
2
3
7*62
55’8o
i’i73 0*222
0*332
O
o’74o 0*002
0*707 0*021
1*648 0*023
0’94
9’63
15’°4 4*61
15’°4 4*6i
4
39’5°
1231
o*6oi
0*622
0
1*113
—
10*18
10*18
Suspended Matter.
Organic ....................................
Mineral ....................................
Total ........................................
*1.
2.
3.
4.
The
The
The
The
0
0
0
2*71
2*71
5’42
0
0
0
__
—
—
Irwell near its source.
Irwell below Manchester.
Mersey, one of its sources.
Mersey below Stockport.
We have here the composition of Lancashire rivers taken from the
admirable report of the Rivers Pollution Commission. In the
first column you have the analysis of the river Irwell, that is of
the water taken at its source, where it is as pure as we could wish
water to be, being, in fact, very much like the pure water which
the Manchester corporation supply to us from the Derbyshire
hills. In the second column you have the composition of the
Irwell below Manchester. In the same way you will see the
composition of the Mersey at its source, and its composition
below Stockport. Let us confine ourselves to the Irwell. Now,
in the first place, you will notice that the total soluble matter, ot
that which is dissolved in the water, is very much more, as you
may imagine, when the Irwell gets below Manchester than it is at
its source. But this total soluble matter might be perfectly
innocuous; it might, for instance, be common salt, or carbonate
of lime, or gypsum, or any other substance which might not be
hurtful. But the next constituents which we find on this list are
most hurtful; these are the organic carbon and the organic
�12 8
nitrogen, and these are hurtful because they serve as a measure
of the vegetable or animal matter which the water contains.
Observe the difference in the two kinds of water. You see
that in the Irwell below Manchester there is nearly ten times
as much organic carbon as there is in the water when taken
at its source; and that there is more than ten times as much
organic nitrogen (derived solely from animal sources) below
Manchester as there is at its source. The next two substances
we have to notice are the ammonia and the nitrogen, as
nitrates and nitrites, both of which, although harmless in them
selves, are products of the oxidation of animal matter, and
therefore signs of previous pollution. The quantities of ammonia
and nitric acid in the pure Irwell water are almost nothing,
whilst below Manchester they are increased, you see, 300 or
400 times. If we next look at the total combined nitrogen
contained in the water, we find for 49 parts in the pure Irwell
water we have 1,648 parts in the impure water below Manchester !
Thus we see that by a chemical analysis of water, we can at once
detect by the organic, or albumenous nitrogen, whether it still con
tains animal impurity, and by the ammonia and nitric acid whether
the water has been polluted by animal matter which has since been
destroyed, or, by the absence of excessive quantities of these nitro
genous bodies, whether the water has never been in contact with
animal matter. It is thus possible to calculate by a very simple
process how much sewage has come into such a water. Let us,
for instance, take this one case. It is found that in 100,000 parts
of average London sewage there are 10 parts of nitrogen existing,
as ammonia and nitrates, derived from the oxidation of animal
matter. Now, supposing 100,000 parts of Irwell water was found to
contain 10 parts of nitrogen, we should say that the Irwell water is
just as strong as London sewage, that is, equal to the average com
position of the water taken out of London sewers. If it contained
five parts in 100,000, we should say that it was just half as strong ;
or we might then say there are just equal parts of pure water and
London sewage in the river Irwell. Now what is the amount we
find in the Irwell? We find that the nitrogen, as ammonia and
nitrates, as you see in that table, is 1'447 (°'74° + O7O7)«
Very well; now there is also a small quantity of nitrogen, as
ammonia and nitric acid, contained in rain water, but the quantity
is exceedingly small. If we therefore subtract the quantity which
is found in rain (viz., 0'032 part in 100,oco) from the quantity
which is found in the Irwell (viz., 1'447), we shall have the
quantity (1'415) which is due to the sewage impurity in the
�Irwell, and we can then easily calculate how much London sewage
this corresponds to. It evidently corresponds to 14,150 parts oi
London sewage. Thus you see that 100,000 parts of the Irwell
water below Manchester contain the quantity of nitrogenous
animal impurity which is contained in 14,150 parts of London
sewage ; in other words—so far as regards the animal impurity—
if you were to take 86 gallons of pure water and mix with them
14 gallons of London sewage, you would have the composition—
so far as animal impurity goes—of 100 gallons of Irwell water.
What I want to prove is that we have in this way a measure of
the impurity of water, so that when we have made our analysis we
can calculate how much previous sewage contamination the water
has undergone.
In diagram No. 2 you see the composition of the Manchester
Corporation water:—
Manchester Corporation Water, 1868,
Contains in 100,000 parts—
Total solid impurity .................................
Organic carbon ............................................
Organic nitrogen............................................
Ammonia.........................................................
Nitrogen, as nitrates and nitrites ...............
Total combined nitrogen ............................
Previous sewage contamination...................
Chlorine ........................................................
Temporary hardness ....................................
Permanent hardness ....................................
Total hardness................................................
6’20
0183
0'009
0'006
0-025
0'039
o'ooo
1'120
0'14
3'59
373
You see that there is no previous sewage contamination; but
in all river water we find from the drainage of houses or towns
previous sewage contamination ; and it is therefore possible for us
to make the prediction that in the visitation of cholera which this
country is almost sure to undergo next summer, Manchester will
pass nearly unscathed, while London, being still supplied by
river water, will suffer from the epidemic. The point I want you
to understand is that the chemist—thanks chiefly to the labours of
Professor Frankland—is now able to estimate this previous sewage
contamination.
Now, although I cannot show you how the amount of the
nitrogen is ascertained, I can show you in another way the dif-
�i3o
ference between Irwell water and our drinking water. In this glass
jar we have some pure water, as supplied to us by the Corporation
of Manchester. Here we have another clear-looking water, not
quite so nice and clear as the drinking water, but still a very
respectable water, which you might wish to drink and fancy that it
would not be so bad, though the taste might not be so nice as the
pure water. This is filtered water taken from the black stream
which flows past our doors—the river Irwell. I have here a red
liquid which will oxidise animal impurities and destroy them, and
thereby lose its own colour. You will find that one drop of this
coloured solution—permanganate of potash—will be sufficient to
colour this pure water, because there is no impurity in it which
requires oxidation. I will put in three drops, which will render
the water pink. Now I will take the Irwell water and add many
drops of the permanganate. Let us see what happens here.
This Irwell water, you see, soon becomes colourless, showing that
it contains organic matter capable of undergoing oxidation, and
therefore in a condition of decomposition or putrefaction, and
you see I have to add a considerable quantity yet until I get
a permanent pink colour. And, therefore, although this method
of testing water is not so accurate a one, or to be relied on
so implicitly as the determination of the nitrogenous impurity, yet
it is one which is of value, and which I have no difficulty in
making visible to you, thus demonstrating to the sight that the
clear Irwell water is impure.
There is still another means which chemists have of telling
whether water is pure, and that is by the presence of common
salt. Pure spring water ought to contain very little common
salt; but water which contains the infiltrations of sewage brings
in with it a large quantity of common salt derived from the urine.
Any water which contains more than one part of common salt in
100,000 is almost sure to have that salt brought in by sewage,
and will therefore be impure. This does not apply, of course, to
water flowing through salt districts. The springs and rivers
of Cheshire in some places contain large quantities of salt which
does not come from sewage; but I am speaking of places in
which there is no occurrence of rock salt. Thus you see that
we have three means of detecting and determining the amount
of organic impurity in water—first, the nitrogen; second, this
test with the red permanganate; and, thirdly, the presence ot
common salt; and it is clear that the chemist is able to detect
organic impurity in water, and to tell positively that such and such
a water is a pure one, and that such and such a water is an impure
�i31
one and unfit and dangerous or even fatal to drink; so that
although he is not able to say that a certain water contains
cholera poison, he is able to say that the water is poisonous.
Next about the air we breathe. You know that the air contains
oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid. Oxygen is the vital air. I
can show you very easily that air consists of two different things.
I take this glass cylinder, which is filled with air. This cylinder
contains five volumes of air. I will burn a bit of phosphorus
in it, and you will very soon see that the phosphorus will go
out. After a little while these white fumes will disappear, and
we shall see that we have not got as much air as we had before—
about four volumes will be left; we shall also see that the gas
which is left, called nitrogen, has different properties from
common air, inasmuch as a light will go out in the gas which
is left. The oxygen gas, which we use in breathing, is a
colourless invisible gas, in which bodies burn with far greater
brilliancy than they do in the air. If we take a little bit of
charcoal, for instance, and burn it in this oxygen, you will see
that it will burn much more brilliantly than it does in ordinary
air. Now besides these two gases—oxygen and nitrogen—we
have a third gas in the air, called carbonic acid gas. This gas is
given off whenever bodies such as charcoal, coal, or candles bum
in the air; it is also given off by our breathing, as you know. This
will be made evident if I blow into this lime water, which will
become turbid from the presence of this carbonic acid coming
from the lungs. Well, then, we have in the air the oxygen, or the
vital air ; the nitrogen, or the non-vital air; and the carbonic acid,
which we may call the choke damp. The carbonic acid plays a
very important part as regards plants, because it serves as their
food ; but it renders the air impure for the use of animals, and it
is produced by the combustion of bodies. That this is the case I
can show you by a very simple experiment. We have here
a lamp burning under a jar, and the products of the combustion
come out through this chimney. If I hold a clean plate of glass
above this aperture, you will see that a large quantity of
vapour of water comes out, the result of this burning of the
gas. There you see the glass is bedewed with moisture. Now let
us stop the door of our glass house with a piece of putty, and
observe what takes place. The flame, you see, becomes longer
and more smoky, and in a very short time it will go out, because
there is not a sufficient supply of oxygen to keep up the combus
tion ; and if we hold this glass plate over it now the plate does
not become bedewed with moisture, because there is no draught
�132
through the pipe, and no mode by which the vitiated air can
escape. This illustrates to you the principle of ventilation.
Wherever a candle can burn, there an animal can live; but
where the candle goes out, there as a rule the animal also goes out
and cannot live. Here you see the gas flame is very nearly gone
out I will now open the door again and let some fresh air in,
and I think in a short time that the flame will revive, and the
combustion go on much as before. Now the air that we give off
from our lungs is impure, because it contains carbonic air; a
candle cannot bum in it. You have all heard the story of the
Black Hole of Calcutta, and you know that when men are shut up in
a close room in which they cannot get any supply of fresh vital
air or oxygen, they cannot live, they are suffocated. I have
shown you that if we vitiate the air in this bell jar by contamina
ting it with carbonic acid gas, through the withdrawal of the
oxygen from it, the candle will not burn. The candle burns in
this jar which contains air, but if we now breathe this air once or
twice, you will observe the effect upon the combustion of the
candle. There, it has been breathed once ; now we will breathe
it once again. The candle now burns very dimly. With one
further breathing of the air we shall so diminish the quantity of
oxygen, and increase that of the carbonic acid, that the candle
will go out. Here, then, you see at once the necessity for the
ventilation of your rooms. All this has been long well known, and
1 only introduce these facts because they help to give you a general
notion of what chemistry tells us about the composition of the
air.
There is, however, still another constituent of the air of
still greater importance, as regards our health, even than this
carbonic acid, about which our knowledge is newer and less
perfect, and that is Organic Matter. You all know what we
mean by a “close room;” you all know that if you do not
sleep with your windows open, as you ought to do—if you sleep
with your windows shut, and especially if you have no fire-place
in your room, when you come back to the room from the fresh air,
before opening the window, you notice a disagreeable close
smell. That smell ought never to exist in the room; for it shows
that you have something there which is neither oxygen, nor nitrogen,
nor carbonic acid, inasmuch as all these gases have no smell ;
but it is organic matter—emanations from the bodies of
those who have slept in that room. These organic emanations
or substances existing in the air are most dangerous, and
do much towards spreading epidemic diseases, as far as
�13 3
the air is concerned. What does science teach us with
regard to this organic matter in the air? This, again, like
the organic matter in water, is not an easy matter to inves
tigate, and in many cases we are as yet quite in the dark
concerning its mode of action or constitution. Still it is not
difficult to show that organic matter is contained in the air,
and that some of these organic substances are gases and
some of them solid bodies. Thus if we look at the air of
our rooms when the sun is shining in upon it, what do we see ?
We see what we call “motes” dancing in the sunbeam. What
are those motes? They are finely divided bits of all sorts of
things—bits of skin, of the epidermis; bits of clothing ; dust
from the street; bits of stones and bits of iron—a thousand
different things, and all so small that they do not settle down in
the air—at any rate not for a long time—but continually dance up
and down as we see them in the sunbeam, and are as continually
being breathed in to our lungs. We do not see these motes when
the sun is not shining, not because they are not there, but because
they are too small to be seen except when the sunlight strikes
upon them and reflects the light back into our eye. That a
number of these little things are germs, seeds, or spores of various
kinds, has been proved by a great number of experiments. If we
wish to prove the organic nature of these particles, we may
collect this fine aerial dust by drawing air through something
upon which the dust can be filtered out, as upon a piece of
cotton wool; and if we then put this cotton wool with the dust
upon it into a solution of sugar, we find that that dusty cotton
wool can produce all sorts of changes in the sugar—changes which
do not occur if we keep out this dust, as we can do—and thus
we can show the production from the dust not only of living vege
tables but also of living animals. This experiment has been made by
our townsman, Dr. Angus Smith, than whom nobody has done more
to advance our knowledge concerning the organic matter in the air.
Dr. Angus Smith, as long ago as 1848, made the following experi
ment : he placed a little pure water in a glass bottle and took
it into a room where a number of people were present, and very
often shook this water up with the air in the bottle, pumping in a
fresh supply of air and shaking it up again many hundred times.
He then, with his friend Mr. Dancer, examined the nature of the
water which was in the bottle, and they found that this -water,
after a little time, contained living animal organisms — little
vibrios, as they are termed—very minute, but still distinct animal
forms, which are well known to those who occupy themselves,
�r34
as Mr. Dancer has done, with the study of the very smallest and
lowest creatures, both animal and vegetable, which can only be
seen under the microscope. So that of the existence floating in
the air of these germs or eggs—if you like to call them so—of the
animals there can be no doubt. Now, then, comes the other
Question how far these little germs which exist in the air, can
produce disease ? About this, satisfactory evidence is, of course,
more difficult to obtain. It has not, so far as I know, been
positively proved that these little germs are always the cause of
disease, for in many cases the general dissemination of these
geims has proved compatible with a healthy condition of the
people; but that they may, and sometimes do, produce disease
we have abundant evidence to prove. Now the question to which
I wish again to direct your attention is, can the chemist determine
whether the air is pure or whether it is impure as regards these
organic matters? You will say, “we do not want the chemist
to do this, because we can smell when the air is impure.”
But the answer to this is, you cannot always smell when air is
impure any more than you can taste when water is impure; thus
the fever and ague-producing air of the marshes is quite free from
smell, and yet capable of giving rise to most serious diseases.
You therefore require something more than your unaided senses,
and the chemist can help in this matter; for although he cannot
tell whether there are germs present which will produce certain
diseases, he can tell whether there is or is not organic matter in
the air, and whether it exists in such quantity as to make the air
not fit to be breathed for any length of time. In this diagram
you see the amount of organic matter contained in the air, ac
cording to the experiments of Dr. Angus Smith :—
Relative Amount
of
Organic and Oxidizable Matter
Air.
in the
(Angus Smith.)
St. Bernard’s Hospice........................................
Hill in Lancashire ............................................
Lake in Lucerne................................................
At sea, 6o miles from land................................
Kew Gardens ....................................................
Finchley .............................................................
London, Waterloo steps....................................
London, Southwark Bridge ............................
2'8
2-8
1 ‘4
3’5
Io‘°
i5'c
42-0
55*o
�Dr. Angus Smith found in pure air—obtained from St. Bernard’s
Hospice, on one of the passes over the Alps—a very small
quantity (2-8 parts) of this organic matter; but in Manchester,
in the air of his own laboratory, he found 48 parts ; in the air
over the Lake of Lucerne 1’4; in the air of a pigstye 70; he goes
away to sea, and at 60 miles distance, finds 3^ parts; in the
Greenheys fields, with the wind blowing from Manchester, 40
parts
In the neighbourhood of towns he finds less impurity
than in towns themselves. Kew and Finchley air shows much
less than that taken from near London, Waterloo or Southwark
bridges, or from Lambeth. In Manchester, near one of the
sweet streams I have referred to, with its strong smell ot
putrefaction, be got as much as 73 parts of organic matter.
These numbers, you will understand, do not give absolute
quantities, but they show the difference of pure and impure air
as regards this organic matter.
We have heard a great deal lately about sewer gases, and there
is no doubt that not only is a general lowering of the tone of the
body produced by breathing air vitiated by the entry of sewer
gases into houses, but that actual danger to life ensues from the
bringing these impure gases, which may contain the germs of
specific disease, into our dwelling-houses. But I think we ought
to be careful, especially at the present moment, from letting the
impression get abroad, that wherever there is a bad smell we are
in danger of our lives. The public are very apt to run into extremes.
At one time they don’t think at all about the matter, but when
attention is called to the subject by such an event as the illness
of the Prince of Wales, they are apt to fancy that whenever they
perceive a bad smell they are sure to be dreadfully ill. Still,
as I have shown you, there is no doubt that organic germs
exist in the air, and that air coming into houses from sewers, by
bringing in these floating germs, must be a constant source of
danger, and may become a source of fatal disease. But that
effluvia and evil smells from decomposing animal matter are not
invariably, or even generally, accompanied by epidemic outbreaks
is a fact which common experience proves, though in localities
where such effluvia exists the epidemic poison, when it comes,
appears to find favourable ground for its growth, and the place at
once becomes a hotbed of disease. This view is confirmed by
the recent report issued by two very distinguished physicians, Drs.
Burdon Saunderson and Parkes, on the sanitary condition of
Liverpool.. They distinctly say, considering the high death rate in
the lowest parts of that town and finding that there has been no
�outbreak of typhoid fever, that they see no reason to attribute
that high death rate chiefly, if at all, to the escape of these sewer
gases into the houses : so that as far as Liverpool is concerned,
the blame of the high death rate does not seem to lie at the door
of the sewer gases.
I should wish next to bring before you a very remarkable
example of what exact scientific investigation can do to help us
to a knowledge of these most complicated and difficult questions
as to the causes of the propagation of epidemic disease. You
know that France is one of the great silk-producing countries;
and you know that the silk is spun by a small caterpillar or worm
that lives on mulberry leaves, and that it is reared largely in the
south of France. You are all, I dare say, also aware of the
changes which this silkworm undergoes—that the worm changes
its skin several times, and that, having attained a certain growth,
a peculiar secretion, which forms the silk, is produced inside the
animal, which then spins its cocoon and retires into the inside—
forming what we know as the chrysalis. After some time this
chrysalis appears as a moth, which lays its eggs and dies, and
a fresh generation of worms make their appearance from the eggs.
Now the value of the productions of the silk trade in France
is something enormous. In 1853 the silk produced in France
was worth 130 millions of francs. Unfortunately, soon after that
year a fatal epidemic, called pebrine, broke out amongst the silk
worms. Everything was done and every nostrum and contrivance
tried to stop this epidemic, but nothing succeeded, and the silk
worms continued to die. The peculiar symptoms of the disease
were that black spots came out all over the caterpillars, and their
silk secreting power was altogether lost. This went on until, in
1864, the value of the silk made in France amounted to only four
millions of francs; so that the disease caused a loss of about 100
millions of francs per annum. The worms—both the healthy and
stricken ones—had been carefully examined, and it was found
that when they died of this disease they were almost filled
with masses of little globular corpuscles, so that the place where
the silk ought to have been contained nothing but these disease
bringing globules. Nobody, however, could tell how to stop the
epidemic. It was found that sometimes, when the disease could
not be detected either in the egg or in the caterpillar (which spun
silk), the next generation of apparently healthy caterpillars which
came from apparently healthy moths became diseased, and pro
duced no silk. In short, the disease baffled all investigation.
But some time after this dreadful state ot things, the celebrated
�J37
French chemist, Pasteur, was asked to try what he could make
of it. Now Pasteur had previously paid great attention to this
particular subject of organic germinal matter in the air, and he
succeeded in fathoming the whole difficulty. He proved what the
disease was occasioned by, and showed how it might be prevented.
I will give you an idea how Pasteur found this out. In the first
place, I told you that the healthy caterpillar might produce
unhealthy moths, or moths that laid bad eggs; but Pasteur found
that this was because the particles of diseased matter existing in
the caterpillar supposed to be healthy were so small that they
could not be seen by the best microscopes. He investigated the
matter step by step with scientific precision, and he found that by
examining the moth instead of the caterpillar he could invariably
tell whether the moth was a sound moth and would lay sound
eggs, or whether it was an unsound moth and would lay unhealthy
eggs, which afterwards would give birth to a stricken or diseased
caterpillar. He proved this completely; and moreover he showed
that not only could he tell by examining the moth that these little
globules existed in the moth, although not apparent in the cater
pillar, but that the caterpillar could become infected, although it
did not receive the disease by transmission, by contact with
another unhealthy caterpillar. And in this way, by most care
fully guarding against a caterpillar becoming infected by a neigh
bouring one, and by most jealously taking care that all the moths
which laid eggs, or whose eggs were kept, were healthy moths, he
entirely got the disease under his control, and the result is that
the disease is now almost passing away. I will not take up youi
time now by reading, as I intended, a passage from his paper, but
I will simply say that in this way he was able to point out the
cause of the disease, and thus to prevent the great pecuniary loss
which France had been suffering. Here, then, you have a clear
case in which careful scientific examination was successful in
explaining a complicated and apparently insoluble difficulty; and
there can be little doubt that the application of similar methods
of exact investigation to the cases of other epidemic diseases will
in the end show that every such disease is capable of being, if not
altogether prevented, at any rate greatly lessened.
In conclusion I wish you to understand that, whatever progress
men of*science may make in the discovery of the cause of epidemic
disease, and however completely our imperial or municipal authori
ties may carry out preventive and curative measures founded upon
such discoveries, it rests in the end with the people to say whether
such measures shall be productive of good or whether they shall
�138
remain a dead letter without influence on the mass of the popula
tion. All the discoveries of science, all the care of our authorities
can avail nothing, when the people themselves are dirty, dissolute,
drunken, and degraded. This debased condition of the popula
tion is the most powerful cause of the high death rate of our
towns, and this at present far outweighs the evil effects produced
by drinking water contaminated with sewage, or by breathing air
rendered impure by sewer gases.
�II
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ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY (Four Lectures). By Professor
Roscoe, F.R.S.
ZOOLOGY; or, FOUR PLANS OF ANIMAL CREATION (Four
Lectures). By Thomas Alcock, M.D.
ON COAL: Its Importance in Manufacture and Trade. By Professor
W. Stanley Jevons, M.A.
ELEMENTARY PHYSIOLOGY (Four Lectures). By John Edward
Morgan, M.D. (Oxon.) .
Second Series.
CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. By Professor Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S.
SPECTRUM ANALYSIS. By Professor Roscoe, F.R.S.
SPECTRUM ANALYSIS IN ITS APPLICATION TO THE
HEAVENLY BODIES. By W. Huggins, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.
OUR COAL FIELDS. By W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., F.R.S.
CHARLES DICKENS. By A. W. Ward, Esq., M.A
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PAVING STONES. By Professor
Williamson, F.R.S.
THE TEMPERATURE AND ANTMAT, LIFE OF THE DEEP
SEA By Dr. Carpenter. F.R.S.
MORE ABOUT COAL. HOW COAL AND THE STRATA IN
WHICH IT IS FOUND WE^E FORMED. With Illustrated
Diagrams. By A. H. Green, M.A., F.G.S.
ON THE SUN. By J. Norman Lockyer, Esq., F.R.S.
Third Series.
In Stiff Paper Cover, price 9d. ; or separate, One Penny each.
YEAST. By Professor Huxley, LL. D., F. R. S.
COAL COLOUR8. By Professor Roscoe,F.R.S.
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. By Professor
Wilkins, M.A.
FOOD FOR PLANTS.. By Professor Odling, F.R.S.
THE UNCONSCIOUS ACTION OF THE BRAIN. By Dr. Car
penter, F.R.S.
ON EPIDEMIC DELUSIONS. By Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S.
ON THE PROGRESS OF SANITARY SCIENCE. By Professor
Roscoe, F.R.S.
Fourth Series.
In Stiff Paper Cover, price Is. ; or separate, One Penny eaoh.
THE RAINBOW. By Professor Roscoe, F.R.S.
THE ICE AGE IN BRITAIN. By Professor Geikie, F.R.S.
THE SUN AND THE EARTH. By Professor Balfour Stewart,
F.R.S.
ATOMS. By Professor Clifford, M.A., of Cambridge.
FLAME. By Professor Core.
THE LIFE OF FARADAY. By Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S.
THE STAR DEPTHS. By R. A. Proctor, F.R.A.S.
KENT’S CAVERN. By William Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S.
ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT ; or, PYRAMIDS VERSUS
THE SUEZ CANAL. By Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S.
ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES OF FARADAY. By — Barrett,
Esq,
Manchester: JOHN HEYWOOD, 141 and 143, Deansgate,
Educational Department, 141, Deansgate,
London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.; J. C. Tacey.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Science lectures delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, in the year 1871
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Huxley, Thomas Henry [1825-1895]
Roscoe, Henry Enfield, Sir [1833-1915]
Wilkins, Augustus Samuel [1843-1905]
Odling, William [1829-1921]
Carpenter, William Benjamin [1813-1885]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Manchester; London
Collation: [2, 1],138, [2] p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Science lectures for the people : third series
Notes: Contents: 1. Yeast / Professor Huxley.--2. Coal colours / Professor Roscoe.--3. The origin of the English people / Professor Wilkins.--4. The food of plants / Professor Odling.--5. The unconscious action of the brain / Dr Carpenter.--6. Epidemic delusions / Dr Carpenter.--7. The progress of sanitary science / Professor Roscoe. Publisher's advertisements ("John Heywood's educational works") on end papers, and on unnumbered pages at front and end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
John Heywood; Simpkin Marshall & Co.; F. Pitman
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1871
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N606
Subject
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Science
Health
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Science lectures delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, in the year 1871), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Brain
Coal
Epidemics
NSS
Plants-Nutrition
Sanitation
Science