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THE
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.
OCTOBER, 1873.
SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.1
By A. DE QUATBEFAGES.
TRANSLATED
BY
ELIZA
A.
YOUMANS.
ENTLEMEN : When your honorable director invited me to
speak before you, I felt much embarrassed. I desired both to
interest and instruct you, but the subjects with which I am occupied
are of too abstract a nature to offer you much interest. In entering
upon them I run the risk of tiring you, and, as people who are tired
are little instructed, my aim would be doubly missed.
However, among the animals I have studied, there is one which, I
think, will awaken your attention. I mean the silk-worm. Its history
is full of serious instruction. It teaches us not to despise a being be
cause, at first, it seems useless ; it proves that creatures, in ap
pearance the most humble, may play a part of great importance to the
world ; it shows us that the most useful things are often slow to attract
public attention, but that sooner or later their day of justice arrives.
It teaches us, consequently, not to despair when valuable ideas or
practical inventions are not at first welcomed as they should be, for,
though their triumph is delayed, it is not less sure.
Perhaps, also, in choosing this subject, I have yielded a little to
national egotism. I was born in that province which was the first in
France to understand the importance of the silk-worm ; which owes to
this industry, fertilized by study and management, a prosperity rarely
equalled, and which, of late cruelly smitten, bears its misfortunes with
a firmness worthy of imitation.
We are to speak, then, of industry, of studious care, of perseverance,
of courage ; I am certain that you will be interested.
Pemit me, at first, to make a supposition—what we call an hypoth
esis : what would you say if a traveller, coming from some distant
G
1 A lecture delivered at the Imperial Asylum at Vincennes.
vol. hi.—42
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
country, or a philosopher, who had found in some old book forgotten
facts, should tell you, “ There exists, in a country three or four thou
sand leagues from here, in the south of Asia, a tree and a caterpillar.
The tree produces nothing but leaves which nourish the caterpillar.”
To a certainty, most of you would say at first, “What of it?”
If the traveller or the man of learning should go on to say: “ But
this caterpillar is good for something; it produces a species of cocoon,
which the inhabitants know how to spin, and which they weave into
beautiful and durable fabrics. Would you not like to enter upon the
manufacture?” You would infallibly reply: “Have we not wool
from which to weave our winter vestments, and hemp, flax, and cotton,
for our summer clothing? Why should we cultivate this caterpillar'
and its cocoons ? ”
But suppose that the traveller or philosopher, insisting, should add:
“We should have to acclimate this tree and this caterpillar. The
tree, it is true, bears no fruit, and we must plant thousands of them,
for their leaves are to nourish the caterpillar, and it is necessary to
raise these caterpillars by the millions. To this end we must build
houses expressly for them, enlist and pay men to take care of them—
to feed them, watch them, and gather by hand the leaves on which
they live. The rooms where these insects are kept must be warmed
and ventilated with the greatest care. Well-paid laborers will pre
pare and serve their repasts, at regular hours. When the moment
arrives for the animal to spin his cocoon, he must have a sort of bower
of heather (Fig. 1), or branches of some other kind, properly prepared.
Sprigs of Heather
arranged so that the
Silk-worm
may mount into them.
And then, at the last day of its life, we must, with the minutest care
and the greatest pains, assure its reproduction.” Would you not
shrug your shoulders and say, “ Who, then, is such a madman as to
spend so much care and money to raise—what ?—some caterpillars ! ”
Finally, if your interlocutor should add—“ We will gather the co
coons spun by these caterpillars, and then the manufacture which spins
them will arise, which will call out all the resources of mechanics.
Still another new industry would employ this thread in fabricating
stuffs. The value of this thread, of these tissues, would be counted by
hundreds of millions for France alone; millions that would benefit
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
659
agriculture, industry, commerce; the producer and the artisan, the
laborer in the fields, and the laborer in towns. Our caterpillar and
its products will find a place in the elaborate treatises of states
men; and a time will come when France will think herself happy
that the sovereign of a distant empire, some four thousand leagues
away, had been pleased to permit her to buy in his states, and pay
very dear for, the eggs of this caterpillar ”—you would abruptly
turn your back and say, “ This man is a fool.” And you would
not be alone: agriculturists, manufacturers, bankers, and officials,
could not find sarcasms enough for this poor dreamer.
And yet it is the dreamer who is in the right. He has not
traced a picture of fancy. The caterpillar exists, and I do not ex
aggerate the importance of this humble insect, which plays a part
so superior to what seemed to have fallen to it. It is this of which
I wish to give you the history.
Let us first rapidly observe this animal, within and without. We
call it a silk-worm, but I have told you it was a caterpillar. (Fig. 7.)
I add that it has nothing marked in its appearance. It is larger
than the caterpillars that habitually prey upon our fruit-trees, but
smaller than the magnificent pearl-blue caterpillar so easy to find in
the potato-field. Like all caterpillars, it is is transformed into a but
terfly. To know the history of this species is to know the history of
all others.
Here in these bottles are some adult silk-worms, but here also
are some large pictures, where you will more easily follow the de
tails that I shall point out, beginning with the exterior.
At one of the extremities of its long, almost cylindrical body
(Fig. 7), we find the small head, provided with two jaws. These jaws
do not move up and down, as in man and most animals that surround
us, but laterally. All insects present the same arrangement.
The body is divided into rings, and you see some little black points
placed on the side of each of these rings ; these are the orifices of res
piration. The air enters by these openings, and penetrates the canals
that we shall presently find.
The silk-worm has ten pairs of feet. The three first pairs are
called the true feet, or scaly feet; the five last, placed behind, are the
false feet, or the membranous feet. These are destined to disappear
at length.
Let us pass to the interior of the body. Here we find, at first, the
digestive tube, which extends from one extremity to the other. It
commences at the oesophagus, that which you call the throat. Below
you remark an enormous cylindrical sac; it is the stomach, which is
followed by the very short intestine. These canals, slendei* and tor
tuous, placed on the side, represent, at the same time, the liver and
kidneys. This great yellow cord is the very important organ in which
is secreted the silky material (Fig. 2). In proportion as the animal
�66o
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
grows, this organ is filled with a liquid which, in passing through
the spinners, the orifice of which you see, dries in the air, and forms
a thread. This thread constitutes the silk.
The nervous system of the animal, placed below the digestive tube,
is with insects, as with all animals, of the highest importance. It is
the nervous system which seems to animate all the other organs, and
particularly the muscles. The latter are what we call flesh or meat.
They are in reality the organs of movement, with our caterpillar as
with man himself. Each of them is formed of elementary fibres that
have the property of contracting and relaxing; that is to say, of
shortening and lengthening under the influence of the will and of the
nervous system. Upon this property depend all the movements exe
cuted by any animal whatever.
Fig. 3.
Silk-secreting Apparatus of One Side of a Silk-worm. A, B, C, the part nearest the tail of
the worm.where the silk-matter is formed. D, E, enlarged portion—reservoir of silky matter.
E. F. capillary tubes proceeding from the two glands, and uniting in one single short canal F,
which opens in the mouth of the worm, at its under lip. Two silk threads are therefore
united together, and come out through the orifice with the appearance of a single thread.
I wish you to remark, d propos of the caterpillar—of this insect
that when crushed seems to be only a formless pulp—that its muscular
system is admirably organized. It is superior to that of man himself,
at least, in relation to the multiplicity of organs. We count in man
529 muscles; the caterpillar has 1,647, without counting those of the
feet and head, which give 1,118 more.
In us, as in most animals, there exists a nourishing liquid par ex
cellence that we know under the name of blood. This liquid, set in mo
tion by a heart, is carried into all parts of the body by arteries, and
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
661
comes back to the heart by veins. In making this circuit it finds on
its route the lungs filled with air by means of respiration.
In our caterpillar we also find blood and a species of heart, but it
has neither arteries nor veins. The blood is diffused throughout the
body and bathes the organs in all directions. However, it ought to
respire. Here step in the openings of which I have spoken. They
lead to a system of ramified canals, of which the last divisions pene
trate everywhere, and carry everywhere the air—that fluid essential
to the existence of all living beings. In our bodies the air and blood
are brought together. In insects the air seeks the blood in all parts
of the body.
I have sketched for you a caterpillar when it is full grown. But
you well know that living beings are not born in this state. The
general law is, small at birth, growth, and death. The caterpillar
passes through all these phases.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Egg and First Age, lasting five days. (An
age is the interval between two moultings.)
Second Age, lasting six days.
I pass around among you some samples of what we call seeds of
the silk-worm. These so-called seeds are in reality eggs. The cater
pillar comes out of the egg very small ; its length at birth is about
one-twentieth of an inch. Look at these samples, and you will see how
Fig. 6.
Fourth Age, lasting six days.
Fig. 7.
Fifth Age, lasting nine days. The mature worm near the end of its career, and at the time of
its greatest voracity.
great is the difference of size between the worm at birth and the fullgrown specimens I have shown you. This difference is much greater
than in man. A man weighs about forty times as much as the new
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
born infant; the caterpillar, when perfectly developed, is 72,000 times
heavier than when it first came from the egg.
In every thing that relates to the body, there is between men and
animals more resemblance than is ordinarily believed. We also come
from an egg which essentially resembles all others. That this egg
may become a man, it must undergo very great changes, many meta
morphoses. But all these changes, all these metamorphoses occur in
the bosom of the mother, as they are accomplished within the shell for
the chicken. For insects in general, and consequently for the silk-worm
a part of these metamorphoses occur in the open day. Hence they
have drawn the attention, excited the curiosity, and provoked for a
long time the study of naturalists. Let us say a few words about them.
Scarcely is the caterpillar born than it begins to eat. It has no
time to lose in gaining a volume 72,000 times greater than it had at
first; so it acquits itself conscientiously of its task, and does nothing
but eat, diges|, and sleep. At the end of some days this devouring
appetite ceases ; the little worm becomes almost motionless, hangs
itself by the hind-feet, raising and holding a little inclined the ante
rior of its body.
This repose lasts 24, 36, and even 48 hours, according to the tem
perature ; then the dried-up skin splits open behind the head, and
soon along the length of the body. The caterpillar comes out with a
new skin, which is formed during this species of sleep.
This singular crisis, during which the animal changes his skin as
we change our shirt, is called moulting, when it is a question of cater
pillars in general. For the silk-worm, we designate it under the name
of sickness. It is, in fact, for the silk-worm, a grave period, during
which it often succumbs, if its health is not perfect.
Fig. 8.
Head of Silk-worm during Moulting ;
swollen, and skin wrinkled.
Fig. 9.
Position of Silk-worm while Moulting.—It
remains at rest for from 12 to 24 hours, fast
ing, but begins to eat an hour after the crisis
in which it escapes from the old skin.
The silk-worms change their skin four times. After the fourth
moulting comes a redoubled appetite, which permits them to attain
their full size in a few days. Then other phenomena appear. The
caterpillar ceases to eat, and empties itself entirely ; it seems uneasy,
wanders here and there, and seeks to climb. Warned by these symp
toms, the breeder constructs for it with branches a cradle or bower, into
which it mounts. It chooses a convenient place, hangs itself by the hind
feet, and soon, through the spinner of which I have spoken (Fig. 2),
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
663
we see come out a thread of silk. This is at first cast out in any di
rection, and forms a collection of cords destined to fix the cocoon that
is to be spun. Soon the work becomes regular, and the form of the
cocoon is outlined. For some hours we can see the worker performing
his task across the transparent gauze with which he surrounds him
self. By little and little, this gauze thickens, and grows opaque and
firm; finally it becomes a cocoon like these I place before you. At
the end of about 72 hours the work is done.
Once it has given out its first bit of silk, a worm in good health
never stops, and the thread continues without interruption from one
end to the other. You see that the cocoon is in reality a ball wound
from the outside inward. The thread which forms this ball is 11 miles
in length; its thickness is only
of an inch. It is so light that 28
miles of it weigh only 15^ grains. So that 2| lbs. of silk is more
than 2,700 miles long.
Let me insist a moment on the prodigious activity of the silk-worm
while weaving his cocoon. To dispose of its silk when spinning, it
moves its head in all directions, and each movement is about one-sixth
of an inch. As we know the length of the thread, we can calculate
how many movements are made in disposing of the silk in 72 hours.
We find in this way that a silk-worm makes nearly 300,000 motions
in 24 hours, or 4,166 an hour, or 69 per minute. You see that our in
sect yields not in activity to any weaver ; but we must add that it is
beaten by the marvellous machines that the industry of our day has
produced.
Fig. 10.
Spherical Cocoon or Bombyx Mori.
Fig. 11.
Cocoon drawn in toward the Middle.
All cocoons are not alike. There exist, in fact, different races of
silk-worms, as we have different races of dogs. These differences are
less obvious in the animals themselves ; they are best seen in the co
coons, which may be either white, yellow, green, or gray; some are
round, others oval or depressed in the middle (Figs. 10 and 11).
The silk of one is very fine and very strong, that of others is coarse
and easily broken. Hence their very different values.
All I have said applies to the silk-worm properly so called—to the
silk-worm which feeds on the leaves of the mulberry-tree, the Bombyx
mori of naturalists. But, some years since, there were introduced
into France new species of caterpillars that produce cocoons, and
�664
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
that live upon other leaves than the mulberry. Among these new im
portations, the two principal ones are the yama-mai worm, which
comes from Japan, and feeds upon the leaves of the oak, and the
ailanthus worm. The first gives a very beautiful and very fine silk,
while that of the second is dull and coarse. But the ailanthus grows
very well in unproductive soils, and hence the caterpillar which it
nourishes renders an important service.
But let us return to our mulberry caterpillar, or the silk-worm
properly so called. We left it at the moment when it disappeared
from our eyes enveloped in its cocoon. There, in its 'mysterious re
treat, it becomes torpid once more. It now shortens itself, changes
form, and submits to a fifth moulting. But the animal which emerges
from the old skin is no longer a caterpillar. It is in some sort a new
being; it is what we call a chrysalis. This chrysalis scarcely reminds
us of the silk-worm. The body is entirely swaddled ; we no longer
see either head or feet (Fig. 14). The color is changed, and has be
come a golden yellow. Only by certain obscure movements of the
posterior part do we know that it is not a dead body.
This apparent torpor in reality conceals a strange activity in all
the organs and all the tissues, which ends in the transformation of the
entire being.
In fifteen or seventeen days, according to the temperature, this
work is accomplished, and the last crisis arrives. The skin splits on
the back; the animal moults for the last time, but the creature that
now appears is no longer a caterpillar or a chrysalis ; it is a butterfly
(Fig. 12).
Fig. 12.
Silk-worm Moth (Male).
Is it needful to explain the details of this wonderful metamorpho
sis ? The body, before almost all alike, presents now three distinct
regions: the head, the chest (thorax)^ the belly (abdomen). Wings,
of which there was not the least vestige, are now developed. In com
pensation, the hind-feet have disappeared. The fore-feet persist, but
you would not know them, they have become so slender, and a fine
down covers all the parts.
In the interior, the transformation is also complete. The oesopha
gus (throat) is no longer a simple reversed funnel ; it is a narrow,
lengthened tube, with an aerial vessel attached, of which the caterpil
lar offers no trace. The stomach is strangely shortened. The intes
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
665
tine is elongated, and its different parts, that we found so difficult to
distinguish, are very much changed. If we examine in detail all the
organs just now indicated, even to the nervous system, we shall find
modifications not less striking.
But these are not the strangest changes that have occurred. There
are others which still more arrest our attention; they are those which
relate to the production of a new generation.
All caterpillars are neuters—that is to say, there are no males orfe
males among them. They have no apparatus of reproduction. These
organs are developed during the period that follows the formation of
the chrysalis while the animal is motionless, and seemingly dead.
Marriages occur at the coming out from the cocoon, and, immediately
after, the female lays her eggs, averaging about 500 (Fig. 13). This
Fig. 13.
done, she dies, the male ordinarily dying first. It is a general law for
insects; the butterfly of the silk-worm does not escape it. It is even
more rigorous for him than for his brethren that we see flying from
flower to flower. From the moment of entering the cocoon, the silk
worm takes no nourishment. When it becomes a butterfly, and has
assured the perpetuity of the species, its task is accomplished; there
is nothing more but to die.
Such, briefly, is the natural history of the silk-worm. It remains
to trace rapidly its industrial history.
Whence came this insect ? What is its country and that of the
mulberry for the tree and the animal seem to have always travelled
side by side? Every thing seems to indicate that China—Northern
China is its point of departure. Chinese annals establish the exist
ence of industries connected with it from those remote and semifabulous times when the emperors of the Celestial Empire had, it is
said, the head of a tiger, the body of a dragon, and the horns of
cattle. They attribute to the Emperor Fo-IIi, 3,400 years before our
era, the merit of employing silk in a musical instrument of his own
�666
TIIE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
invention. This date carries us back 5,265 years. They are said to
have employed the silk of wild caterpillars, and to have spun a sort
of floss. At that time they knew nothing of raising the worm or of
winding the cocoon into skeins.
This double industry appears to have arisen 2,650 years before our
era, or 4,515 years ago, through the efforts of an empress named Siling-Chi. To her is attributed the invention of silk stuffs. You will
not be surprised to see that the fabrication of silks should have a
woman as its inventor.
Si-ling-Chi, in creating this industry, which was to be so immense
ly developed, enriched her country. Her countrymen seem to have
understood the extent of the benefit, and to have been not ungrateful.
They placed her among their deities, under the name of Sein-Thsan,
two words that, according to M. Stanislas Julien, signify the first who
raised the silk-worm. And still, in our time, the empresses of China,
with their maids-of-honor, on an appointed day, offer solemn sacrifices
to Sien-Thsan. They lay aside their brilliant dress, renounce their
sewing, their embroidery, and their habitual work, and devote them
selves to raising the silk-worm. In their sphere they imitate the Em
peror of China, who, on his part, descends once a year from his throne
to trace a furrow with the plough.
The Chinese are an eminently practical race. No sooner did they
understand that silk would be to them a source of wealth, than they
strove to obtain a monopoly of it. They established guards along
their frontier—true custom-house officers—with orders to prevent the
going qut of seeds of the mulberry or of the silk-worm. Death was
pronounced against him who attempted to transport from the country
these precious elements which enriched the empire. So, during more
than twenty centuries, we were completely ignorant of the source of
these marvellous goods—the brilliant tissues manufactured from silk.
For a long time we believed them to be a sort of cotton; some sup
posed even that they were gathered in the fields, and were the webs
of certain gigantic spiders. The price of silk continued so high that
the Emperor Aurelian, after his victories in the Orient, refused his
jvife a silken robe, as being an object of immoderate luxury, even for
a Roman empress.
A monopoly founded on a secret ought necessarily to come to an
end, particularly when the secret is known by several millions of men.
But, to export the industry of Si-ling-Chi, it was needful to risk life in
deceiving the custom-house officer. It was a woman who undertook
this fine contraband stroke. Toward the year* 140 before our era, a
princess of the dynasty of Han, affianced to a King of Khokan,
learned that the country in which she was destined to live had neither
the mulberry nor the silk-worm. To renounce the worship of SeinThsan, and doubtless also to do without the beautiful stuffs, so dear to
the coquette, appeared to hei' impossible. So she did not hesitate to use
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66?
the privileges of her rank to violate the laws of the empire. On ap
proaching the frontier, the princess concealed in her hair some mul
berry-seed and eggs of the butterfly. The guards dared not put their
hands on the head of a “ Princess of Heaven ; ” eggs and seeds passed
the officer without disturbance, and prospered well in Khokan, situated
near the middle of Asia.
And so commenced that journey which was not to be arrested till
the entire world possessed the mulberry and the silk-worm ; but it
was accomplished slowly and with long halts. That which had oc
curred in China occurred everywhere, each new state that obtained
the precious seeds attempting prohibition.
The silk-worm and mulberry got to Europe in 552, under Justinian.
At this time two monks of the order of St. Basil delivered to this em.peror the seeds, said to have come from the heart of Asia. To smug
gle them, they had taken still greater precautions than the Chinese
princess, for they hollowed out their walking-sticks, and filled the in
terior with the precious material. The Emperor Justinian did not
imitate the Asiatic potentates, but sought to propagate and extend
the silk-manufacture. Morea, Sicily, and Italy, were the first Euro
pean countries that accepted and cultivated the new products.
It was not till the twelfth or thirteenth century that the silk-worm
penetrated into France. Louis XI. planted mulberry-trees around his
Château of Plessis les-Tours. Besides, he called a Calabrian named
Francis to initiate the neighboring population in raising this precious
insect, and developing the several industries that are connected with it.
Under Henry IV., sericulture received a great impulse, thanks chiefly,
perhaps, to a simple gardener of Nîmes named François Traucat. It
is always said that this nurseryman distributed throughout the neigh
boring country more than four million mulberry-sprouts. In enrich
ing the country, Traucat acquired a considerable fortune ; but he lost
it foolishly. He had heard of treasures buried near a great castle
which commanded the town of Nîmes, and which is called the Castle
of Magne. He wished to increase the money he had nobly and use
fully gained, by this imaginary gold ; he bought the great castle and
neighboring ground, and dug the earth, which brought him nothing,
till he ruined himself.
The minister of Louis XIV., Colbert, sought also to propagate the
mulberry. Sully with reluctance had done the same, and sent trees
to various parts of the kingdom, some of which were still living when
I was a child. They were called by the name of this minister, and I
remember to have seen two of them in my father’s grounds, which no
longer bore leaves, but were piously preserved as souvenirs of their
origin.
To lead in the development of sericulture, a man was needed who
would not hesitate to set an example, and to make considerable sacri
fices. This man, I am proud to say, was a modest officer, Captain
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
François de Carles, my grandfather. Returning from a campaign in
Italy, where he had seen how much the culture of the mulberry en.
nched the population, he resolved to transplant this industry into the
heart of Cévennes, where were his estates. He proceeded in this way :
He made plantations, and, in order to extend them, he did not hesitate
to uproot the chestnuts, those old nourishers of the ancient Cévennols.
Fig. 14.
Larva, Pupa, Cocoon,
and
Moth, of Silk-worm.
To water the mulberries, he constructed ditches and aqueducts ; then
efoiced, so to say, the peasants to take these improved lands at
their own price and on their own conditions. In this way he alienated
almost all his land, and singularly diminished his fortune ; but he en
riched the country. The results speak too distinctly to be misunder
stood. You shall judge by the figures.
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
66g
The little valley where Captain Carles made his experiments, and
where I was born, belongs to the Commune of Valleraugue. At the
time of which I speak, they harvested scarcely 4,400 lbs. of very poor
cocoons, that sold for very little. Recently there were produced, before
the malady of which I shall presently speak, 440,000 lbs. of excellent
quality, valued on an average at 2| or 2| francs per pound. At this
price, a million of silver money found its way each year into this little
commune of not more than 4,000 inhabitants.
Let me remark that this money went not alone to the rich. The
small proprietors, the day-laborers, those even who owned not the
least land, had the greatest part. In fact, most of the easy proprie
tors did not raise their own silk-worms; they contracted for them in
this way: The laborer received a certain quantity of eggs of the silk
worm on the condition of giving a fifth of the cocoons for an ounce
of eggs ; they received, besides, enough mulberry-leaves to nourish
all the worms from these eggs, plus a certain quantity to boot. All
the cocoons above this constituted the wages or gain of the raiser.
You see, we had resolved in our mountains this problem, so often
encountered and still unsettled, of the association of capital and labor;
and resolved it in the best possible way for both. The interest of the
proprietor was, in this case, identical with that of the rearer, and re
ciprocally ; for the success of a good workman would equally benefit
both parties, and the poor workman could profit only according to his
work.
Now, this labor was in reality of little account. Until after the
fourth moulting, when the silk-worm is preparing to make his cocoon,
the rearing of the worms can be performed by the women and chil
dren while the father pursues his ordinary occupation. Only after the
fourth moult is he obliged to interrupt his work, and occupy himself,
in his turn, in the gathering of leaves. The rearing ended, an indus
trious family—and such are not rare with us—will have, on an average,
from 250 to 500 francs of profit. This bright silver, added to the re
sources of the year, this profit obtained without the investment of
capital, seconded by the wise conduct of our mountaineer Cevennols,
leads rapidly to competency. At the end of a few years, the laborer,
who had nothing, possesses a little capital to buy some corner of rock,
which, by his intelligent industry, he quickly transforms into fertile
soil, and in his turn becomes a proprietor.
What I am telling you is not fancy. I speak of facts that have
occurred under my own eyes, and that I well know. In the country,
and particularly on the soil of our old mountains, people are not
strangers to each other, as in our great cities. Between the gentle
man and the peasant there are not the same barriers as between the
citizen and the laborer in towns. When a child, I played with all my
little neighbors; I knew the most secret nooks of the eight or ten
houses composing the modest hamlet which bordered the place where
�670
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
I was born; I saluted by their names the members of all the families
of the valley. And now, when I go to the country, it is always a
great pleasure to visit these houses, one by one, and take by the hand
those from whom I have been so long separated. But this happiness
is always mingled with sorrow; the number of those I knew dimin
ishes with each visit, and those who have come since cannot replace
them for me.
Permit me to give you the history of one of these families. It
occurs to me first, as it contrasted with all the others by its miserable
dwelling. This was a little thatch-built cottage, standing by itself at
the foot of an irregular slope of perfectly bare rocks. It consisted of
a single story, with only one room, scarcely larger than one of our
bedrooms ; the wall, built without mortar, was any thing but regular;
the roof consisted of flags of stone, retaining, as well as they were
able, a mass of straw and branches. Between the rocks that sup
ported this house and the wall, there was a little place where was
kept a pig, the ordinary resource of all Cevennol house-keeping.
This cottage was occupied, when I was eleven or twelve years old,
by a man with his wife and four children. The father and mother
worked in the field ; the eldest child, scarcely of my age, had begun to
be useful, particularly in the time of gathering the mulberry-leaves ;
the smaller ones drove the pig along the road, where it grew and fat
tened, the best it could, without any expense.
After an absence of ten years, I returned to my mountains, and the
first thing was to call upon my old neighbors, those of whom I have
spoken among the rest. In approaching, I scarcely knew the place. The
rocks that supported the house had disappeared to make way for those
traversiers of which I shall tell you presently; the house had been re
built, it had gained a story, and was of double its former extent; its
walls were laid in mortar; its roof covered with beautiful slate. The
master of the house was absent, but his wife welcomed me with a glass
of wine from a neat walnut table. Then she showed me, with proper
pride, a room with two beds at the farther end, the first portion being
devoted to the rearing of silk-worms; and, above all, the favorite ar
ticle of furniture of all good Cevennol housekeeping—an immense
cupboard of walnut, crammed with clothing, dresses, and raiment
of all sorts. At the same time she gave me news of all the family :
the eldest son was a soldier; a daughter was married ; the eldest re
maining children attended to the business, and, as of old, the younger
ones ran about watching the pig. I clasped with pleasure the hand
of this brave woman, because this competence was the fruit of good
conduct, of industry, of perseverance, and of economy. And what
the silk-worm did in ten years for one family it has been doing for
nearly a century for the whole region of Cevennes, because among
them you generally find the same elements of success.
That you may better understand me, I wish to give you some idea
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SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
of these valleys. Let me sketch for you the one I know best, the one
in which I was born. It is composed of ascents so steep that, when
two neighboring houses are placed one above the other, the cellar of
the upper one is on the same level as the garret of the lower one.
There is not much earth on these declivities, and the rocks stick out
everywhere. But it is, as it were, from the rocks themselves that
our mountaineers make their mulberry-plantations. They proceed
in this way: They first break up the rocks, and with the larger
Fig. 15.
Sheets of Papeb, with Rows
of
Cocoons
prepared for the
fob laying Eggs.
Exit
of the
Moths
designed
stones so obtained they raise a wall; then, with the smaller pieces,
they fill up the interval between the wall and the mountain. This
done, they bring upon their backs, from the bottom of the valley, soil
and manure enough entirely to fill the space. This is what is called
a traversier, and it is in this soil that most of the mulberry-trees are
planted. I have seen a bridge built across a mountain-stream ex
pressly to give foothold for two or three of these precious trees. To
pay for all this preparation the produce should be very great. The
following figures give the average value of ground planted to mulber
ries for 20 years:
Traversiers not watered
Fields watered
Meadows planted with mulberries
1 acre,
1 acre,
1 acre,
9,800 francs.
12,000 “
12,400 “
and even then the money yielded five per cent. This price, which
some would not believe when I told them, has been officially confirmed
by M. de Lavergne, in his remarkable writings upon French agricul
ture. This value of land, and the way it has been obtained, explain
the nature of our country’s wealth. With the exception of some fami
lies recently enriched by the silk-manufacture and the silk-trade, the
level of this wealth, although very high, is more of the nature of gen
eral competence than of great fortunes. Industry and economy have
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
produced general well-being, without the growth of offensive differ
ences. I cannot say how it is now, but in my childhood there were
no paupers in our commune, except two infirm people who were sup
ported in their misfortunes by voluntary aid.
Fig. 16.
These striking results could not fail to affect the neighboring
country. This example of the culture of the mulberry was imitated
throughout the south of France, and adopted more or less in other
departments. You can judge of the progress made in this culture by
the following figures, giving the quantity of cocoons produced an
nually :
From 1821 to 1830
44
1831 44 1840
44
1841 44 1845
44
1846 44 1852
44
1853
.
.
.
.
22,000,000 pounds.
44
31,000,000
37,000,000 44
46,000,000 44
56,000,000 44
These 56,000,000 lbs. of cocoons sold at from 2^ to 2$ francs per
lb., representing a value of about 130,000,000 francs. Now, these
millions all went to agriculture, to the first producer; and so they
added to the national wealth at its most vital source. If this progress
had continued, in a few years we should have been able to supply our own
manufactures, and relieve ourselves of the tribute of 60 or 65,000,000
francs that we pay to foreign countries. But, unhappily, at the moment
when this culture was most prosperous, when mulberry-plantations
were springing up on all sides, fed by the nurseries which were each
day more numerous, all this prosperity disappeared before the terrible
scourge to which I alluded in the beginning of my discourse.
Like all our domestic animals, the silk-worm is subject to various
maladies. One, called the muscardlne, that for a long time was the
terror of breeders, is caused by a species of mould or microscopic
mushroom. This mushroom invades the interior of the body of the
insect. After affecting all the tissues, this vegetal parasite sometimes
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
&73
suddenly appears upon the outside of the body in the form of a white
powder. Each grain of this powder, falling upon a silk-worm, plants
the seed of this formidable mushroom, the ravages of which will
destroy all the worms of a rearing-chamber in a few hours. Happily,
science has found the means of killing these seeds, and of completely
disinfecting the locality. At the very moment when this victory was
announced, another yet more terrible scourge, the pebrine, appeared.
The muscardine caused isolated disaster; it had never been so wide
spread as seriously to injure the general business. Not so this other
malady. It is a true epidemic, which attacks life at its very source in
an inexplicable fashion. It is a pestilence like the cholera. Under
the influence of this scourge, the chambers of the silk-worm no longer
thrive; most of the worms die without producing silk. Those that
survive as butterflies give infected eggs, and the next generation is
worse than the first. To get healthy eggs, we had to go to the neigh
boring countries; but other countries have been invaded in their turn.
To-day we have to get them in Japan. Even when the egg is healthy,
the epidemic bears equally on its product; a great part of the worms
always succumb, and when the breeder gets half a crop he is very
happy. Upon the whole, the great majority of breeders have worked
at a loss since the invasion of this disease.
You understand the consequences of such a state of things, con
tinued since 1849. The people make nothing ; they lose, and yet
VOL. III.—43
�674
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
they have to live and cultivate their ground. In this business the
profits melt away rapidly, and particularly where the mulberry was
the only crop, as at Cevennes, misery has taken the place of comfort.
Those who once called themselves rich are to-day scarcely able to get
food to eat. Those who used to hire day-laborers to gather their har
vest have become day-laborers, and the laborers of former times have
emigrated. This will give you an idea of the extremities to which
they are reduced, for to uproot a mountaineer of Cevennes he must be
dying of hunger.
To escape a fatality so heavy, these people have displayed perse
verance and courage of the highest kind. . They have undertaken dis
tant journeys to get non-infected eggs. More than one has not come
back from these journeys, where it was needful to struggle against
great fatigue in inhospitable countries. Although they fell not on a
field of battle, struck by ball or bullet, they were true soldiers; and,
although they did not carry arms, they died in the service of the
country.
Fig. 18.
Fig. 19.
Square Net.
Lozenge-shaped Net.
Nets used to separate the worms from their faded and withered leaves. Fresh leaves are spread
on these nets, and the worms leave the old food to get on to the new leaves.
During seventeen years this exhaustion has been most aggravated
in places chiefly devoted to sericulture. But, if these local sufferings
merit all our sympathy, their general consequences still more demand
our attention. Confidence in the culture of the silk-worm has dimin
ished wherever it was not the exclusive occupation. Where other
crops could replace it, that of the mulberry was easily discouraged.
In many countries they have destroyed the tree so lately known as
the tree of gold.
As the foregoing interesting discourse was delivered in 1866, the
following statement of Prof. Huxley regarding the p'ebrine malady,
made in 1870, in his address before the British Association, will be in
teresting.—[Editor.
�SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE.
12122110
675
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,
“ The Italian naturalist, Filippi, discovered, in the blood of silk
worms affected by this strange disease, p'ebrine, a multitude of cylin
drical corpuscles, each of about -g-gVtr of an inch long. These have been
carefully studied by Lebert, and named by him Panhistophyton ; for
the reason that", in subjects in which the disease is strongly developed,
the corpuscles swarm in every tissue and organ of the body, and even
pass into the undeveloped eggs of the female moth. The French Gov
ernment, alarmed by the continued ravages of the malady and the in
efficiency of the remedies which had been suggested, dispatched M.
Pasteur to study it, and the question has received its final settlement.
It is now certain that this devastating, cholera-like p'ebrine is the effect
of the growth and multiplication of the Panhistophyton in the silk
worm. It is contagious and infectious, because the corpuscles of the
Panhistophyton pass away from the bodies of the diseased caterpillars,
directly or indirectly, to the alimentary canal of healthy silk-worms in
their neighborhood; it is hereditary, because the corpuscles enter into
the egg. There is not a single one of all the apparently capricious
and unaccountable phenomena presented by the plbrine, but has re
ceived its explanation from the fact that the disease is the result of the
presence of the microscopic organism Panhistophyton. M. Pasteur
has devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved to
be completely successful when properly carried out.”
MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
By HERBERT SPENCER.
ROBABLY astonishment would make the reporters drop their
pencils, were any member of Parliament to enunciate a psycho
logical principle as justifying his opposition to a proposed measure.
That some law of association of ideas, or some trait in emotional de
velopment, should be deliberately set forth as a sufficient ground for
saying “ ay” or “no” to a motion for second reading, would doubt
less be too much for the gravity of legislators. And along with
laughter from many there would come from a few cries of “ question: ”
the entire irrelevancy to the matter in hand being conspicuous. It is
true that during debates the possible behavior of citizens under the
suggested arrangements is described. Evasions of this or that pro
vision, difficulties in carrying it out, probabilities of resistance, con
nivance, corruption, etc., are urged; and these tacitly assert that the
mind of man has certain characters, and under the conditions named
is likely to act in certain ways. In other words, there is an implied
recognition of the truth that the effects of a law will depend on the
-L
�MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
677
manner in which human intelligence and human feeling are influenced
by it. Experiences of men’s conduct which the legislator has gath
ered, and which lie partially sorted in his memory, furnish him with
empirical notions that guide his judgment on each question raised;
and he would think it folly to ignore all this unsystematized knowl
edge about people’s characters and actions. But, at the same time,
he regards as foolish the proposal to proceed, not on vaguely-gen
eralized facts, but on facts accurately generalized; and, as still more
foolish, the proposal to merge these minor definite generalizations in
generalizations expressing the ultimate laws of Mind. Guidance by
intuition seems to him much more rational.
Of course, I do not mean to say that his intuition is of small
value. How should I say this, remembering the immense accumula
tion of experiences by which his thoughts have been moulded into
harmony with things ? We all know that when the successful man of
business is urged by wife and daughters to get into Parliament, that
they may attain a higher social standing, he always replies that his
occupations through life have left him no leisure to prepare himself,
by collecting and digesting the voluminous evidence respecting the
effects of institutions and policies, and that he fears he might do mis
chief. If the heir to some large estate, or scion of a noble house
powerful in the locality, receives a deputation asking him to stand for
the county, we constantly read that he pleads inadequate knowledge
as a reason for declining : perhaps hinting that, after ten years spent
in the needful studies, he may have courage to undertake the heavy
responsibilities proposed to him. So, too, we have the familiar fact
that, when, at length, men who have gathered vast stores of political
information gain the confidence of voters who know how carefully
they have thus fitted themselves, it still perpetually happens that after
election they find they have entered on their work prematurely. It is
true that beforehand they had sought anxiously through the records
of the past, that they might avoid legislative errors of multitudinous
kinds, like those committed in early times. Nevertheless, when acts
are proposed referring to matters dealt with in past generations by
acts long since cancelled or obsolete, immense inquiries open before
them. Even limiting themselves to the 1,126 acts repealed in 1823-’29,
and the further 770 repealed in 1861, they find that to learn what
these aimed at, how they worked, why they failed, and whence^ arose
the mischiefs they wrought, is an arduous task, which yet they feel
bound to undertake lest they should reinflict these mischiefs; and
hence the reason why so many break down under the effort, and retire
with health destroyed. Nay, more—on those with constitutions vig
orous enough to carry them through such inquiries, there continually
presses the duty of making yet further inquiries. Besides tracing the
results of abandoned laws in other societies, there is at home, year by
year, more futile law-making to be investigated and lessons to be
�678
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
drawn from it; as, for example, from the 134 public acts passed in
1856-’57, of which all but 68 are wholly or partially repealed. And
thus it happens that, as every autumn shows us, even the strongest
men, finding their lives during the recess overtaxed with the needful
study, are obliged so to locate themselves that by an occasional day’s
hard riding after the hounds, or a long walk over the moors with gun
in hand, they may be enabled to bear the excessive strain on their ner
vous systems. Of course, therefore, I am not so unreasonable as to
deny that judgments, even empirical, which are guided by such care
fully-amassed experiences, must be of much worth.
But, fully recognizing the vast amount of information which the
legislator has laboriously gathered from the accounts of institutions
and laws, past and present, here and elsewhere, and admitting that,
before thus instructing himself, he would no more think of enforcing a
new law than would a medical student think of plunging an operating
knife into the human body before learning where the arteries ran, the
remarkable anomaly here demanding our attention is, that he objects
to any thing like analysis of these phenomena he has so diligently
collected, and has no faith in conclusions drawn from the ensemble of
them. Not discriminating very correctly between the word “gen
eral ” and the word “ abstract,” and regarding as abstract principles
what are in nearly all cases general principles, he speaks contemptu
ously of these as belonging to the region of theory, and as not con
cerning the law-maker. Any wide truth that is insisted upon as being
implied in many narrow truths, seems to him remote from reality and
unimportant for guidance. The results of recent experiments in legis
lation he thinks worth attending to; and, if any one reminds him of
the experiments he has read so much about, that were made in other
times and other places, he regards these also, separately taken, as de
serving of consideration. But, if, instead of studying special classes
of legislative experiments, some one compares many classes together,
generalizes the results, and proposes to be guided by the generaliza
tion, he shakes his head skeptically. And his skepticism passes into
ridicule if it is proposed to affiliate such generalized results on the
laws of Mind. To prescribe for society on the strength of countless
unclassified observations, appears to him a sensible course ; but, to
colligate and systematize the observations so as to educe tendencies
of human behavior displayed throughout cases of numerous kinds, to
trace these tendencies to their sources in the mental natures of men,
and thence to draw conclusions for guidance, appears to him a vision
ary course.
Let us look at some of the fundamental facts he ignores, and at
the results of ignoring them.
Rational legislation, based as it can only be on a true theory of
conduct, which is derivable only from a true theory of mind, must
�MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
679
recognize as a datum the direct connection of action with feeling.
That feeling and action bear a constant ratio, is a statement needing
qualification ; for at the one extreme there are automatic actions which
take place without feeling, and at the other extreme there are feelings so
intense that, by deranging the vital functions, they impede or arrest
action. But, speaking of those activities which life in general pre
sents, it is a law tacitly recognized by all, though not distinctly formu
lated, that action and feeling vary together in their amounts. Pas
sivity and absence of facial expression, both implying rest of the mus
cles, are held to show that there is being experienced neither much
sensation nor much emotion, while the degree of external demon
stration, be it in movements that rise finally to spasms and contor
tions, or be it in sounds that end in laughter, and shrieks, and groans,
is habitually accepted as a measure of the pleasure or pain, sensa
tional or emotional. And so, too, where continued expenditure of
energy is seen, be it in a violent struggle to escape, or be it in the
persevering pursuit of an object, the quantity of effort is held to show
the quantity of feeling.
This truth, undeniable in its generality, whatever qualifications
secondary truths make in it, must be joined with the truth that cog
nition does not produce action. If I tread on a pin, or unawares dip
my hand into very hot water, I start: the strong sensation produces
motion without any thought intervening. Conversely, the proposition
that a pin pricks, or that hot water scalds, leaves me quite unmoved.
True, if to one of these propositions is joined the idea that a pin is
about to pierce my skin, or to the other the idea that some hot water
will fall on it, there results a tendency, more or less decided, to shrink.
But that which causes shrinking is the ideal pain. The statement that
the pin will hurt or the water scald produces no effect, so long as there
is nothing beyond a recognition of its meaning : it produces an effect
only when the pain verbally asserted becomes a pain actually con
ceived as impending—only when there rises in consciousness a repre
sentation of the pain, which is a faint form of the pain as before felt.
That is to say, the cause of movement here, as in other cases, is a feel
ing and not a cognition. What we see even in these simplest actions,
runs through actions of all degrees of complexity. It is never the
knowledge which is the moving agent in conduct, but it is always the
feeling which goes along with that knowledge, or is excited by it.
Though the drunkard knows that after to-day’s debauch will come to
morrow’s headache, yet he is not deterred by consciousness of this
truth, unless the penalty is distinctly represented—unless there rises
in his consciousness a vivid idea of the misery to be borne—unless
there is excited in him an adequate amount of feeling antagonistic to
his desire for drink. Similarly with improvidence in general. If com
ing evils are imagined with clearness and the threatened sufferings
ideally felt, there is a due check on the tendency to take immediate
*
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
gratifications without stint; but, in the absence of that consciousness
of future ills which is constituted by the ideas of pains, distinct or
vague, the passing desire is not opposed effectually. The truth that
recklessness brings distress, fully acknowledged though it may be, re
mains inoperative. The mere cognition does not affect conduct—con
duct is affected only when the cognition passes out of that intellectual
form in which the idea of distress is little more than verbal, into a form
in which this term of the proposition is developed into a vivid imagi
nation of distress—a mass of painful feeling. It is thus with conduct
of every kind. See this group of persons clustered at the river-side.
A boat has upset, and some one is in danger of drowning. The fact,
that, in the absence of aid, the youth in the water will shortly die, is
known to them all. That by swimming to his assistance his life may
be saved, is a proposition denied by none of them. The duty of help
ing fellow-creatures who are in difficulties, they have been taught all
their lives ; and they will severally admit that running a risk to pre
vent a death is praiseworthy. Nevertheless, though sundry of them
can swim, they do nothing beyond shouting for assistance or giving
advice. But now here comes one who, tearing off his coat, plunges in
to the rescue. In what does he differ from the others ? Not in knowl
edge. Their cognitions are equally clear with his. They know as
well as he does that death is impending, and know, too, how it
may be prevented. In him, however, these cognitions arouse certain
correlative emotions more strongly than they are aroused in the
rest. Groups of feelings are excited in all; but, whereas in the
others the deterrent feelings of fear, etc., preponderate, in him
there is a surplus of the feelings excited by sympathy, joined, it
may be, with others not of so high a kind. In each case, however,
the behavior is not determined by knowledge, but by emotion. Ob
viously, change in the actions of these passive spectators is not to be
effected by making their cognitions clearer, but by making their higher
feelings stronger.
Have we not here, then, a cardinal psychological truth, to which
any rational system of human discipline must conform ? Is it not mani
fest that a legislation which ignores it and tacitly assumes its opposite
will inevitably fail ? Yet much of our legislation does this ; and we
are at present, legislature and nation together, eagerly pushing for
ward schemes which proceed on the postulate that conduct is deter
mined not by feelings, but by cognitions.
For what else is the assumption underlying this anxious urging-on
of organizations for teaching ? What is the root-notion common to
Secularists and Denominational!sts, but the notion that spread of
knowledge is the one thing needful for bettering behavior ? Having
both swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has grown up in them
the belief that State-education will check ill-doing. In newspapers,
�MENTAL SCIENCE ANN SOCIOLOGY.
681
they have often met with comparisons between the numbers of crimi
nals who can read and write and the numbers who cannot; and, find
ing the numbers who cannot greatly exceed the numbers who can,
they accept the inference that ignorance is the cause of crime. It does
not occur to them to ask whether other statistics, similarly drawn up,
would not prove with like conclusiveness that crime is caused by ab
sence of ablutions, or by lack of clean linen, or by bad ventilation, or
by want of a separate bedroom. Go through any jail, and ascertain
how many prisoners had been in the habit of taking a morning bath,
and you would find that criminality habitually went with dirtiness of
skin. Count up those who had possessed a second suit of clothes, and
a comparison of the figures would show you that but a small percent
age of criminals were habitually able to change their garments. In
quire whether they had lived in main streets or down courts, and you
would discover that nearly all urban crime comes from holes and
corners. Similarly, a fanatical advocate of total abstinence or of sani
tary improvement could get equally strong statistical justifications
for his belief. But, if, not accepting the random inference presented
to you, that ignorance and crime are cause and effect, you consider, as
above, whether crime may not with equal reason be ascribed to various
other causes, you are led to see that it is really connected with an in
ferior mode of life, itself usually consequent on original inferiority of
nature ; and you are led to see that ignorance is simply one of the
concomitants, no more to be held the cause of crime than various
other concomitants.
But this obvious criticism, and the obvious counter-conclusion it
implies, are not simply overlooked, but, when insisted on, seem pow
erless to affect the belief which has taken possession of men. Disap
pointment alone will now affect it. A wave of opinion, reaching a cer
tain height, cannot be changed by any evidence or argument, but has
to spend itself in the gradual course of things before a reaction of
opinion can arise. Otherwise it would be incomprehensible that this
confidence in the curative effects of teaching, which men have care
lessly allowed to be generated in them by the reiterations of doctrinaire
politicians, should survive the direct disproofs yielded by daily ex
perience. Is it not the trouble of every mother and every governess,
that perpetual insisting on the right and denouncing the wrong do not
suffice ? Is it not the constant complaint that on many natures reason
ing and explanation and the clear demonstration of consequences are
scarcely at all operative; that where they are operative there is a more
or less marked difference of emotional nature ; and that where, having
before failed, they begin to succeed, change of feeling rather than differ
ence of apprehension is the cause ? Do we not similarly hear from
every house-keeper that servants usually pay but little attention to re
proofs ; that they go on perversely in old habits, regardless of clear
evidence of their foolishness; and that their actions are to be altered
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
not by explanations and reasonings, but by either the fear of penalties
or the experience of penalties—that is, by the emotions awakened in
them ? When we turn from domestic life to the life of the outer world,
do not like disproofs everywhere meet us ? Are not fraudulent bank
rupts educated people, and getters-up of bubble-companies, and makers
of adulterated goods, and users of false trade-marks, and retailers who
have light weights, and owners of unseaworthy ships, and those who
cheat insurance-companies, and those who carry on turf-chicaneries,
and the great majority of gamblers ? Or, to take a more extreme
form of turpitude—is there not, among those who have committed
murder by poison within our memories, a considerable number of the
educated—a number bearing as large a ratio to the educated classes
as does the total number of murderers to the total population ?
This belief in the moralizing effects of intellectual culture, flatly
contradicted by facts, is absurd a priori. What imaginable connection
is there between the learning that certain clusters of marks on paper
stand for certain words and the getting a higher sense of duty ? What
possible effect can acquirement of facility in making written signs of
sounds have in strengthening the desire to do right? How does
knowledge of the multiplication-table, or quickness in adding and
dividing, so increase the sympathies as to restrain the tendency to
trespass against fellow-creatures ? In what way can th? attainment
of accuracy in spelling and parsing, etc., make the sentiment of justice
more powerful than it was; or why from stores of geographical in
formation, perseveringly gained, is there likely to come increased re
gard for truth ? The irrelation between such causes and such effects
is almost as great as that between exercise of the fingers and strength
ening of the legs. One who should by lessons in Latin hope to give
a knowledge of geometry, or one who should expect practice in draw
ing to be followed by expressive rendering of a sonata, would be
thought fit for an asylum; and yet he would be scarcely more irra
tional than are those who by discipline of the intellectual faculties ex
pect to produce better feelings.
This faith in lesson-books and readings is one of the superstitions
of the age. Even as appliances to intellectual culture, books are
greatly over-estimated. Instead of second-hand knowledge being re
garded as of less value than first-hand knowledge, and as a knowledge
to be sought only where first-hand knowledge cannot be had, it is
actually regarded as of greater value. Something gathered from
printed pages is supposed to enter into a course of education; but,
if gathered by observation of Life and Nature, is supposed not thus
to enter. Reading is seeing by proxy—is learning indirectly through
another man’s faculties, instead of directly through one’s own facul
ties ; and such is the prevailing bias that the indirect learning is
thought preferable to the direct learning, and usurps the name of
cultivation! We smile when told that savages consider writing as
�MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
683
a kind of magic: and we laugh at the story of the negro who hid a
letter under a stone, that it might not inform against him when he
devoured the fruit he was sent with. Yet the current notions about
printed information betray a kindred delusion: a kind of magical
efficacy is ascribed to ideas gained through artificial appliances, as
compared with ideas otherwise gained. And this delusion, injurious
in its effects even on intellectual culture, produces effects still more
injurious on moral culture, by generating the assumption that this,
too, can be got by reading and the repeating of lessons.
It will, I know, be said that not from intellectual teaching, but
from moral teaching, are improvement of conduct and diminution of
crime looked for. While, unquestionably, many of those who urge on
educational schemes believe in the moralizing effects of knowledge
in general, it must be admitted that some hold general knowledge to
be inadequate, and contend that rules of right conduct must be
taught. Already, however, reasons have been given why the expec
tations even of these are illusory; proceeding, as they do, on the as
sumption that the intellectual acceptance of moral precepts will pro
duce conformity to them. Plenty more reasons are forthcoming. I
will not dwell on the contradictions to this assumption furnished by
the Chinese, to all of whom the high ethical maxims of Confucius are
taught, and who yet fail to show us a conduct proportionately exem
plary. Nor will I enlarge on the lesson to be derived from the United
States, the school-system of which brings up the whole population
under the daily influence of chapters which set forth principles of right
conduct, and which nevertheless in its political life, and by many of
its social occurrences, shows us that conformity to these principles is
any thing but complete. It will suffice if I limit myself to evidence
supplied by our own society, past and present, which negatives, very
decisively, these sanguine expectations. For, what have we been do
ing all these many centuries by our religious agencies, but preaching
right principles to old and young? What has been the aim of ser
vices in our ten thousand churches, week after week, but to enforce a
code of good conduct by promised rewards and threatened penalties ?
—the whole population having been for many generations compelled
to listen. What have Dissenting chapels, more numerous still, been
used for, unless as places where pursuance of right and desistance from
wrong have been unceasingly commended to all from childhood up
ward ? And if now it is held that something more must be done—
if, notwithstanding perpetual explanations and denunciations and ex
hortations, the misconduct is so great that society is endangered,
why, after all this insistance has failed, is it expected that more insistance will succeed ? See here the proposals and the implied beliefs.
Teaching by clergymen not having had the desired effect, let us try
teaching by school-masters. Bible-reading from a pulpit, with the ac
companiment of imposing architecture, painted windows, tombs, and
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“ dim religious light,” having proved inadequate, suppose we try bible
reading in rooms with bare walls, relieved only by maps and drawings
of animals. Commands and interdicts, uttered by a surpliced priest
to minds prepared by chant and organ-peal, not having been obeyed,
let us see whether they will be obeyed when mechanically repeated
in school-boy sing-song to a threadbare usher, amid the buzz of lesson
learning and clatter of slates. No very hopeful proposals, one would
say; proceeding, as they do, upon one or other of the beliefs, that a
moral precept will be effective in proportion as it is received without
emotional accompaniment, and that its effectiveness will increase in
proportion to the number of times it is repeated. Both these beliefs
are directly at variance with the results of psychological analysis and
of daily experience. Certainly, such influence as may be gained by
addressing moral truths to the intellect, is made greater if the ac
companiments arouse an appropriate emotional excitement, as a re
ligious service does; while, conversely, there can be no more effectual
way of divesting such moral truths of their impressiveness, than as
sociating them with the prosaic and vulgarizing sounds and sights
and smells coming from crowded children. And no less certain is it
that precepts, often heard and little regarded, lose by repetition the
small influence they had. What do public-schools show us ?—are
the boys rendered merciful to one another by listening to religious
injunctions every morning? What do universities show us?—have
perpetual chapels habitually made undergraduates behave better than
the average of young men ? What do cathedral-towns show us ?—
is there in them a moral tone above that of other towns, or must we
from the common saying, “ the nearer the church,” etc., infer a per
vading impression to the contrary ? What do clergymen’s sons show
us?—has constant insistance on right conduct made them conspicu
ously superior, or do we not rather hear it whispered that something
like an opposite effect seems produced. Or, to take one more case,
what do religious newspapers show us ?—is it that the precepts of
Christianity, more familiar to their writers than to other writers, are
more clearly to be traced in their articles, or has there not ever been
displayed a want of charity in their dealings with opponents, and is
it not still displayed? Nowhere do we find that repetition of rules
of right, already known but disregarded, produces regard for them;
but we find that, contrariwise, it makes the regard for them less than
before.
The prevailing assumption is, indeed, as much disproved by analy
sis as it is contradicted by familiar facts. Already we have seen that
the connection is between action and feeling ; and hence the corollary,
that only by a frequent passing of feeling into action is the tendency
to such action strengthened. Just as two ideas often repeated in a
certain'order become coherent in that order; and just as muscular
motions, at first difficult to combine properly with one another and
�MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
685
with guiding perceptions, become by practice facile, and at length au
tomatic ; so the recurring production of any conduct by its prompting
emotion makes that conduct relatively easy. Not by precept, though
heard daily; not by example, unless it is followed; but only by action,
often caused by the related feeling, can a moral habit be formed. And
yet this truth, which Mental Science clearly teaches, and which is in
harmony with familiar sayings, is a truth wholly ignored in current
educational fanaticisms.
There is ignored, too, the correlative truth; and ignoring it threat
ens results still more disastrous. While we see an expectation of ben
efits which the means used cannot achieve, we see no consciousness of
injuries which will be entailed by these means. As usually happens
with those absorbed in the eager pursuit of some good by govern
mental action, there is a blindness to the evil reaction on the natures
of citizens. Already the natures of citizens have suffered from kin
dred reactions, due to actions set up centuries ago ; and now the mis
chievous effects are to be increased by further such reactions.
The English people are complained of as improvident. Very few
of them lay by in anticipation of times when work is slack; and the
general testimony is that higher wages commonly result only in more
extravagant living or in drinking to greater excess. As we saw a
while since, they neglect opportunities of becoming shareholders in
the companies they are engaged under; and those who are most anx
ious for their welfare despair on finding how little they do to raise
themselves when they have the means. This tendency to seize imme
diate gratification regardless of future penalty is commented on as
characteristic of the English people ; and, contrasts between them and
their Continental neighbors having been drawn, surprise is expressed
that such contrasts should exist. Improvidence is spoken of as an in
explicable trait of the race—no regard being paid to the fact that
races with which it is compared are allied in blood. The people of
Norway are economical and extremely prudent. The Danes, too, are
thrifty; and Defoe, commenting on the extravagance of his countrymen,
says that a Dutchman gets rich on wages out of which an Englishman
but just lives. So, too, if we take the modern Germans. Alike by
the complaints of the Americans, that the Germans are ousting them
from their own businesses by working hard and living cheaply, and by
the success here of German traders and the preference shown for Ger
man waiters, we are taught that in other divisions of the Teutonic race
there is nothing like this lack of self-control. Nor can we ascribe to
such portion of Norman blood as exists among us this peculiar trait: de
scendants of the Normans in France are industrious and saving. Why,
then, should the English people be improvident ? If we seek explana
tion in their remote lineage, we find none; but, if we seek it in the
social conditions to which they have been subject, we find a sufficient
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
explanation. The English are improvident because they have been
for ages disciplined in improvidence. Extravagance has been made
habitual by shielding them from the sharp penalties extravagance
brings. Carefulness has been discouraged by continually showing to
the careful that those who were careless did as well as, or better than,
themselves. Nay, there have been positive penalties on carefulness.
Laborers working hard and paying their way have constantly found
themselves called on to help in supporting the idle around them ; have
had their goods taken under distress-warrants that paupers might be
fed; and eventually have found themselves and their children reduced
also to pauperism. Well-conducted poor women, supporting them
selves without aid or encouragement, have seen the ill-conducted re
ceiving parish-pay for their illegitimate children. Nay, to such ex
tremes has the process gone, that women with many illegitimate
children, getting from the rates a weekly sum for each, have been
chosen as wives by men who wanted the sums thus derived ! Genera
tion after generation the honest and independent, not marrying till
they had means, and striving to bring up their families without assist
ance, have been saddled with extra burdens, and hindered from leav
ing a desirable posterity; while the dissolute and the idle, especially
when given to that lying and servility by which those in authority are
deluded, have been helped to produce and to rear progeny, charac
terized, like themselves, by absence of the mental traits needed for
good citizenship. And then, after centuries during which we have
been breeding the race as much as possible from the improvident, and
repressing the multiplication of the provident, we lift our hands and
exclaim at the recklessness our people exhibit! If men, who, for a
score of generations, had by preference bred from their worst-tem
pered horses and their least-sagacious dogs, were then to wonder be
cause their horses were vicious and their dogs stupid, we should think
the absurdity of their policy paralleled only by the absurdity of their
astonishment; but human beings instead of inferior animals being in
question, no absurdity is seen either in the policy or in the astonish
ment.
And now something more serious happens than the overlooking of
these evils wrought on men’s natures by centuries of demoralizing in
fluences. We are deliberately establishing further such influences.
Having, as much as we could, suspended the civilizing discipline of
an industrial life so carried on as to achieve self-maintenance without in
jury to others, we now proceed to suspend that civilizing discipline in
another direction. Having in successive generations done our best to
diminish the sense of responsibility, by warding off evils which disre
gard of responsibility brings, we now carry the policy further by re
lieving parents from certain other responsibilities which, in the order
of Nature, fall on them. By way of checking recklessness, and dis
couraging improvident marriages, and raising the conception of duty,
�MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY.
687
we are diffusing the belief that it is not the concern of parents to fit
their children for the business of life; but that the nation is bound to
do this. Everywhere there is a tacit enunciation of the marvellous
doctrine that citizens are not responsible individually for the bringing
up each of his own children, but that these same citizens, incorporated
into a society, are each of them responsible for the bringing up of
everybody else’s children I The obligation does not fall upon A in
his capacity of father to rear the minds as well as the bodies of his
offspring; but in his capacity of citizen there does fall on him the ob
ligation of mentally rearing the offspring of B, C, D, and the rest, who
similarly have their direct parental obligations made secondary to
their indirect obligations to children not their own ! Already it is
estimated that, as matters are now being arranged, parents will soon
pay in school-fees for their own children only one-sixth of the amount
which is paid by them through taxes, rates, and voluntary contribu
tions, for children at large: in terms of money, the claims of children
at large to their care will be taken as six times the claim of their own
children 1 And, if, looking back forty years, we observe the growth
of the public claim versus the private claim, we may infer that the
private claim will presently be absorbed wholly. Already the correl
ative theory is becoming so definite and positive that you meet with
the notion, uttered as though it were an unquestionable truth, that
criminals are “ society’s failures.” Presently it will be seen that, since
good bodily development, as well as good mental development, is a
prerequisite to good citizenship (for without it the citizen cannot main
tain himself, and so avoid wrong-doing), society is responsible also for
the proper feeding and clothing of children : indeed, in school-board
discussions, there is already an occasional admission that no logicallydefensible halting-place can be found between the two. And so we
are progressing toward the wonderful notion, here and there finding
tacit expression, that people are to marry when they feel inclined, and
other people are to take the consequences !
And this is thought to be the policy conducive to improvement of
behavior. Men who have been made improvident by shielding them
from many of the evil results of improvidence are now to be made
more provident by further shielding them from the evil results of im
providence. Having had their self-control decreased by social ar
rangements which lessened the need for self-control, other social ar
rangements are devised which will make self-control still less needful:
and it is hoped so to make self-control greater. This expectation is
absolutely at variance with the whole order of things. Life of every
kind, human included, proceeds on an exactly-opposite principle. All
lower types of beings show us that the rearing of offspring affords the
highest discipline for the faculties. The. parental instinct is every
where that which calls out the energies most persistently, and in the
greatest degree exercises the intelligence. The self-sacrifice and the
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
sagacity which inferior creatures display in the care of their young
are often commented upon; and every one may see that parenthood
produces a mental exaltation not otherwise producible. That it is so
among mankind is daily proved. Continually we remark that men
who were random grow steady when they have children to provide
for; and vain, thoughtless girls, becoming mothers, begin to show
higher feelings, and capacities that were not before drawn out. In
both there is a daily discipline in unselfishness, in industry, in fore
sight. The parental relation strengthens from hour to hour the habit
of postponing immediate ease and egoistic pleasure to the altruistic
pleasure obtained by furthering the welfare of offspring. There is a
frequent subordination of the claims of self to the claims of fellow
beings ; and by no other agency can the practice of this subordination
be so effectually secured. Not, then, by a decreased, but by an in
creased, sense of parental responsibility is self-control to be made
greater and recklessness to be checked. And yet the policy now so
earnestly and undoubtingly pursued is one which will inevitably di
minish the sense of parental responsibility. This all-important dis
cipline of parents’ emotions is to be weakened that children may get
reading, and grammar, and geography, more generally than they would
otherwise do. A superficial intellectualization is to be secured at the
cost of a deep-seated demoralization.
Few, I suppose, will deliberately assert that information is impor
tant and character relatively unimportant. Every one observes from
time to time how much more valuable to himself and others is the
workman who, though unable to read, is diligent, sober, and honest,
than is the well-taught workman who breaks his engagements, spends
days in drinking, and neglects his family. And, comparing members
of the upper classes, no one doubts that the spendthrift or the gam
bler, however good his intellectual training, is inferior as a social unit
to the man who, not having passed through the approved curriculum,
nevertheless prospers by performing well the work he undertakes, and
provides for his children instead of leaving them in poverty to the
care of relatives. That is to say, looking at the matter in the con
crete, all see that, for social welfare, good character is more important
than much knowledge. And yet the manifest corollary is not drawn.
What effect will be produced on character by artificial appliances for
spreading knowledge is not asked. Of the ends to be kept in view by
the legislator, all are unimportant compared with the end of char
acter-making; and yet character-making is an end wholly unrecog
nized.
Let it be seen that the future of a nation depends on the natures
of its units ; that their natures are inevitably modified in adaptation
to the conditions in which they are placed; that the feelings called
into play by these conditions will strengthen, while those which have
diminished demands on them will dwindle; and it will be seen that
�A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.
689
the bettering of conduct can be effected, not by insisting on maxims
of good conduct, still less by mere intellectual culture, but only by
that daily exercise of the higher sentiments and repression of the
lower, which results from keeping men subordinate to the requirements
of orderly social life—letting them suffer the inevitable penalties of
breaking these requirements, and reap the benefits of conforming to
them. This alone is national education.
A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.1
By CHARLES W. ELIOT,
PRESIDENT OF HARVARD
COLLEGE.
TURN next to my third topic, the true policy of our government
as regards university instruction. In almost all the writings about
a nation’s university, and of course in the two Senate bills now under
discussion, there will be found the implication, if not the express as
sertion, that it is somehow the duty of our government to maintain a
magnificent university. This assumption is the foundation upon which
rest the ambitious projects before us, and many similar schemes. Let
me try to demonstrate that the foundation is itself unsound.
The general notion that a beneficent government should provide
and control an elaborate organization for teaching, just as it maintains
an army, a navy, or a post-office, is of European origin, being a legiti
mate corollary to the theory of government by divine right. It is
said that the state is a person having a conscience and a moral respon
sibility ; that the government is the visible representative of a peo
ple’s civilization, and the guardian of its honor and its morals, and
should be the embodiment of all that is high and good in the people’s
character and aspirations. This moral person, this corporate repre
sentative of a Christian nation, has high duties and functions com
mensurate with its great powers, and none more imperative than that
of diffusing knowledge and advancing science.
I desire to state this argument for the conduct of high educational
institutions by government, as a matter of abstract duty, with all the
force which belongs to it; for, under an endless variety of thin dis
guises, and with all sorts of amplifications and dilutions, it is a staple
commodity with writers upon the relation of government to educa
tion. The conception of government upon which this argument is
I
1 Closing argument of a report by President Eliot to the National Educational Asso
ciation at its recent session in Elmira. The first part of the report gives an account of
what had been done by the Association about the project of a national university since
1869 ; and the second part examines the two bills on the subject which were brought
before Congress in 1872.
vol. hi.—44
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
based is obsolescent everywhere. In a free community the govern
ment does not hold this parental, or patriarchal—I should better say
godlike—position. Our government is a group of servants appointed
to do certain difficult and important work. It is not the guardian of
the nation’s morals ; it does not necessarily represent the best virtue
of the republic, and is not responsible for the national character, being
itself one of the products of that character. The doctrine of state
personality and conscience, and the whole argument of the dignity
and moral elevation of a Christian nation’s government as the basis
of government duties, are natural enough under grace-of-God gov
ernments, but they find no ground of practical application to modern
republican confederations; they have no bearing on governments con
sidered as purely human agencies with defined powers and limited re
sponsibilities. Moreover, for most Americans these arguments prove
a great deal too much ; for, if they have the least tendency to persuade
us that government should direct any part of secular education, with
how much greater force do they apply to the conduct by government
of the religious education of the people ! These propositions are, in
deed, the main arguments for an established church. Religion is the
supreme human interest, government is the supreme human organiza
tion ; therefore, government ought to take care for religion, and a
Christian government should maintain distinctively Christian religious
institutions. This is not theory alone ; it is the practice of all Christen
dom, except in America and Switzerland. Now, we do not admit it
to be our duty to establish a national church. We believe not only
that our people are more religious than many nations which have es
tablished churches, but also that they are far more religious under
their own voluntary system than they would be under any government
establishment of religion. We do not admit for a moment that estab
lishment or no establishment is synonymous with national piety or
impiety. Now, if a beneficent Christian government may rightly
leave the jfeople to provide themselves with religious institutions,
surely it may leave them to provide suitable universities for the edu
cation of their youth. And here again the question of national uni
versity or no national university is by no means synonymous with the
question, Shall the country have good university education or not?
The only question is, Shall we have a university supported and con
trolled by government, or shall we continue to rely upon universities
supported and controlled by other agencies ?
There is, then, no foundation whatever for the assumption that it
is the duty of our government to establish a national university. I
venture to state one broad reason why our government should not es
tablish and maintain a university. If the people of the United States
have any special destiny, any peculiar function in the world, it is to
try to work out under extraordinarily favorable circumstances the
problem of free institutions for a heterogeneous, rich, multitudinous
�A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.
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population, spread over a vast territory. We, indeed, want to breed
scholars, artists, poets, historians, novelists, engineers, physicians,
jurists, theologians, and orators; but, first of all, we want to breed a
race of independent, self-reliant freemen, capable of helping, guiding,
and governing themselves. Now, the habit of being helped by the
government, even if it be to things good in themselves—to churches,
universities, and railroads—is a most insidious and irresistible enemy
of republicanism ; for the very essence of republicanism is self-reliance.
With the Continental nations of Europe it is an axiom that the gov
ernment is to do every thing, and is responsible for every thing. The
French have no word for “ public spirit,” for the reason that the sen
timent is unknown to them. This abject dependence on the govern
ment is an accursed inheritance from the days of the divine right of
kings. Americans, on the contrary, maintain precisely the opposite
theory—namely, that government is to do nothing not expressly as
signed it to do, that it is to perform no function which any private
agency can perform as well, and that it is not to do a public good
even, unless that good be otherwise unattainable. It is hardly too
much to say that this doctrine is the foundation of our public liberty.
So long as the people are really free they will maintain it in theory
and in practice. During the war of the rebellion we got accustomed
to seeing the government spend vast sums of money and put forth
vast efforts, and we asked ourselves, Why should not some of these
great resources and powers be applied to works of peace, to creation
as well as to destruction? So we subsidized railroads and steamship
companies, and agricultural colleges, and now it is proposed to sub
sidize a university. The fatal objection to this subsidizing process is
that it saps the foundations of public liberty. The only adequate se
curities of public liberty are the national habits, traditions, and char
acter, acquired and accumulated in the practice of liberty and self
control. Interrupt these traditions, break up these habits or cultivate
the opposite ones, or poison that national character, and public liberty
will suddenly be found defenceless. We deceive ourselves danger
ously when we think or speak as if education, whether primary or
university, could guarantee republican institutions. Education can
do no such thing. A republican people should, indeed, be educated
and intelligent; but it by no means follows that an educated and in
telligent people will be republican. Do I seem to conjure up imaginary
evils to follow from this beneficent establishment of a superb national
university? We teachers should be the last people to forget the
sound advice—obsta principiis. A drop of water will put out a spark
which otherwise would have kindled a conflagration that rivers could
not quench.
Let us cling fast to the genuine American method—the old Massachu
setts method—in the matter of public instruction. The essential feat
ures of that system are local taxes for universal elementary education
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
voted by the citizens themselves, local elective boards to spend the money
raised by taxation and control the schools, and for the higher grades
of instruction permanent endowments administered by incorporated
bodies of trustees. This is the American voluntary system, in sharp
contrast with the military, despotic organization of public instruction
which prevails in Prussia and most other states of Continental Europe.
Both systems have peculiar advantages, the crowning advantage of
the American method being that it breeds freemen. Our ancestors
well understood the principle that, to make a people free and self-re
liant, it is necessary to let them take care of themselves, even if they
do not take quite as good care of themselves as some superior power
might.
And now, finally, let us ask what should make a university at the
capital of the United States, established and supported by the Gen
eral Government, more national than any other American university.
It might be larger and richer than any other, and it might not be;
but certainly it could not have a monopoly of patriotism or of catho
licity, or of literary or scientific enthusiasm. There are an attractive
comprehensiveness and a suggestion of public spirit and love of coun
try in the term “ national; ” but, after all, the adjective only narrows
and belittles the noble conception contained in the word “ university.”
Letters, science, art, philosophy, medicine, law, and theology, are
larger and more enduring than nations. There is something childish
in this uneasy hankering for a big university in America, as there is
also in that impatient longing for a distinctive American literature
which we so often hear expressed. As American life grows more
various and richer in sentiment, passion, thought, and accumulated ex
perience, American literature will become richer and more abounding,
and in that better day let us hope that there will be found several
universities in America, though by no means one in each State, as free,
liberal, rich, national, and glorious, as the warmest advocate of a
single crowning university at the national capital could imagine his
desired institution to become.
AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM.
By JOHN FISKE,
BEOENTLY LECTITBER ON PHILOSOPHY AT HABVABD UNIVERSITY.
NE Friday morning, a few weeks ago, as I was looking over the
Nation, my eye fell upon an advertisement, inserted by the
proprietors of the New-York Tribune, announcing the final destruc
tion of Darwinism. What especially riveted my attention was the pe
culiar style of the announcement: “ The Darwinian Theory utterly de
O
�AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM.
693
molished ” (or words to that effect) “ by Agassiz Himself ! ” Whether
from accident or design, the type-setter’s choice of Roman capitals
was very happy. Upon many readers the effect must have been tre
mendous ; and quite possibly there may be some who, without further
investigation, will carry to their dying day the opinion that it is all
over with the Darwinian theory, since “ Agassiz Himself” has re
futed it.
Upon me the effect was such as to make me lay down my paper
and ask myself: Can it be that we have, after all, a sort of scientific
pope among us ? Has it come to this, that the dicta of some one
“servant and interpreter of Nature” are to be accepted as final, even
against the better judgment of the majority of his compeers ? In
short, who is Agassiz himself, that he should thus single-handed
have demolished the stoutest edifice which observation and deduc
tion have reared since the day when Newton built to such good pur
pose ?
Prof. Agassiz is a naturalist who is justly world-renowned for his
achievements. His contributions to geology, to paleontology, and to
systematic zoology, have been such as to place him in a very high rank
among contemporary naturalists. Not quite in the highest place, I
should say; for, apart from all questions of theory, it is probable that
Mr. Darwin’s gigantic industry, his wonderful thoroughness and ac
curacy as an observer, and his unrivalled fertility of suggestion, will
cause him in the future to be ranked along with Aristotle, Linnaeus,
and Cuvier; and upon this high level we cannot place Prof. Agassiz.
Leaving Mr. Darwin out of the account, we may say that Prof. Agas
siz stands in the first rank of contemporary naturalists. But any ex
ceptional supremacy in this first rank can by no means be claimed for
him. Both for learning and for sagacity, the names of Gray, Wyman,
Huxley, Hooker, Wallace, Lubbock, Lyell, Vogt, Haeckel, and Gegenbaur, are quite as illustrious as the name of Agassiz; and we may
note, in passing, that these are the names of men who openly indorse
and defend the Darwinian theory.
Possibly, however, there are some who will not be inclined to ac
cept the estimates made in the foregoing paragraph. No doubt there
are many people in this country who have long accustomed themselves
to regard Prof. Agassiz not simply as one among a dozen or twenty
living naturalists of the highest rank, but as occupying a solitary po
sition as the greatest of all living naturalists—as a kind of second
Cuvier, for example. There is, to the popular eye, a halo about the
name of Agassiz which there is not about the name of Gray; though,
if there is any man now living in America, of whom America might,
justly boast as her chief ornament and pride, so far as science is con
cerned, that man is unquestionably Prof. Asa Gray. Now, this
greater popular fame of Agassiz is due to the fact that he is a Euro
pean who cast in his lot with us at a time when we were wont to over-
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rate foreign importations of whatever sort. As a European, there
fore, he outshines such men as Profs. Gray and Wyman, and, as a man
whom we know, he outshines other Europeans, like Haeckel and Gegenbaur, whose acquaintance we happen not to have made; just as
Rubinstein, whose fame has filled the American newspapers, outshines
Bulow (probably his equal as a pianist), who has not yet visited this
country. In this way Prof. Agassiz has acquired a reputation in
America which is greater than his reputation in Europe, and which is
greater than his achievements—admirable as they are—would be able,
on trial, to sustain.
And now I come to my first point. Admitting for Prof. Agassiz
all the wonderful greatness as a naturalist with which the vague
sentiments of the uneducated multitude in this country would accredit
him ; admitting, in other words, that he is the greatest of naturalists,
and not one among a dozen or twenty equals; it must still be asked,
why should his rejection of Darwinism be regarded as conclusively
fatal to the Darwinian theory ? The history of science supplies us
with many an instance in which a new and unpopular theory has been
vehemently opposed by those whom one would at first suppose most
competent to judge of its merits, and has nevertheless gained the vic
tory. Dr. Draper brings a terrible indictment against Bacon for re
jecting the Copernican theory, and refusing to profit by the discov
eries of Gilbert in magnetism. This should not be allowed to detract
from Bacon’s real greatness, any more than the rejection of Darwinism
should be allowed to detract from the real merit of Agassiz. Great men
must be measured by their positive achievements rather than by their
negative shortcomings, otherwise they might all have to step down from
their pedestals. Leibnitz rejected Newton’s law of gravitation ; Harvey
saw nothing but foolishness in Aselli’s discovery of the lacteals ; Magen
die ridiculed the great work in which the younger Geoffroy Saint-IIilaire
began to investigate the conditions of nutrition which determine the
birth of monsters ; and when Young, Fresnel, and Malus, completed
the demonstration of that undulatory theory of light which has made
their names immortal, Laplace, nevertheless, the greatest mathemati
cian of the age, persisted until his dying day in heaping contumely
upon these eminent men and upon their arguments. Nay, even Cu
vier—the teacher whom Prof. Agassiz so justly reveres—did not Cuvier
adhere to the last to the grotesque theory of “ pre-formation,” and reject
the true theory of “ epigenesis,” which C. F. Wolff, even before Baer,
had placed upon a scientific basis ? Supposing, then, that the Dar
winian theory is rejected by Agassiz, this fact is no more decisive
against the Darwinian theory than the rejection of Fresnel’s theory
by Laplace was decisive against Fresnel’s theory.
For the facts just cited show that even the wisest and most learned
men are not infallible, and that it will not do to have a papacy where
scientific questions are concerned. Strange as it may at first seem,
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nothing is more certain than that a man’s opinion may be eminently
fallible, even with reference to matters which might appear to come
directly within the range of his own specialty. Many people, I pre
sume, think that, because Prof. Agassiz has made a specialty of the
study of extinct and living organisms, because he has devoted a long
and industrious life to this study, therefore his opinion with reference
to the relations of present life upon the globe to past life ought to be
at once conclusive. The fallacy of this inference becomes apparent as
soon as we recollect that Profs. Gray, Wyman, Huxley, and Haeckel,
who are equally well qualified to have an opinion on such matters, have
agreed in forming an opinion diametrically opposite to that of Prof.
Agassiz. But the fallacy may be shown independently of any such com
parison. Even if all the foundations of certainty seem to be shaking
beneath us when we say that an expert is not always the best judge of
matters pertaining to his own specialty, we must still say it, for facts
will bear us out in saying it. I have known excellent mathematicians
and astronomers who had not the first word to say about the Nebular
Hypothesis : they had never felt interested in it, had never studied it,
and consequently did not understand it, and could hardly state it cor
rectly. After a while one ceases to be surprised at such things. It is
quite possible for one to study the structure of echinoderms and fishes
during a long life, and yet remain unable to offer a satisfactory opin
ion upon any subject connected with zoology, for the proper treatment
of which there are required some power of generalization and some fa
miliarity with large considerations. Indeed, there are many admirable
experts in natural history, as well as in other studies, who never pay
the slightest heed to questions involving wide-reaching considera
tions ; and who, with all their amazing minuteness of memory con
cerning the metamorphoses of insects and the changes which the em
bryo of a white-fish undergoes from fecundation to maturity, are nev
ertheless unable to see the evidentiary value of the great general facts
of geological succession and geographical distribution, even when it
is thrust directly before their eyes. To such persons, “ science ” means
the collecting of polyps, the dissecting of mollusks, the vivisection of
frogs, the registration of innumerable facts of detail, without regard
to the connected story which all these facts, when put together, have
it in their powei’ to tell. And all putting together of facts, with a
view to elicit this connected story, they are too apt to brand as unsci
entific speculation; forgetting that if Newton had merely occupied
himself with taking observations and measuring celestial distances, in
stead of propounding an audacious hypothesis, and then patiently
verifying it, the law of gravitation might never have been discovered.
Herein lies the explanation of the twice-repeated rejection of Mr.
Darwin’s name by the French Academy of Sciences. The lamentable
decline of science in France since the beginning of the Second Empire
has been most conspicuously marked by the tendency of scientific
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inquirers to occupy themselves exclusively with matters of detail, to
the neglect of wide-reaching generalizations. And the rejection of
Mr. Darwin’s name was justified upon the ground, not that he had
made unscientific generalizations, but that he had been a mere (!) generalizer, instead of a collector of facts. The allegation was, indeed,
incorrect; since Mr. Darwin is as eminent for his industry in collect
ing facts as for his boldness in generalizing. But the form of the
allegation well illustrates the truth of what I have been seeking to
show—that familiarity with the details of a subject does not enable
one to deal with it in the grand style, and elicit new truth from old
facts, unless one also possesses some faculty for penetrating into the
hidden implications of the facts ; or, in other words, some faculty for
philosophizing.
Now, I am far from saying of Prof. Agassiz that he is a mere col
lector of echinoderms and dissector of fishes, with no tact whatever
in philosophizing. He does not stand in the position of those who
think that the end of scientific research is attained when we have
carefully ticketed a few thousand specimens of corals and butterflies,
in much the same spirit as that in which a school-girl collects and clas
sifies autographs or postage-stamps. Along with his indefatigable in
dustry as a collector and observer, Prof. Agassiz has a decided inclina
tion toward general views. However lamentably deficient we may
think him in his ability to discern the hidden implications of facts,
there can be no question that his facts are of little importance to him
save as items in a philosophic scheme. He knows very well—perhaps
almost too well—that the value of facts lies in the conclusions to which
they point. And, accordingly, lack of philosophizing is the last short
coming with which, as a scientific writer, he can be charged. If he
errs on a great scientific question, lying within his own range of inves
tigation, it is not because he refrains steadfastly from all general con
siderations, but because he philosophizes—and philosophizes on un
sound principles. It is because his philosophizing is not a natural
outgrowth from the facts of Nature which lie at his disposal, but is
made up out of sundry traditions of his youth, which, by dint of play
ing upon the associations of ideas which are grouped around certain
combinations of words, have come to usurp the place of observed facts
as a basis for forming conclusions. It is not because he abstains from
generalizing that Prof. Agassiz is unable to appreciate the arguments
by which Mr. Darwin has established his theory, but it is because he
long ago brought his mind to acquiesce in various generalizations, of a
thoroughly unscientific or non-scientific character, with the further
maintenance of which the acceptance of the Darwinian theory is (or
seems to Prof. Agassiz to be) incompatible.
The generalizations which have thus preoccupied Prof. Agassiz’s
mind are purely theological or mythological in their nature. In esti
mating the probable soundness of his opinion upon any scientific ques-
�AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM.
697
tion, it must always be remembered that he is, above all things, a dev
otee of what J's called “ natural theology.” In his discussions concern
ing the character of the relationships between the various members of
the animal kingdom, the foreground of his consciousness is always
completely occupied by theological considerations, to such an extent
that the evidentiary value of scientific facts cannot always get a foot
ing there, and is, consequently, pushed away into the background.
One feels, in reading his writings, that, except when he is narrating
facts with the pure joyfulness of a specialist exulting in the exposition
of his subject (and, when in this mood, he often narrates facts with
which his inferences are wholly incompatible), he never makes a point
without some regard to its bearings upon theological propositions which
his early training has led him to place paramount to all facts of obser
vation whatever. In virtue of this peculiarity of disposition, Prof.
Agassiz has become the welcome ally of those zealous but narrow
minded theologians, in whom the rapid progress of the Darwinian
theory has awakened the easily explicable but totally groundless fear
that the necessary foundations of true religion, or true Christianity,
are imperilled. It is not many years since these very persons re
garded Prof. Agassiz with dread and abhorrence, because of his flat
contradiction of the Bible in his theory of the multiple origin of the
human race. But, now that the doctrine of Evolution has come to be
the unclean thing above all others to be dreaded and abhorred, this
comparatively slight iniquity of Prof. Agassiz has been condoned or
forgotten, and, as the great antagonist of Evolution, he is welcomed
as the defender of the true Church against her foes.
This preference of theological over scientific considerations once
led Prof. Agassiz (if my memory serves me rightly) to use language
very unbecoming in a professed student of Nature. Some seven years
ago he delivered a course of lectures at the Cooper Union, and in one
of these lectures he observed that he preferred the theory which makes
man out a fallen angel to the theory which makes him out an improved
monkey—a remark which was quite naturally greeted with laughter
and applause. But the applause was ill-bestowed, for the remark was
one of the most degrading which a scientific lecturer could make. A
scientific inquirer has no business to have “ preferences.” Such things
are fit only for silly women of society, or for young children who play
with facts, instead of making sober use of them. What matters it
whether we are pleased with the notion of a monkey-ancestry or not ?
The end of scientific research is the discovery of truth, and not the
satisfaction of our whims or fancies, or even of what we are pleased to
call our finer feelings. The proper reason for refusing to accept any
doctrine is, that it is inconsistent with observed facts, or with some
other doctrine which has been firmly established on a basis of fact.
The refusal to entertain a theory because it seems disagreeable or de
grading, is a mark of intellectual cowardice and insincerity. In mat
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ters of scientific inquiry, it is as grave an offence as the letting one’s
note go to protest is in matters of business. In saying these things, I
do not mean to charge Prof. Agassiz with intellectual cowardice and
insincerity, for the remark which I criticise so sharply was not worthy
of him, it did not comport with his real character as a student of sci
ence, and to judge of him by this utterance alone would be to do him
injustice.
It was with the hope of finding some more legitimate objections to
the Darwinian theory that I procured the Tribune's lecture-sheet con
taining Prof. Agassiz’s twelve lectures on the natural foundations of
organic affinity, and diligently searched it from beginning to end. I
believe I am truthful in saying that a good staggering objection would
have been quite welcome to me, just for the sake of the intellectual
stimulus implied in dealing with it, for on this subject my mind was
so thoroughly made up thirteen years ago, that the discussion of it,
as ordinarily conducted, has long since ceased to have any interest for
me. I am just as firmly convinced that the human race is descended
from lower animal forms, as I am that the earth revolves in an elliptical
orbit about the sun. So completely, indeed, is this proposition wrought
in with my whole mental structure, that the negation of it seems to me
utterly nonsensical and void of meaning, and I doubt if my mind is ca
pable of shaping such a negation into a proposition which I could intel
ligently state. To have such deeply-rooted convictions shaken once in
a while is, I believe, a very useful and wdiolesome experiment in men
tal hygiene. That rigidity of mind which prevents the thorough re
vising of our opinions is sure, sooner or later, to come upon all of us ;
but we ought to dread it, as we dread the stagnation of old age or
death. For some such reasons as these, I am sure that I should have
been glad to find, in the course of Prof. Agassiz’s lectures, at least one
powerful argument against the interpretation of organic affinities
which Mr. Darwin has done so much to establish. I should have
been still more glad to find some alternative interpretation proposed
which could deserve to be entertained as scientific in character. I am
sure no task could be more delightful, or more quickening to one’s
energies, than that of comparing two alternative theories upon this
subject, upon which, thus far, only one has ever been propounded
which possesses the marks of a scientific hypothesis. But no such
pleasure or profit is in store for any one who studies these twelve lect
ures of Prof. Agassiz. In all these lectures, there is not a single al
lusion to Mr. Darwin’s name, save once in a citation from another
author; there is not the remotest allusion to any of the arguments by
which Mr. Darwin has contributed most largely to tlie establishment
of the development theory; nay, there is not a single sentence from
which one could learn that Mr. Darwin’s books had ever been written,
or that the theories which they expound had ever taken shape in the
mind of any thinking man. I do not doubt that Prof. Agassiz has, at
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699
some time read, or looked over, the “ Origin of Species
but there is
not a word in these lectures which might not have been written by
one who had never heard of that book, or of the arguments which
made the publication of it the beginning of a new epoch in the history
of science.
Not only is it that Prof. Agassiz does not attack the Darwinian
theory in these lectures; it is also that, until the ninth lecture, he does
not allude to the doctrine of Evolution in any way. TIis first eight
lectures consist mostly in an account of the development of the embryo
in various animals; and in this we have a pure description of facts
with which no one certainly will feel like quarrelling, so far as theories
are concerned. He goes to work, very much as Max Müller does, in
lecturing about the science of language, when he gives you a maximum
of interesting etymologies and a minimum of real philosophizing which
goes to the bottom of things. But Prof. Agassiz is not so interesting
or so stimulating in his discourse as Max, Müller. He does not lead us
into pleasant fields of illustration, where we would fain tarry longer,
forgetting the main purpose of the discussion in our delight at the un
essential matters which occupy our attention. On the contrary, it
seems to me that Prof. Agassiz’s explanation of the development of
eggs is rather tedious and dry, and by no means richly fraught with
novel suggestions. The exposition is a commonplace one, such as is
good for students in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, who are
beginning to study embryology, but there are no features which make
it especially interesting or instructive to any one who has already
served an apprenticeship in these matters.
In his ninth lecture, Prof. Agassiz begins to make some allusion
to the development theory—not to the development theory as it now
stands since the publication of the “ Origin of Species,” but to the de
velopment theory as it stood in the days when Prof. Agassiz was a
young student, when Cuvier and the elder Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
waged fierce warfare in the French Academy, and when the aged
Goethe, sanest and wisest of men, foresaw in the issue of that battle
the speedy triumph of the development theory. Beyond this point, I
will venture to say, Prof. Agassiz has never travelled. The doctrine
of Evolution is still, to him, what it was in those early days ; and all
the discoveries and reasonings of Mr. Darwin have passed by him un
heeded and unnoticed. He arrived too early at that rigidity of mind
which prevents us from properly comprehending new theories, and
which we should all of us dread.
What, now, is the doctrine which Prof. Agassiz begins to attack,
in his ninth lecture, and what is the doctrine which he would propose
as a substitute ? The doctrine which he attacks is simply this—that
all organic beings have come into existence through some natural pro
cess of causation ; and the doctrine which he defends is just this—that
all organic beings, as classed in species, have come into existence at
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the outset by means of some act of which our ordinary notions of cause
and effect can give no account whatever. For every one of the indi
viduals of which a species is made up, he will admit the adequacy of
the ordinary process of generation ; but for the species as a whole, this
process seems to him inadequate, and he flies at once to that refuge
of inconsequent and timid minds—miracle !
This is really just what Prof. Agassiz’s theory of the origin of spe
cific forms amounts to, and this is the reason why, in spite of grave
heresy on minor points, he is now regarded by the evangelical Church
as one of its chief champions. Instead of the natural process of gen
eration—which is the only process by which we have ever known or
ganic beings to be produced—he would fain set up some unknown mys
terious process, the nature of which he is careful not to define, but for
which he endeavors to persuade us that we have a fair equivalent in
sonorous phrases concerning “ creative will,” “ free action of an intel
ligent mind,” and so on. In thus postponing considerations of pure
science to considerations of “ natural theology,” I have no doubt Prof.
Agassiz is actuated by a praiseworthy desire to do something for the
glory of that Power of which the phenomenal universe is the perpetual
but ever-changing manifestation. But how futile is such an attempt
as this I How contrary to common-sense it is to say that a species is
produced, not by the action of blind natural forces, but by an intelli
gent will! For, although this most prominent of all facts seems to be
oftenest overlooked by theologians and others whom it most especially
concerns, we are all the time, day by day and year by year, in each
and every event of our lives, having experience of the workings of
that Divine Power which, whether we attribute to it “ intelligent will ”
or not, is unquestionably the one active agent in all the dynamic phe
nomena of Nature. Little as we know of the intrinsic nature of this
Omnipresent Power, which, in our poor human talk, we call God,
we do at least know, by daily and hourly experience, what is the char
acter of its working. The whole experience of our lives teaches us
that this Power works after a method which, in our scholastic expression,
we call the method of cause and effect, or the method of natural law.
Traditions of a barbarous and uncultivated age, in which mere gro
tesque associations of thoughts were mistaken for facts, have told us
that this Power has, at various times in the past, worked in a different
way—causing effects to appear without cognizable antecedents, even
as Aladdin’s palace rose in all its wondrous magnificence, without
sound of carpenter’s hammer or mason’s chisel, in a single night. But
about such modes of divine action we know nothing whatever from
experience; and the awakening of literary criticism, in modern times,
has taught us to distrust all such accounts of divine action which con
flict with the lessons we learn from what is ever going on round
about us. So far as we know aught concerning the works of God,
which are being performed in us, through us, and around us, during
�AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM.
701
every moment of that conscious intelligence which enables us to bear
witness to them, we know they are works from which the essential re
lation of a given effect to its adequate cause is never absent. And for
this reason, if we view the matter in pure accordance with experience,
we are led to maintain that the antagonism or contrariety which seems
to exist in Prof. Agassiz’s mind between the action of God and the
action of natural forces is nothing but a figment of that ancestral im
agination from which the lessons which shaped Prof. Agassiz’s ways
of thinking were derived. So far as experience can tell us any thing,
it tells us that divine action is the action of natural forces; for, if we
refuse to accept this conclusion, what have we to do but retreat to the
confession that we have no experience of divine action whatever, and
that the works of God have been made manifest only to those who
lived in that unknown time when Aladdin’s palaces were built, and
when species were created, in a single night, without the intervention
of any natural process ?
Trusting, then, in this universal teaching of experience, let us for
a moment face fairly the problem which the existence of men upon the
earth presents to us. Here is actually existing a group of organisms,
which we call the human race. Either it has existed eternally, or
some combination of circumstances has determined its coming into
existence. The first alternative is maintained by no one, and our
astronomical knowledge of the past career of our planet is sufficient
decisively to exclude it. There is no doubt that at some time in the
past the human race did not exist, and that its gradual or sudden
coming into existence was determined by some combination of circum
stances. Now, when Prof. Agassiz asks us to see, in this origination
of mankind, the working of a Divine Power, we acquiesce in all rever
ence. But when he asks us to see in this origination of mankind the
working of a Divine Power, instead of the working of natural causes,
we do not acquiesce, because, so far as experience has taught us any
thing, it has taught us that Divine Power never works except by the
way of natural causation. Experience tells us that God causes Alad
din’s palaces to come into existence gradually, through the coopera
tion of countless minute antecedents. And it tells us, most emphati
cally, that such structures do not come into existence without an
adequate array of antecedents, no matter what the Arabian Nights
may tell us to the contrary.
Now, when Prof. Agassiz asks us to believe that species have come
into existence by means of a special creative fiat, and not through
the operation of what are called natural causes, we reply that his
request is mere inanity and nonsense. We have no reason to suppose
that any creature like a man, or any other vertebrate, or articulate, or
mollusk, ever came into existence by any other process than the
familar process of physical generation. To ask us to believe in any
other process is to ask us to abandon the experience which we have
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for the chimeras which we had best not seek to acquire. But Prof.
Agassiz does not even suggest any other process for our acceptance.
He simply retreats upon his empty phrases, “ creative will,” the “ free
workings of an intelligent mind,” and so on. Now, in his second
course of lectures, I hope he will proceed to tell us, not necessarily how
“ creative will ” actually operated in bringing forth a new species, but
how it may conceivably have operated, save through the process of
physical generation, which we know. In his “ Essay on Classifica
tion,” I remember a passage in which he rightly rejects the notion that
any species has arisen from a single pair of parents, and propounds the
formula : “ Pines have originated in forests, heaths in heather, grasses
in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in shoals, buffaloes in herds, men in
nations.” Now, when Prof. Agassiz asserts that men originated in
nations, by some other process than that of physical generation, what
does he mean ? Does he mean that men dropped down from the sky ?
Does he mean that the untold millions of organic particles which make
up a man all rushed together from the four quarters of the compass,
and proceeded, spontaneously or by virtue of some divine sorcery, to
aggregate themselves into the infinitely complex organs and tissues
of the human body, with all their wondrous and well-defined apti
tudes ? It is time that this question should be faced, by Prof. Agassiz
and those who agree with him, without further shirking. Instead of
grandiloquent phrases about the “ free action of an intelligent mind,”
let us have something like a candid suggestion of some process, other
than that of physical generation, by which a creature like man can
even be imagined to have come into existence. When the time comes
for answering this question, we shall find that even Prof. Agassiz
is utterly dumb and helpless. The sonorous phrase “ special creation,”
in which he has so long taken refuge, is nothing but a synthesis of
vocal sounds which covers and, to some minds, conceals a thoroughly
idiotic absence of sense or significance. To say that “ Abracadabra
is not a genial corkscrew,” is to make a statement quite as full of mean
ing as the statement that species have originated by “ special crea
tion.”
The purely theological (or theologico-metaphysical and at all
events unscientific) character of Prof. Agassiz’s objections to the de
velopment theory is sufficiently shown by the fact that, in the fore
going paragraphs, I have considered whatever of any account there is
in his lectures which can be regarded as an objection. Arguments
against the development theory such objections cannot be called : they
are, at their very best, nothing but expressions of fear and dislike.
The only remark which I have been able to find, worthy of being
dignified as an argument, is the following: “We see that fishes are
lowest, that reptiles are higher, that birds have a superior organization
to both, and that mammals, with man at their head, are highest. The
phases of development which a quadruped undergoes, in his embryonic
�AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM.
7°3
growth, recall this gradation. He has a fish-like, a reptile-like stage
before he shows unmistakable mammal-like features. We do not on
this account suppose a quadruped grows out of a fish in our time, for
this simple reason, that we live among quadrupeds and fishes, and we
know that no such thing takes place. But resemblances of the same
kind, separated by geological ages, allow play for the imagination, and
for inference unchecked by observation.”
I do not believe that Prof. Agassiz’s worst enemy—if he ever had
an enemy—could have been so hard-hearted as to wish for* him the
direful catastrophe into which this wonderful piece of argument has
plunged him irretrievably. For the question must at once suggest
itself to every reader at all familiar with the subject, If Prof. Agassiz
supposes that the development theory, as held nowadays, implies that
a quadruped was ever the direct issue of a fish, of what possible value
can his opinion be as regards the development theory in any way ?
If I may speak frankly, as I have indeed been doing from the out
set, I will say that, as regards the Darwinian theory, Prof. Agassiz
seems to me to be hopelessly behind the age. I have never yet come
across the first indication that he knows what the Darwinian theory is.
Against the development theory, as it was taught him by the discus
sions of forty years ago, he is fond of uttering, I will not say argu
ments, but expressions of dislike. With the modern development
theory, with the circumstances of variation, heredity, and natural se
lection, he never, in any of his writings, betrays the slightest acquaint
ance. Against a mere man of straw of his own devising, he indus
triously hurls anathemas of a quasi-theological character. But any
thing like a scientific examination of the character and limits of the
agency of natural selection in modifying the appearance and structure
of a species, any thing like such an examination as is to be found in
the interesting work of Mr. St. George Mivart, he has never yet
brought forth.
Now, when Prof. Agassiz fairly comes to an issue, if he ever does, and
undertakes to refute the Darwinian theory, these are some of the ques
tions which he will have to answer: 1. If all organisms are not asso
ciated through the bonds of common descent, why is it that the facts
of classification are just such as they would have been had they been
due to such a common descent ? 2. Why does a mammal always
begin to develop as if it were going to become a fish, and then, chang
ing its tactics, proceed as if it were going to become a reptile or bird,
and only after great delay and circumlocution take the direct road
toward mammality ? In answer to this, we do not care to be told that
a mammal never was the son of a fish, because we know that already ;
nor do we care to hear any more about the “ free manifestations of an
intelligent mind,” because we have had quite enough of metaphysical
phrases which do not contain a description of some actual or imagi
nable process. We want to know how this state of things can be sci-
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
entifically interpreted save on the hypothesis of a common ultimate
origin for mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. 3. What is the mean
ing of such facts as the homologies which exist between corresponding
parts of organisms constructed on the same type ? Why does the
black salamander retain fully-developed gills which he never uses, and
what is the significance of rudimentary and aborted organs in gen
eral ? Again I say, we do not want to hear about “ uniformity of de
sign ” and “ reminiscences of a plan,” and so on, but we wish to know
how this* state of things was physically brought about, save by com
munity of descent. 4. Why is it that the facts of geological succes
sion and geographical distribution so clearly indicate community of
descent, unless there has actually been community of descent? Why
have marsupials in Australia followed after other marsupials, and
edentata in South America followed after other edentata, with such
remarkable regularity, unless the bond which unites present with past
ages be the well-known, the only known, and the only imaginable bond
of physical generation ? Why are the fauna and flora of each geologic
epoch in general intermediate in character between the flora and fauna
of the epochs immediately preceding and succeeding? And, 5. What
are we to do with the great fact of extinction if we reject Mr. Dar
win’s explanations ? When a race is extinguished, is it because of a
universal deluge, or because of the “ free manifestations of an intelli
gent mind ? ” For surely Prof. Agassiz will not attribute such a sol
emn result to such ignoble causes as insufficiency of food or any other
of the thousand causes, “ blindly mechanical,” which conspire to make
a species succumb in the struggle for life.
And here the phrase, “ struggle for life,” reminds me of yet an
other difficult task which Prof. Agassiz will have before him when he
comes to undertake the refutation of Darwinism in earnest. He will
have to explain away the enormous multitude of facts which show that
there is a struggle for life in which the fittest survive ; or he will at
any rate have to show in what imaginable way an organic type can
remain constant in all its features through countless ages under the
influence of such circumstances, unless by taking into the account the
Darwinian interpretation of persistent types offered by Prof. Huxley.
But I will desist from further enumeration of the difficulties which
surround this task which Prof. Agassiz has not undertaken, and is
not likely ever to undertake. For the direct grappling with that com
plicated array of theorems which the genius of such men as Darwin
and Spencer and their companions has established on a firm basis of
observation and deduction, Prof. Agassiz seems in these lectures hardly
better qualified than a child is qualified for improving the methods of
the integral calculus. These questions have begun to occupy earnest
thinkers since the period when his mind acquired that rigidity which
prevents the revising of one’s opinions. The marvellous flexibility of
thought with which Sir Charles Lyell so gracefully abandoned his an-
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
705
tiquated position, Prof. Agassiz is never likely to show. This is
largely because Lyell has always been a thinker of purely scientific
habit, while Agassiz has long been accustomed to making profoundly
dark metaphysical phrases do the work which properly belongs to
observation and deduction. But, however we may best account for
these idiosyncrasies, it remains most probable among those facts which
are still future, that Prof. Agassiz will never advance any more crush
ing refutation of the Darwinian theory than the simple expression of
his personal dislike for “ mechanical agencies,” and his belief in the
“ free manifestations of an intelligent mind.” Were he only to be left
to himself, such expressions of personal preference could not mar the
pleasure with which we often read his exposition of purely scientific
truths. But when he is brought before the public as the destroyer of
a theory, the elements of which he has never yet given any sign of
having mastered, he is placed in a false position, which would be lu
dicrous could he be supposed to have sought it, and which is, at all
events, unworthy of his eminent fame.
m-n-TT. nuTWAuv nnYPPPTR OF MODERN PHYSICAL
ERRATUM.
Page 710, line 32, for “impenetrability,” read “ compenetrability.”
Lierman
ULuraxinvn au«
j.
t. j
--------- . .
x
_
Du Bois-Reymond, one of the most noted physicists of the age.
“Natural science,” says Du Bois-Reymond,1 “is a reduction of the
changes in the material world to motions of atoms caused by central
forces independent of time, or a resolution of the phenomena of Na
ture into atomic mechanics. . . . The resolution of all changes in the
material world into motions of atoms caused by their constant central
forces would be the completion of natural science.”
Obviously, the proposition thus enounced assigns to physical sci1 “ Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens. Ein Vortrag in der zweiten öffentlichen
Sitzung der 45. Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte zu Leipzig am 14.
August 1872, gehalten von Emil Du Bois-Reymond.” Leipzig, Veit & Comp., 1872.
VOL. in.—45
�7o6
•
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
enee limits so narrow that all attempts to bring the characteristic
phenomena of organic life (not to speak of mental action) within them
are utterly hopeless. Nevertheless, it is asserted that organic phe
nomena are the product of ordinary physical forces alone, and that
the assumption of vital agencies, as distinct from the forces of inor
ganic Nature, is wholly inadmissible. In view of this, it seems strange
that the validity of the proposition above referred to has never, so far
as I know, been questioned, except in the interest of some metaphysi
cal or theological system. It is my purpose in the following essays
to offer a few suggestions in this behalf, in order to ascertain, if pos
sible, whether the prevailing primary notions of physical science can
stand, or are in need of revision.
One of the prime postulates of the mechanical theory is the atomic
constitution of matter. A discussion of this theory, therefore, at
once leads to an examination of the grounds upon which the assump
tion of atoms, as the ultimate constituents of the physical world,
rests.
The doctrine that an exhaustive analysis of a material body into
its real elements, if it could be practically effected, would yield an ag
gregate of indivisible and indestructible particles, is almost coeval
with human speculation, and has held its ground more persistently
than any other tenet of science or philosophy. It is true that the
atomic theory, since its first promulgation by the early Greek philoso
phers, and its elaborate statement by Lucretius, has been modified and
refined. There is probably no one, at this day, who invests the atoms
with hooks and loops, or (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, ii., 398, et seq.)
accounts for the bitter taste of wormwood by the raggedness, and for
the sweetness of honey by the smooth roundness of the constituent
atoms. But the “ atom ” of modern science is still of determinate
weight, if not of determinate figure, and stands for something more
than an abstract unit, even in the view of those who, like Boscovich,
Faraday, Ampère, or Fechner, profess to regard it as a mere centre of
force. And there is no difficulty in stating the atomic doctrine in
terms applicable alike to all the acceptations in which it is now held by
scientific men. Whatever diversity of opinion may prevail as to the
form, size, etc., of the atoms, all who advance the atomic hypothesis,
in any of its varieties, as a physical theory, agree in three propositions,
which may be stated as follows :
1. Atoms are absolutely simple, unchangeable, indestructible ; they
are physically, if not mathematically, indivisible.
2. Matter consists of discrete parts, the constituent atoms being
separated by void interstitial spaces. In contrast to the continuity of
space stands the discontinuity of matter. The expansion of a body
is simply an increase, its contraction a lessening of the spatial inter
vals between the atoms.
3. The atoms composing the different chemical elements are of de-
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
7q7
terminate specific weights, corresponding to their equivalents of com
bination.1
Confessedly the atomic theory is hut an hypothesis. This in itself
is not decisive against its value; all physical theories properly so
called are hypotheses whose eventual recognition as truths depends
upon their consistency with themselves, upon their agreement with
the canons of logic, upon their congruence with the facts which they
serve to connect and explain, upon their conformity with the ascer
tained order of Nature, upon the extent to which they approve them
selves as reliable anticipations or previsions of facts verified by subse
quent observation or experiment, and finally upon their simplicity, or
rather their reducing power. The merits of the atomic theory, too,
are to be determined by seeing whether or not it satisfactorily and
simply accounts for the phenomena as the explanation of which it is
propounded, and whether or not it is in harmony with itself and with
the known laws of Reason and of Nature.
For what facts, then, is the atomic hypothesis meant to account,
and to what degree is the account it offers satisfactory?
It is claimed that the first of the three propositions above enu
merated (the proposition which asserts the persistent integrity of
atoms, or their unchangeability both in weight and volume) accounts
for the indestructibility and impenetrability of matter; that the sec
ond of these propositions (relating to the discontinuity of matter) is
an indispensable postulate for the explanation of certain physical phe
nomena, such as the dispersion and polarization of light; and that the
third proposition (according to which the atoms composing the chem
ical elements are of determinate specific gravities) is the necessary
general expression of the laws of definite constitution, equivalent pro
portion, and multiple combination, in chemistry.
In discussing these claims, it is important, first, to verify the facts
and to reduce the statements of these facts to exact expression, and
then to see how far they are fused by the theory:
1. The indestructibility of matter is an unquestionable truth. But
in what sense, and upon what grounds, is this indestructibility predi
cated of matter ? The unanimous answer of the atomists is: Expe
rience teaches that all the changes to which matter is subject are but
variations of form, and that amid these variations there is an unvary
ing constant—the mass or quantity of matter. The constancy of the
mass is attested by the balance, which shows that neither fusion nor
sublimation, neither generation nor corruption, can add to or detract
from the weight of a body subjected to experiment. When a pound
of carbon is burned, the balance demonstrates the continuing exist1 To avoid confusion, I purposely ignore the distinction between molecules as the ulti
mate products of the physical division of matter, and atoms as the ultimate products of
its chemical decomposition, preferring to use the word atoms in the sense of the least
particles into which bodies are divisible or reducible by any means.
�708
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
ence of this pound in the carbonic acid, which is the product of com
bustion, and from which the original weight of carbon may be re
covered. The quantity of matter is measured by its weight, and this
weight is unchangeable.
Such is the fact, familiar to every one, and its interpretation, equally
familiar. To test the correctness of this interpretation, we may be
permitted slightly to vary the method of verifying it. Instead of
burning the pound of carbon, let us simply carry it to the summit of a
mountain, or remove it to a lower latitude; is its weight still the same ?
Relatively it is; it will still balance the original counterpoise. But
the absolute weight is no longer the same. This appears at once, if
we give to the balance another form, taking a pendulum instead of a
pair of scales. The pendulum on the mountain or near the equator
vibrates more slowly than at the foot of the mountain or near the
pole, for the reason that it has become specifically lighter by being
farther removed from the centre of the earth’s attraction, in conformity
to the law that the attractions of bodies vary inversely as the squares
of their distances.
It is thus evident that the constancy, upon the observation of which
the assertion of the indestructibility of matter is based, is simply the
constancy of a relation, and that the ordinary statement of the fact is
crude and inadequate. Indeed, while it is true that the weight of a
body is a measure of its mass, this is but a single case of the more
general fact that the masses of bodies are inversely as the velocities
imparted to them by the action of the same force, or, more generally
still, inversely as the accelerations produced in them by the same force.
In the case of gravity, the forces of attraction are directly propor
tional to the masses, so that the action of the forces (weight) is the
simplest measure of the relation between any two masses as such;
but, in any inquiry relating to the validity of the atomic theory, it is
necessary to bear in mind that this weight is not the equivalent, or
rather presentation, of an absolute substantive entity in one of the
bodies (the body weighed), but the mere expression of a relation be
tween two bodies mutually attracting each other. And it is further
necessary to remember that this weight may be indefinitely reduced,
without any diminution in the mass of the body weighed, by a mere
change of its position in reference to the body between which and the
body weighed the relation subsists.1
1 The thoughtlessness with which it is assumed by some of the most eminent mathe
maticians and physicists that matter is composed of particles which have an absolute
primordial weight persisting in all positions, and under all circumstances, is one of the
most remarkable facts in the history of science. To cite but one instance : Prof. Rettenbacher, one of the ablest analysts of his day, in his “ Dynamidensystem ” (Mannheim,
Bassermann, 1857), p. 14, says, “The absolute weight of atoms is unknown”—his
meaning being, as is evident from the context and from the whole tenor of his discus
sion, that our ignorance of this absolute weight is due solely to the practical impossi
bility of insulating an atom, and of contriving instruments delicate enough to weigh it.
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
709
Masses find their true and only measure in the action of forces, and
the quantitative persistence of the effect of this action is the simple
and accurate expression of the fact which is ordinarily described as
the indestructibility of matter. It is obvious that this persistence is
in no sense explained or accounted for by the atomic hypothesis. It
may be that such persistence is an attribute of the minute, insensible
particles which are supposed to constitute matter, as well as of sen
sible masses ; but, surely, the hypothetical recurrence of a fact in the
atom is no explanation of the actual occurrence of the same fact in
the conglomerate mass. Whatever mystery is involved in the phe
nomenon is as great in the case of the atom as in that of a solar or
planetary sphere. Breaking a magnet into fragments, and showing
that each fragment is endowed with the magnetic polarity of the in
teger magnet, is no explanation of the phenomenon of magnetism. A
phenomenon is not explained by being dwarfed. A fact is not trans
formed into a theory by being looked at through an inverted telescope.
The hypothesis of ultimate indestructible atoms is not a necessary im
plication of the persistence of weight, and can at best account for the
indestructibility of matter if it can be shown that there is an absolute
limit to the compressibility of matter—in other words, that there is
an absolutely least volume for every determinate mass. This brings
us to the consideration of that general property of matter which prob
ably, in the minds of most men, most urgently requires the assump
tion of atoms—its impenetrability.
“ Two bodies cannot occupy the same space ”—such is the familiar
statement of the fact in question. Like the indestructibility of matter,
it is claimed to be a datum of experience. “ Corpora omnia impenotrabilla esse” says Sir Isaac Newton (Phil. Nat. Prine. Math., lib.
iii., reg. 3), “ non ratione sed sensu colligimus.” Let us see in what
sense and to what extent this claim is legitimate.
The proposition, according to which a space occupied by one body
cannot be occupied by another, implies the assumption that space is
an absolute, self-measuring entity—an assumption which I may have
occasion to examine hereafter—and the further assumption that there
is a least space which a given body will absolutely fill so as to exclude
any other body. A verification of this proposition by experience,
therefore, must amount to proof that there is an absolute limit to the
compressibility of all matter whatsoever. Now, does experience au
thorize us to assign such a limit ? Assuredly not. It is true that in
the case of solids and liquids there are practical limits beyond which
compression by the mechanical means at our command is impossible ;
but even here we are met by the fact that the volumes of fluids, which
effectually resist all efforts at further reduction by external pressure,
are readily reduced by mere mixture. Thus, sulphuric acid and water
at ordinary temperatures do not sensibly yield to pressure; but, when
they are mixed, the resulting volume is materially less than the aggre
�710
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
gate volumes of the liquids mixed. But, waiving this, as well as the
phenomena which emerge in the processes of solution and chemical ac
tion, it must be said that experience does not in any manner vouch
for the impenetrability of matter as such in all its states of aggrega
tion. When gases are subjected to pressure, the result is simply an
increase of the expansive force in proportion to the pressure exerted,
according to the law of Boyle and Mariotte (the modifications of and
apparent exceptions to which, as exhibited in the experimental results
obtained by Regnault and others, need not here be stated, because
they do not affect the argument). A definite experimental limit, is
reached in the case of those gases only in which the pressure produces
liquefaction or solidification. The most significant phenomenon, how
ever, which experience contributes to the testimony on this subject is
the diffusion of gases. Whenever two or more gases which do not act
upon each other chemically are introduced into a given space, each gas
diffuses itself in this space as though it were alone present there; or,
as Dalton, the reputed father of the modern atomic theory, expresses
it, “ Gases are mutually passive, and pass into each other as into
vacua.”
Whatever reality may correspond to the notion of the impenetra
bility of matter, this impenetrability is not, in the sense of the atomists, a datum of experience.
Upon the whole, it would seem that the validity of the first propo
sition of the atomic theory is not sustained by the facts. Even if the
assumed unchangeability of the supposed ultimate constituent particles
of matter presented itself, upon its own showing, as more than a bare
reproduction of an observed fact in the form of an hypothesis, and
could be dignified with the name of a generalization or of a theory,
it would still be obnoxious to the criticism that it is a generalization
from facts crudely observed and imperfectly apprehended.
In this connection it may be observed that the atomic theory has
become next to valueless as an explanation of the impenetrability
of matter, since it has been pressed into the service of the undulatory
theory of light, heat, etc., and assumed the form in which it is now
held by the majority of physicists, as we shall presently see. Ac
cording to this form of the theory, the atoms are either mere points,
wholly without extension, or their dimensions are infinitely small as
compared with the distances between them, whatever be the state
aggregation of the substances into which they enter. In this view
the resistance which a body, i. e., a system of atoms, offers to the in
trusion of another body is due, not to the rigidity or unchangeability
of volume of the individual atoms, but to the relation between the
attractive and repulsive forces with which they are supposed to be
endowed. There are physicists holding this view who are of opinion
that the atomic constitution of matter is consistent with its impene
trability among them M. Cauchy, who, in his Sept Lemons de Phy-
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
7n
sique Genérale (ed. Moigno, Paris, 1868, p. 38), after defining atoms
as “ material points without extension,” uses this language: “ Thus,
this property of matter which we call impenetrability is explained,
when we consider the atoms as material points exerting on each other
attractions and repulsions which vary with the distances that separate
them. . . . From this it follows that, if it pleased the author of Na
ture simply to modify the laws according to which the atoms attract
or repel each other, we might instantly see the hardest bodies pene
trate each other ” (that we might see), “ the smallest particles of matter
occupy immense spaces, or the largest masses reduce themselves to
the smallest volumes, the entire universe concentrating itself, as it
were, in a single point.”
2. The second fundamental proposition of the modern atomic
theory avouches the essential discontinuity of matter. The advocates
of the theory affirm that there is a series of physical phenomena
which are inexplicable, unless we assume that the constituent par
ticles of matter are separated by void interspaces. The most notable
among these phenomena are the dispersion and polarization of light.
The grounds upon which the assumption of a discrete molecular
structure of matter is deemed indispensable for the explanation of
these phenomena may be stated in a few words.
According to the undulatory theory, the dispersion of light, or its
separation into spectral colors, by means of refraction, is a conse
quence of the unequal retardation experienced by the different waves,
which produce the different colors, in their transmission through the
refracting medium. This unequal retardation presupposes differences
in the velocities with which the various-colored rays are transmitted
through any medium whatever, and a dependence of these velocities
upon the lengths of the waves. But, according to a well-established
mechanical theorem, the velocities with which undulations are prop
agated through a continuous medium depend solely upon the elasticity
of the medium as compared with its inertia, and are wholly indepen
dent of the length and form of the waves. The correctness of this the
orem is attested by experience in the case of sound. Sounds of every
pitch travel with the same velocity. If it were otherwise, music heard
at a distance would evidently become chaotic; differences of velocity
in the propagation of sound would entail a distortion of the rhythm,
and, in many cases, a reversal of the order of succession. Now, differ
ences of color are analogous to differences of pitch in sound, both re
ducing themselves to differences of wave-length. The lengths of the
waves increase as we descend the scale of sounds from those of a higher
to those of a lower pitch; and similarly, the length of a luminar undu
lation increases as we descend the spectral scale, from violet to red. It
follows, then, that the rays of different color, like the sounds of differ
ent pitch, should be propagated with equal velocities, and be equally
refracted; that, therefore, no dispersion of light should take place.
�712
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
This theoretical impossibility of dispersion has always been recog
nized as one of the most formidable difficulties of the undulatory
theory. In order to obviate it, Cauchy, at the suggestion of his friend
Coriolis, entered upon a series of analytical investigations, in which he
succeeded in showing that the velocities with which the various colored
rays are propagated may vary according to the wave-lengths, if it be
assumed that the ethereal medium of propagation, instead of being
continuous, consists of particles separated by sensible distances.
By means of a similar assumption, Fresnel has sought to remove
the difficulties presented by the phenomena of polarization. In ordi
nary light, the different undulations are supposed to take place in dif
ferent directions, all transverse to the course or line of propagation,
while in polarized light the vibrations, though still transverse to the
ray, are parallelized, so as to occur in the same plane. Soon after this
hypothesis had been expanded into an elaborate theory of polarization,
Poisson observed that, at any considerable distance from the source
of the light, all transverse vibrations in a continuous elastic medium
must become longitudinal. As in the case of dispersion, this objection
was met by the hypothesis of the existence of “definite intervals”
between the ethereal particles.
These are the considerations, succinctly stated, which theoretical
physics are supposed to bring to the support of the atomic theory. In
reference to the cogency of the argument founded upon them, it is to
be said, generally, that evidence of the discrete molecular arrangement
of matter is by no means proof of the alternation of unchangeable and
indivisible atoms with absolute spatial voids. But it is to be feared
that the argument in question is not only formally, but also materially,
fallacious. It is very questionable whether the assumption of definite
intervals between the particles of the luminiferous ether is competent
to relieve the undulatory theory of light from its embarrassments.
This subject, in one of its aspects, has been thoroughly discussed by E.
B. Hunt, in an article on the dispersion of light (SiUimari8 Journal,
vol. vii., 2d series, p. 364, et seq.), and the suggestions there made ap
pear to me worthy of serious attention. They are briefly these:
M. Cauchy brings the phenomena of dispersion within the do
minion of the undulatory theory, by deducing the differences in the
velocities of the several chromatic rays from the differences in the cor
responding wave-lengths by means of the hypothesis of definite inter
vals between the particles of the light-bearing medium. He takes it
for granted, therefore, that these chromatic rays are propagated with
different velocities. But is this the fact ? Astronomy affords the
means to answer this question.
We experience the sensation of white light, when all the chromatic
rays of which it is composed strike the eye simultaneously. The light
proceeding from a luminous body will appear colorless, even if the
component rays move with unequal velocities, provided all the colored
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
713
rays, which together make up white light, concur in their action on
the retina at a given moment; in ordinary cases it is immaterial
whether these rays have left the luminous body successively or together.
But it is otherwise when a luminous body becomes visible suddenly,
as in the case of the satellites of Jupiter, or Saturn, after their eclipses.
At certain periods, more than 49 minutes are requisite for the trans
mission of light from Jupiter to the earth. Now, at the moment when
one of Jupiter’s satellites, which has been eclipsed by that planet,
emerges from the shadow, the red rays, if their velocity were the great
est, would evidently reach the eye first, the orange next, and so on
through the chromatic scale, until finally the complement of colors
would be filled by the arrival of the violet ray, whose velocity is
supposed to be the least. The satellite, immediately after its emersion,
would appear red, and gradually, in proportion to the arrival of the
other rays, pass into white. Conversely, at the beginning of the
eclipse, the violet rays would continue to arrive after the red and
other intervening rays, and the satellite, up to the moment of its total
disappearance, will gradually shade into violet.
Unfortunately for Cauchy’s hypothesis, the most careful observation
of the eclipses in question has failed to reveal any such variations of
color, either before immersion, or after emersion, the transition between
light and darkness taking place instantaneously, and without chro
matic gradations.
If it be said that these chromatic gradations escape our vision by
reason of the inappreciability of the differences under discussion, as
tronomy points to other phenomena no less subversive of the doctrine
of unequal velocities in the movements of the chromatic undulations.
Fixed stars beyond the parallactic limit, whose light must travel more
than three years before it reaches us, are subject to great periodical
variations of splendor; and yet these variations are unaccompanied
by variations of color. Again, the assumption of different velocities
for the different chromatic rays is discountenanced by the theory of
aberration. Aberration is due to the fact that, in all cases where the
orbit of the planet, on which the observer is stationed, forms an angle
with the direction of the luminar ray, a composition takes place be
tween the motion of the light and the motion of the planet, so that
the direction in which the light meets the eye is a resultant of the two
component directions—the direction of the ray and that of the ob
server’s motion. If the several rays of color moved with different
velocities there would evidently be several resultants, and each star
would appear as a colored spectrum longitudinally parallel to the
direction of the earth’s motion.
The alleged dependence of the velocity of the undulatory move
ments, which correspond to, or produce, the different colors, upon the
length of the waves, is thus at variance with observed fact. The
hypothesis of definite intervals is unavailable as a supplement to the
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
undulatory theory ; other methods will have to be resorted to in order
to free this theory from its difficulties.1
3. The third proposition of the atomic hypothesis assigns to the
atoms, which are said to compose the different chemical elements, de
terminate weights corresponding to their equivalents of combination,
and is supposed to be necessary to account for the facts whose enumeration and theory constitute the science of chemistry. The proper
verification of these facts is of great difficulty, because they have gen
erally been observed through the lenses of the atomic theory, and
stated in its doctrinal terms. Thus the differentiation and integration
of bodies are invariably described as decomposition and composition ;
the equivalents of combination are designated as atomic weights or
volumes, and the greater part of chemical nomenclature is a system
atic reproduction of the assumptions of atomism. Nearly all the facts
to be verified are in need of preparatory enucleation from the envelops
of this theory.
The phenomena usually described as chemical composition and de
composition present themselves to observation thus: A number of
heterogeneous bodies concur in definite proportions of weight or vol
ume; they interact; they disappear, and give rise to a new body pos
sessing properties which are neither the sum nor the mean of the prop
erties of the bodies concurring and interacting (excepting the weight
which is the aggregate of the weights of the interacting bodies), and
this conversion of several bodies into one is accompanied, in most
cases, by changes of volume, and in all cases by the evolution or in
volution of heat, or light, or of both. Conversely, a single homogeneous
body gives rise to heterogeneous bodies, between which and the body
out of which they originate the persistence of weight is the only re
lation of identity.
For the sake of convenience, these phenomena may be distributed
into three classes, of which the first embraces the persistence of weight
and the combination in definite proportions ; the second, the changes
of volume and the evolution of light and heat; and the third, the
emergence of a wholly new complement of chemical properties.
Obviously, the atomic hypothesis is in no sense an explanation of
the phenomena of the second class. It is clearly and confessedly in
1 Cauchy’s theory of dispersion is subject to another difficulty, of which no note is
taken by Hunt: it does not account for the different refracting powers of different, sub
stances. Indeed, according to Cauchy’s formula) (whose terms are expressive simply of
the distances between the ethereal particles and their hypothetical forces of attraction
and repulsion), the refracting powers of all substances whatever must be the same, un
less each substance is provided with a peculiar ether of its own. If this be the case, the
assemblage of atoms in a given body is certainly a very motley affair, especially if it be
true, as W. A. Norton and several other physicists assert, that there is an electric ether
distinct from the luminiferous ether. Rettenbacher (“Dynamidensystem,” p. 130, et seq.)
attempts to overcome the difficulty by the hypothesis of mutual action between the cor
puscular and ethereal atoms.
�PRIMARY CONCEPTS OF MODERN SCIENCE.
715
competent to account for changes of volume or of temperature. And,
with the phenomena of the third class, it is apparently incompatible.
For, in the light of the atomic hypothesis, chemical compositions and
decompositions are in their nature nothing more than aggregations
and segregations of masses whose integrity remains inviolate. But
the radical change of chemical properties, which is the result of all
true chemical action, and serves to distinguish it from mere mechani
cal mixture or separation, evinces a thorough destruction of that in
tegrity. It may be that the appearance of this incompatibility can be
obliterated by the device of ancillary hypotheses; but that leads to
an abandonment of the simplicity of the atomic hypothesis itself, and
thus to a surrender of its claims to merit as a theory.
At best, then, the hypothesis of atoms of definite and different
weights can be offered as an explanation of the phenomena of the first
class. Does it explain them in the sense of generalizing them, of re
ducing many facts to one? Not at all; it accounts for them, as it
professed to account for the indestructibility and impenetrability of
matter, by simply iterating the observed fact in the form of an hy
pothesis. It is another case (to borrow a scholastic phrase) of illus
trating idem per idem. It says: The large masses combine in definitely-proportionate weights because the small masses, the atoms of
which they are multiples, are of definitely-proportionate weight. It
pulverizes the fact, and claims thereby to have sublimated it into a
theory.
Upon closer examination, moreover, the assumption of atoms of
different specific gravities proves to be, not only futile, but absurd.
Its manifest theoretical ineptitude is found to mask the most fatal
inconsistencies. According to the mechanical conception which un
derlies the whole atomic hypothesis, differences of weight are differ
ences of density; and differences of density are differences of distance
between the particles contained in a given space. Now, in the atom
there is no multiplicity of particles, and no void space; hence dif
ferences of density or weight Are impossible in the case of atoms.
It is to be observed that the attribution of different weights to dif
ferent atoms is an indispensable feature of the atomic theory in chem
istry, especially in view of the combination of gases in simple ratios
of volume, so as to give rise to gaseous products bearing a simple
ratio to the volumes of its constituents, and in view of the law of
Ampere and Clausius, according to which all gases, of whatever nature
or weight, contain equal numbers of molecules in equal volumes.
The inadequacy of the atomic hypothesis as a theory of chemical
changes has been repeatedly pointed out by men of the highest scien
tific authority, such as Grove (Correlation of Physical Forces, in
Youmans’s “Correlation and Conservation of Forces,” p. 164, et seqf
and is becoming more apparent from day to day. I shall have occa
sion to inquire, hereafter, what promise there is, in the present state
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of chemical science, of a true generalization of the phenomena of com
bination in definite proportions, both of weight and volume, which is
independent of the atomic doctrine, and will serve to connect a num
ber of concomitant facts for which this doctrine is utterly incompetent
to account.
It is not infrequently asserted by the advocates of the atomic
theory that there is a number of other phenomena, in addition to
those of combination in definite proportions, which are strongly indica
tive of the truth of the atomic theory. Among these phenomena are
isomerism, polymerism, and allotropy. But it is very doubtful whether
this theory is countenanced by the phenomena in question. The exist
ence of different allotropic states, in an elementary body said to con
sist of but one kind of atoms, is explicable by the atomic hypothesis
in no other way than by deducing these different states from diversi
ties in the grouping of the different atoms. But this explanation ap
plies to solids only, and fails in the cases of liquids and gases. The
same remark applies to isomerism and polymerism.
From the foregoing considerations, I take it to be clear that the
atomic hypothesis mistakes many of the facts which it seeks to ex
plain ; that it accounts imperfectly or not at all for a number of other
facts which are correctly apprehended; and that there are cases in
which it appears to be in irreconcilable conflict with the data of expe
rience. As a physical theory, it is barren and useless, inasmuch as it
lacks the first requisite of a true theory—that of being a generaliza
tion, a reduction of several facts to one; it is essentially one of those
spurious figments of the brain, based upon an ever-increasing multiplicatio ent turn praeter necessitatem, which are characteristic of the prescientific epochs of human intelligence, and against which the whole
spirit of modern science is an emphatic protest. Moreover, in its
logical and psychological aspect, as we shall hereafter see more
clearly, it is the clumsiest attempt ever made to transcend the sphere
of relations in which all objective reality, as well as all thought,
has its being, and to grasp the absolute “ ens per sese, jinitum, reale,
totumP
I do not speak here of a number of other difficulties which emerge
upon a minute examination of the atomic hypothesis in its two prin
cipal varieties, the atoms being regarded by some physicists as ex
tended and figured masses, and by others as mere centres of force.
In the former case the assumption of physical indivisibility becomes
gratuitous, and that of mathematical indivisibility absurd; while in
the latter case the whole basis of the relation between force and mass,
or rather force and inertia, without which the conception of either
term of the relation is impossible, is destroyed. Some of these diffi
culties are frankly admitted by leading men of science—for instance,
by Du Bois-Reymond, in the lecture above cited. Nevertheless, it is
asserted that the atomic, or at least molecular, constitution of matter
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
7*7
is the only form of material existence which can be realized in thought.
In what sense, and to what extent, this assertion is well founded, will
be my next subject of examination.
FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
By E. A. PEOCTOE.
IHE wreck of the Atlantic, followed closely by that of the City of
JL Washington nearly on the same spot, has led many to inquire
into the circumstances on which depends a captain’s knowledge of the
position of his ship. In each case, though not in the same way, the
ship was supposed to be far from land, when in reality quite close to
it. In each case, in fact, the ship had oversailed her reckoning. A
slight exaggeration of what travellers so much desire—a rapid pas
sage—proved the destruction of the ship, and in one case occasioned
a fearful loss of life. And, although such events are fortunately infre
quent in Atlantic voyages, yet the bare possibility that, besides or
dinary sea-risks, a ship is exposed to danger from simply losing her
way, suggests unpleasant apprehensions as to the general reliability
of the methods in use for determining where a ship is, and her prog
ress from day to day.
I propose to give a brief sketch of the methods in use for finding
the way at sea, in order that the general principles on which safety
depends may be recognized by the general reader.
It is known, of course, to every one, that a ship’s course and rate
of sailing are carefully noted throughout her voyage. Every change
of her course is taken account of, as well as every change in her rate
of advance, whether under sail or steam, or both combined. If all
this could be quite accurately managed, the position of the ship at
any hour could be known, because it would be easy to mark down on
a chart the successive stages of her journey, from the moment when
she left port. But a variety of circumstances renders this impossible.
To begin with: the exact course of a ship cannot be known, be
cause there is only the ship’s compass to determine her course by, and
a ship’s compass is not an instrument affording perfectly exact indica
tions. Let any one on a sea-voyage observe the compass for a short
time, being careful not to break the good old rule which forbids speech
to the “ man at the wheel,” and he will presently become aware of
the fact that the ship is not kept rigidly to one course, even for a short
time. The steersman keeps her as near as he can to a particular
course, but she is continually deviating, now a little on one side, now
a little on the other, of the intended direction; and even the general
accuracy with which that course is followed is a matter of estimation,
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
and depends on the skill of the individual steersman. Looking at
the compass-card, in steady weather, a course may seem very closely
followed; perhaps the needle’s end may not be a hundredth part of
an inch (on the average) from the position it should have. But a hun
dredth part of an inch on the circumference of the compass-card
would correspond to a considerable deviation in the course of a run
of twenty or thirty knots ; and there is nothing to prevent the errors
so arising from accumulating in a long journey until a ship might be
thirty or forty miles from her estimated place. To this may be added
the circumstance that the direction of the needle is different in differ
ent parts of the earth. In some places it points to the east of the
north, in others to the west. And, although the actual “ variation of
the compass,” as this peculiarity is called, is known in a general way
for all parts of the earth, yet such knowledge has no claim to actual
exactness. There is also an important danger, as recent instances
have shown, in the possible change of the position of the ship’s com
pass, on account of iron in her cargo.
But a far more important cause of error, in determinations merely
depending on the log-book, is that arising from uncertainty as to the
ship’s rate of progress. The log-line gives only a rough idea of the
4 ship’s rate at the time when the log is cast;1 and, of course, a ship’s
rate does not remain constant, even when she is under steam alone.
Then, again, currents carry the ship along sometimes with consider
able rapidity; and the log-line affords no indication of their action:
while no reliance can be placed on the estimated rates, even of known
currents. Thus the distance made on any course may differ consider
ably from the estimated distance; and, when several days’ sailing are
dealt with, an error of large amount may readily accumulate.
For these and other reasons, a ship’s captain places little reliance
on what is called “ the day’s work ”—that is, the change in the ship’s
position from noon to noon as estimated from the compass-courses en
tered in the log-book, and the distances supposed to be run on these
courses. It is absolutely essential that such estimates should be careful
ly made, because, under favorable conditions of weather, there may be
no other means of guessing at the ship’s position. But the only really
reliable way of determining a ship’s place is- by astronomical observa
tions. It is on this account that the almanac published by the Ad
miralty, in which the position and apparent motions of the celestial
bodies are indicated, four or five years in advance, is called, par excel1 The log is a flat piece of wood of quadrantal shape, so loaded at the rim as to float
with the point (that is, the centre of the quadrant) uppermost. To this a line about
300 yards long is fastened. The log is thrown overboard, and comes almost immediately
to rest on the surface of the sea, the line being suffered to run freely out. By marks on
the log-line divided into equal spaces, called knots, of known length, and by observing
how many of these run out, while the sand in a half-minute hour-glass is running, the
ship’s rate of motion is roughly inferred. The whole process is necessarily rough, since
the line cannot even be straightened.
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
719
fence, the Nautical Almanac. The astronomer, in his fixed observa
tory, finds this almanac essential to the prosecution of his observa
tions ; the student of theoretical astronomy has continual occasion to
refer to it; but, to the sea-captain, the Nautical Almanac has a far
more important use. The lives of sailors and passengers are depend
ent upon its accuracy. It is, again, chiefly for the sailor that our
great nautical observatories have been erected, and that our astron
omer-royal and his officers are engaged. What other work they
may do is subsidiary, and, as it were, incidental. Their chief work is
to time this great clock, our earth, and so to trace the motions of
those celestial indices, which afford our fundamental time-measures,
as to insure as far as possible the safety of our navy, royal and mer
cantile.1
Let us see how this is brought about, not, indeed, by inquiring into
the processes by which, at the Greenwich Observatory, the elements
of safety are obtained, but by considering the method by which a sea
man makes use of these elements.
In the measures heretofore considered, the captain of a ship in
reality relies on terrestrial measurements. He reasons that, being on
such and such a day in a given place, and having in the interval sailed
so many miles in such and such directions, he must at the time being
be in such and such a place. This is called “ navigation.” In the
processes next to be considered, which constitute a part of the science
of nautical astronomy, the seaman trusts to celestial observations in
dependently of all terrestrial measurements.
The points to be determined by the voyager are his latitude and
longitude. The latitude is the distance north or south of the equa
tor, and is measured always from the equator in degrees, the distance
from equator to pole being divided into ninety equal parts, each of
which is a degree.3 The longitude is the distance east or west of
Greenwich (in English usage, but other nations employ a different
starting-point for measuring longitudes from). Longitude is not meas
ured in miles, but in degrees. The way of measuring is not very
1 This consideration has been altogether lost sight of in certain recent propositions
for extending government aid to astronomical inquiries of another sort. It may be a
most desirable thing that government should find means for inquiring into the physical
condition of sun and moon, planets and comets, stars and all the various orders of star
clusters. But, if such matters are to be studied at government expense, it should be un
derstood that the inquiry is undertaken with the sole purpose of advancing our knowl
edge of these interesting subjects, and should not be brought into comparison with the
utilitarian labors for which our Royal Observatory was founded.
2 Throughout this explanation all minuter details are neglected. In reality, in conse
quence of the flattening of the earth’s globe, the degrees of latitude are not equal, being
larger the farther we go from the equator. Moreover, strictly speaking, it is incorrect
to speak of distances being divided into degrees, or to say that a degree of latitude or
longitude contains so many miles ; yet it is so exceedingly inconvenient to employ any
other way of speaking in popular description, that I trust any astronomers or mathema
ticians who may read this article will forgive the solecism.
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
readily explained without a globe or diagrams, but may be thus indi
cated : Suppose a circle to run completely round the earth, through
Greenwich and both the poles; now, if this circle be supposed free to
turn upon the polar axis, or on the poles as pivots, and the half which
crosses Greenwich be carried (the nearest way round) till it crosses
some other station, then the arc through which it is carried is called
the longitude of the station, and the longitude is easterly or westerly
according as this half-circle has to be shifted toward the east or west.
A complete half-turn is 180°, and, by taking such a half-turn either
eastwardly or westwardly, the whole surface of the earth is included.
Points which are 180° east of Greenwich are thus also 180° west of
Greenwich.
So much is premised in the way of explanation to make the present
paper complete ; but ten minutes’ inspection of an ordinary terrestrial
globe will show the true meaning of latitude and longitude more
clearly (to those who happen to have forgotten what they learned at
school on these points) than any verbal description.
Now, it is sufficiently easy for a sea-captain in fine weather to de
termine his latitude. For places in different latitudes have different
celestial scenery, if one may so describe the aspect of the stellar heav
ens by night and the course traversed by the sun by day. The height
of the pole-star above the horizon, for instance, at once indicates the
latitude very closely, and would indicate the latitude exactly if the
pole-star were exactly at the pole instead of being merely close to it.
But the height of any known star when due south also gives the lati
tude. For, at every place in a given latitude, a star rises to a given
greatest height when due south; if we travel farther south, the star
will be higher when due south ; if we travel farther north, it will be
lower; and thus its observed height shows just how far north of the
equator any northerly station is, while, if the traveller is in the South
ern Hemisphere, corresponding observations show how far to the south
of the equator he is.
But commonly the seaman trusts to observation of the sun to give
him his latitude. The observation is made at noon, when the sun is
highest above the horizon. The actual height is determined by means
of the instrument called the sextant. This instrument need not be
here described; but thus much may be mentioned to explain that pro
cess of taking the sun’s meridian altitude which, no doubt, every one
has witnessed who has taken a long sea-journey. The sextant is so
devised that the observer can see two objects at once, one directly and
the other after reflection of its light; and the amount by which he has
to move a certain bar carrying the reflecting arrangement, in order to
bring the two objects into view in the same direction, shows him the
real divergence of lines drawn from his eye to the two objects. To
take the sun’s altitude, then, with this instrument, the observer takes
the sun as one object and the horizon directly below the sun as the
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
721
other: he brings them into view together, and then, looking at the
sextant to see how much he has had to move the swinging arm which
carries the reflecting glasses, he learns how high the sun is. This being
done at noon, with proper arrangements to insure that the greatest
height then reached by the sun is observed, at once indicates the lati
tude of the observer. Suppose, for example, he finds the sun to be
40° above the horizon, and the Nautical Almanac tells him that, at
the time the sun is 10° north of the celestial equator, then he knows
that the celestial equator is 30° above the southern horizon. The pole
of the heavens is, therefore, 60° above the northern horizon, and the
voyager is in 60° north latitude. Of course, in all ordinary cases, the
number of degrees is not exact, as I have here for simplicity sup
posed, and there are some niceties of observation which would have
to be taken into account in real work. But the principle of the method
is sufficiently indicated by what has been said, and no useful purpose
could be served by considering minutiae.
Unfortunately, the longitude is not determined so readily. The
very circumstance which makes the determination of the latitude so
simple introduces the great difficulty which exists in finding the lon
gitude. I have said that all places in the same latitude have the same
celestial scenery; and precisely for this reason it is difficult to dis
tinguish one such place from another, that is, to find on what part of
its particular latitude-circle any place may lie.
If we consider, however, how longitude is measured, and what it
really means, we shall readily see where a solution of the difficulty is
to be sought. The latitude of a station means how far toward either
pole the station is; its longitude means how far round the station is
from some fixed longitude. But it is by turning round on her axis
that the earth causes the changes which we call day and night; and
therefore these must happen at different times in places at different
distances round. For example, it is clear that, if it is noon at one sta
tion, it must be midnight at a station half-way round from the former.
And if any one at one station could telegraph to a person at another,
“ It is exactly noon here,” while this latter person knew from his clock
or watch that it was exactly midnight where he was, then he would
know that he was half-way round exactly. He would, in fact, know
his longitude from the other station. And so with smaller differences.
The earth turns, we know, from west to east—that is, a place lying due
west of another is so carried as presently to occupy the place which*
its easterly neighbor had before occupied, while this last place has
gone farther east yet. Let us suppose an hour is the time required to
carry a westerly station to the position which had been occupied by a
station to the east of it. Then manifestly every celestial phenomenon
depending on the earth’s turning will occur an hour later at the west
erly station. Sunrise and sunset are phenomena of this kind. If I
telegraph to a friend at some station far to the west, but in the same
vol. ni.—46
�722
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
latitude, “ The sun is rising here,” and he finds that he has to wait ex
actly an hour before the sun rises there, then he knows that he is one
hour west of me in longitude, a most inexact yet very convenient and
unmistakable way of speaking. As there are twenty-four hours in the
day, while a complete circle running through my station and his (and
everywhere in the same latitude) is supposed to be divided into 360°,
he is 15° (a 24th part of 360) west of me; and, if my station is Green
wich, he is in what we, in England, call 15° west longitude.1
But what is true of sunrise and sunset in the same latitudes and
different longitudes, is true of noon whatever the latitude may be.
And of course it is true of the southing of any known star. Only un
fortunately one cannot tell the exact instant when either the sun or a
star is due south or at its highest above the horizon. Still, speaking
generally, and for the moment limiting our attention to noon, every
station toward the west has noon later, while every station toward
the east has noon earlier, than Greenwich (or whatever reference sta
tion is employed).
I shall presently return to the question how the longitude is to be
determined with sufficient exactness for safety in sea-voyages. But
I may digress here to note what happens in sea-voyages where the
longitude changes. If a voyage is made toward the west, as from
England to America, it is manifest that a watch set to Greenwich
time will be in advance of the local time as the ship proceeds west
ward, and will be more and more in advance the farther the ship trav
els in that direction. For instance, suppose a watch shows Greenwich
time ; then when it is noon at Greenwich the watch will point to
twelve, but it will be an hour before noon at a place 15° west of
Greenwich, two hours before noon at a place 30° west, and so on :
that is, the watch will point to twelve when it is only eleven
o’clock, ten o’clock, and so on, of local time. On arrival at New
York, the traveller would find that his watch was nearly five
hours fast. Of course the reverse happens in a voyage toward the
east. For instance, a watch set to New-York time would be found
to be nearly five hours slow, for Greenwich time, when the traveller
arrived in England.
In the following passage these effects are humorously illustrated
by Mark Twain:
“ Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, and on his first
yoyage” (from New York to Europe) “was a good deal worried by
the constantly-changing ‘ ship-time.’ He was proud of his new watch
at first, and used to drag it out promptly when eight bells struck at
noon, but he came to look after a while as if he were losing confi1 In this case, he is “ at sea ” (which, I trust, will not be the case with the reader),
and, we may suppose, connected with Greenwich by submarine telegraph in course of
being laid. In fact, the position of the Great Eastern throughout her cable-laying jour
neys, was determined by a method analogous to that sketched above.
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
723
dence in it. Seven days out from New York he came on deck, and
said with great decision, ‘This thing’s a swindle ! ’ ‘ What’s a swin
dle?’ ‘Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois—gave $150
for her, and I thought she was good. And, by George, she is good
on shore, but somehow she don’t keep up her lick here on the water—
gets sea-sick, may be. She skips ; she runs along regular enough, till
half-past eleven, and then all of a sudden she lets down. I’ve set that
old regulator up faster and faster, till I’ve shoved it clear round, but
it don’t do any good; she just distances every watch in the ship,1 and
clatters along in a way that’s astonishing till it’s noon, but them “ eight
bells ” always gets in about ten minutes ahead of her any way. I don’t
know what to do with her now. She’s doing all she can; she’s going
her best gait, but it won’t save her. Now, don’t you know there ain’t
a watch in the ship that’s making better time than she is ; but what
does it signify ? When you hear them “ eight bells,” you’ll find her
just ten minutes short of her score—sure.’ The ship was gaining a
full hour every three days, and this fellow was trying to make his
watch go fast enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he had
pushed the regulator up as far as it would go, and the watch was
‘ on its best gait,’ and so nothing was left him but to fold his hands
and see the ship beat in the race. We sent him to the captain, and
he explained to him the mystery of ‘ ship-time,’ and set his troubled
mind at rest. This young man,” proceeds Mr. Clemens, d propos
des bottes, “ had asked a great many questions about sea-sickness be
fore we left, and wanted to know what its characteristics were, and how
he was to tell when he had it. He found out.”
I cannot leave Mark Twain’s narrative, however, without gently
criticising a passage in which he has allowed his imagination to invent
effects of longitude which assuredly were never perceived in any voy
age since the ship Argo set out after the Golden Fleece. “We had
the phenomenon of a full moon,” he says, “ located just in the same
spot in the heavens, at the same hour every night. The reason of this
singular conduct on the part of the moon did not occur to us at first,
but it did afterward, when we reflected that we were gaining about
twenty minutes every day ; because we were going east so fast, we
gained just about enough every day to keep along with the moon. It
was becoming an old moon to the friends we had left behind us, but
to us Joshuas it stood still in the same place, and remained always the
same.” O Mr. Clemens, Mr. Clemens! In a work of imagination
(as the “Innocents Abroad” must, I suppose, be to a great extent
considered), a mistake such as that here made is perhaps not a very
serious matter; but, suppose some unfortunate compiler of astronomi
cal works should happen to remember this passage, and to state (as a
1 Because set to go “ fast.” Of course, the other watches on board would be left to
go at their usual rate, and simply put forward at noon each day by so many minutes as
corresponded to the run eastward since the preceding noon.
�724
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
compiler would be tolerably sure to do, unless he had a mathematical
friend at his elbow) that, by voyaging eastward at such and such a
rate, a traveller can always have the moon “ full ” at night, in what an
unpleasant predicament would the mistake have placed him ’ Such
things happen, unfortunately ; nay, I have even seen works, in which
precisely such mistakes have been made, in use positively as text-books
for examinations. On this account, our fiction writers must be careful
in introducing science details, lest peradventure science-teachers (save
the mark !) be led astray.
It need scarcely be said that no amount of eastwardly voyaging
would cause the moon to remain always “ full ” as seen by the voyager.
The moon’s phase is the same from whatever part of the earth she may
be seen, and she will become “ new,” that is, pass between the earth
and the sun, no matter what voyages may be undertaken by the in
habitants of earth. Mr. Clemens has confounded the monthly motion
of the moon with her daily motion. A traveller who could only go
fast enough eastward might keep the moon always due south. To do
this he would have to travel completely round the earth in a day and
(roughly) about 50| minutes. If he continued this for a whole month,
the moon would never leave the southern heavens ; but she would not
continue “ full.” In fact, we see that the hour of the day (local time)
would be continually changing—since the traveller would not go round
once in twenty-four hours (which would be following the sun, and
would cause the hour of the day to remain always the same), but in
twenty-four hours and the best part of another hour; so that the day
would seem to pass on, though very slowly, lasting a lunar month in
stead of a common day.
Every one who makes a long sea-voyage must have noted the im
portance attached to moon observations; and many are misled into
the supposition that these observations are directly intended for the
determination of the longitude (or, which is the same thing in effect,
for determining true ship-time). This, however, is a mistake. The
latitude can be determined at noon, as we have seen. A rough ap
proximation to the local time can be obtained also, and is commonly
obtained, by noting when the sun begins to dip after reaching the
highest part of his course above the horizon. But this is necessarily
only a rough approximation, and quite unsuited for determining the
ship’s longitude. For the sun’s elevation changes very slowly at
noon, and no dip can be certainly recognized, even from terrafirrna, far
less from a ship, within a few minutes of true noon. A determination
of time effected in this way serves very well for the ship’s “ watches,”
and accordingly when the sun, so observed, begins to dip, they strike
“ eight bells ” and “ make it noon.” But it would be a serious matter
for the crew if that was made the noon for working the ship’s place;
for an error of many miles would be inevitable.
The following passage from “Foul Play” illustrates the way in
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
725
which mistakes have arisen on this point: The hero, who, being a cler
gyman and a university man, is, of course, a master of every branch
of science, is about to distinguish himself before the heroine by work
ing out the position of the ship Proserpine, whose captain is senseless
ly drunk. After ten days’ murky weather, “ the sky suddenly cleared,
and a rare opportunity occurred to take an observation. Hazel sug
gested to Wylie, the mate, the propriety of taking advantage of the
moment, as the fog-bank out of which they had just emerged would
soon envelop them again, and they had not more than an hour or so
of such observation available. The man gave a shuffling answer.
So he sought the captain in his cabin. He found him in bed. He
was dead drunk. On a shelf lay the instruments. These Hazel
took, and then looked round for the chronometers. They were safely
locked in their cases. He carried the instruments on deck, together
with a book of tables, and quietly began to make preparations, at
which Wylie, arresting his walk, gazed with utter astonishment ” (as
well he might).
“ ‘ Now, Mr. Wylie, I want the key of the chronometer-cases.’
“ ‘ Here is a chronometer, Mr. Hazel,’ said Helen, very innocently,
‘ if that is all you want.’
“ Hazel smiled, and explained that a ship’s clock is made to keep
the most exact time; that he did not require the time of the spot
where they were, but Greenwich time. He took the watch, however.
It was a large one for a lady to carry; but it was one of Frodsham’s
masterpieces.
“ ‘ Why, Miss Rolleston,’ said he, ‘ this watch must be two hours
slow. It marks ten o’clock; it is now nearly mid-day. Ah, I see,’ he
added, with a smile, ‘you have wound it regularly every day, but you
have forgotten to set it daily. Indeed, you may be right; it would be
a useless trouble, since we change our longitude hourly. Well, let us
suppose that this watch shows the exact time at Sydney, as I presume
it does, I can work the ship’s reckoning from that meridian, instead of
that of Greenwich.’ And he set about doing it.” Wylie, after some
angry words with Hazel, brings the chronometers and the charts.
Hazel “ verified Miss Rolleston’s chronometer, and, allowing for differ
ence of time, found it to be accurate. He returned it to her, and pro
ceeded to work on the chart. The men looked on; so did Wylie.
After a few moments, Hazel read as follows: ‘West longitude 146°
53' 18”. South latitude 35° 24'. The island of Oparo 1 and the Four
Crowns distant 420 miles on the N. N. E.,’ ” and so on. And, of course,
“ Miss Rolleston fixed her large, soft eyes on the young clergyman
with the undisguised admiration a woman is apt to feel for what she
does not understand.”
1 The island fixes the longitude at about It?0, otherwise I should have thought the 4
was a misprint for 7. In longitude 177° west, Sydney time would be about 2 hours slow,
but about 4 hours slow in longitude 147° west.
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The scene here described corresponds pretty closely, I have little
doubt, with one actually witnessed by the novelist, except only that
the captain or chief officer made the observations, and that either
there had not been ten days’ murky weather, or else that in the fore
noon, several hours at least before noon, an observation of the sun had
been made. The noon observation would give the latitude, and com
bined with a forenoon observation, would give the longitude, but
alone would be practically useless for that purpose. It is curious that
the novelist sets the longitude as assigned much more closely than the
latitude, and the value given would imply that the ship’s time was
known within less than a second. This would in any case be imprac
ticable ; but, from noon observations, the time could not be learned
within a minute at the least. The real fact is, that, to determine true
time, the seaman selects, not noon, as is commonly supposed, but a
time when the sun is nearly due east or due west. For then the sun’s
elevation changes most rapidly, and so gives the surest means of de
termining the time. The reader can easily see the rationale of this by
considering the case of an ordinary clock-hand. Suppose our only
means of telling the time was by noting how high the end of the min
ute-hand was: then, clearly, we should be apt to make a greater mistake in estimating the time, when the hand was near XII., than at any
other time, because then its end changes very slowly in height, and a
minute more or less makes very little difference. On the contrary,
when the hand was near III. and IX., we could in a very few seconds
note any change of the height of its extremity. In one case we could
not tell the time within a minute or two; in the other, we could tell it
within a few seconds.
But the noon observation would be wanted to complete the deter
mination of the longitude ; for, until the latitude was known, the cap
tain would not be aware what apparent path the sun was describing
in the heavens, and therefore would not know the time corresponding
to any particular solar observation. So that a passenger, curious in
watching the captain’s work, would be apt to infer that the noon ob
servations gave the longitude, since he would perceive that from them
the captain worked out both the longitude and the latitude.
It is curious that another and critical portion of the same enter
taining novel is affected by the mistake of the novelist on this subject.
After the scuttling of the Proserpine, and other events, Hazel and Miss
Rolleston are alone on an island in the Pacific. Hazel seeks to deter
mine their position, as one step toward escape. Now, “ you must
know that Hazel, as he lay on his back in the boat, had often, in a
half-drowsy way, watched the effect of the sun upon the boat’s mast:
it now stood, a bare pole, and at certain hours acted like the needle of
a dial by casting a shadow on the sands. Above all, he could see
pretty well, by means of this pole and its shadow, when the sun at
tained its greatest elevation. He now asked Miss Rolleston to assist
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
7*7
him in making this observation exactly. She obeyed his instructions,
and, the moment the shadow reached its highest angle and showed the
minutest symptom of declension, she said ‘Now,’ and Hazel called out
in a loud voice ” (why did he do that ?) “ ‘ Noon ! ’ ‘ And forty nine
minutes past eight at Sydney,’ said Helen, holding out her chronome
ter ; for she had been sharp enough to get it ready of her own accord.
Hazel looked at her and at the watch with amazement and incredulity.
‘ What ? ’ said he. ‘ Impossible 1 You can’t have kept Sydney time
all this while.’ ‘ And pray why not ? ’ said Helen. ‘ Have you forgot
ten that some one praised me for keeping Sydney time ? it helped you
somehow or other to know where we were.’ ” After some discussion,
in which she shows how natural it was that she should have wound up
her watch every night, even when “ neither of them expected to see
the morning,” she asks to be praised. “ ‘ Praised ! ’ cried Hazel, ex
citedly, ‘ worshipped, you mean. Why, we have got the longitude by
means of your chronometer. It is wonderful ! It is providential. It
is the finger of Heaven. Pen and ink, and let me work it out.’ ” He
was “ soon busy calculating the longitude of Godsend Island.” What
follows is even more curiously erroneous. “ ‘ There,’ said he. ‘Now,
the latitude I must guess at by certain combinations. In the first
place the slight variation in the length of the days. Then I must try
and make a rough calculation of the sun’s parallax.’ ” (It would have
been equally to the purpose to have calculated how many cows’ tails
would reach to the moon.) “ ‘ And then my botany will help me a
little ; spices furnish a clew ; there are one or two that will not grow
outside the tropic,’ ” and so on. He finally sets the latitude between
the 26th and 33d parallels, a range of nearly 500 miles. The longi
tude, however, which is much more closely assigned, is wrong alto
gether, being set at 3 O3-J-0 west, as the rest of the story requires. For
Godsend Island is within not many days’ sail of Valparaiso. The
mistake has probably arisen from setting Sydney in west longitude in
stead of east longitude, 151° 14' ; for the difference of time, 3h. 11m.,
corresponds within a minute to the difference of longitude between
151° 14' west and 103-£° west.
Mere mistakes of calculation, however, matter little in such cases.
They do not affect the interest of a story even in such extreme cases
as in “Ivanhoe,” where a full century is dropped in such sort that
one of Richard I.’s knights holds converse with a contemporary of
the Conqueror, who, if my memory deceives me not, was Cœur de
Lion’s great-great-grandfather. It is a pity, however, that a nov
elist or indeed any writer should attempt to sketch scientific methods
with which he is not familiar. No discredit can attach to any per
son, not an astronomer, who does not understand the astronomical
processes for determining latitude and longitude, any more than to
one who, not being a lawyer, is unfamiliar with the rules of convey
ancing. But, when an attempt is made by a writer of fiction to give
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an exact description of any technical matter, it is as well to secure
correctness by submitting the description to some friend acquainted
with the principles of the subject. For, singularly enough, people pay
much more attention to these descriptions when met with in novels,
than when given in text-books of science, and they thus come to re
member thoroughly well precisely what they ought to forget. I think
for instance, that it may not improbably have been some recollection
of “ Foul Play” which led Mr. Lockyer to make the surprising state
ment that longitude is determined at sea by comparing chronometer
time with local time, which is found “ at noon by observing, with the
aid of a sextant, when the sun is at the highest point of its path.”
Our novelists really must not lead the students of astronomy astray in
this manner.
It will be clear to the reader, by this time, that the great point
in determining the longitude is, to have the true time of Greenwich
or some other reference station, in order that, by comparing this time
with ship-time, the longitude east or west of the reference station may
be ascertained. Ship-time can always be determined by a morning
or afternoon observation of the sun, or by observing a known star
when toward the east or west, at which time the diurnal motion
raises or depresses it most rapidly. The latitude being known, the
time of day (any given day) at which the sun or a star should have
any particular altitude is known also, and, therefore, conversely, when
the altitude of the sun or a star has been noted, the seaman has learned
the time of day. But to find Greenwich time is another matter;
and, without Greenwich time, ship-time teaches nothing as to the lon
gitude. How is the voyager at sea or in desert places to know the
exact time at Greenwich or some other fixed station? We have seen
that chronometers are used for this purpose; and chronometers are
now made so marvellously perfect in construction that they can be
trusted to show true time within a few seconds, under ordinary con
ditions. But it must not be overlooked that in long voyages a chro
nometer, however perfect its construction, is more liable to get wrong
than at a fixed station. That it is continually tossed and shaken is
something, but is not the chief trial to which it is exposed. The
great changes of temperature endured, when a ship passes from the
temperate latitudes across the torrid zone to the temperate zone
again, try a chronometer far more severely than any ordinary form of
motion. And then it is to be noted that a very insignificant time
error corresponds to a difference of longitude quite sufficient to occa
sion a serious error in the ship’s estimated position. For this reason
and for others, it is desirable to have some means of determining
Greenwich time independently of chronometers.
This, in fact, is the famous problem for the solution of which such
high rewards were offered and have been given.1 It was to solve this
1 For invention of the chronometer, Harrison (a Yorkshire carpenter, and the son of
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
77D
problem that Whiston, the same who fondly imagined Newton was
afraid of him,1 suggested the use of bombs and mortars ; for which
Hogarth pilloried him in the celebrated mad-house scene of the Rake’s
Progress. Of course Whiston had perceived the essential feature of
all methods intended for determining the longitude. Any signal
which is recognizable, no matter by eye or ear, or in whatsoever way,
at both stations, the reference station and the station whose longitude
is required, must necessarily suffice to convey the time of one station
to the other. The absurdity of Whiston’s scheme lay in the implied
supposition that any form of ordnance could propel rocket-signals far
enough to be seen or heard in mid-ocean. Manifestly the only signals
available, when telegraphic communication is impossible, are signals
in the celestial spaces, for these alone can be discerned simultaneously
from widely-distant parts of the earth. It has been to such signals,
then, that men of science have turned for the required means of de
termining longitude.
Galileo was the first to point out that the satellites of Jupiter sup
ply a series of signals which might serve to determine the longitude.
When one of these bodies is eclipsed in Jupiter’s shadow, or passes
out of sight behind Jupiter’s disk, or reappears from eclipse or occul
tation, the phenomenon is one which can be seen from a whole hemi
sphere of the earth’s surface. It is as truly a signal as the appear
ance or disappearance of a light in ordinary night-signalling. If it
can be calculated beforehand that one of these events will take place
at any given hour of Greenwich time, then, from whatever spot the
phenomenon is observed, it is known there that the Greenwich hour
is that indicated. Theoretically, this is a solution of the famous
problem ; and Galileo, the discoverer of Jupiter’s four satellites,
thought he had found the means of determining the longitude with
great accuracy. Unfortunately, these hopes have not been realized.
At sea, indeed, except in the calmest weather, it is impossible to ob
serve the phenomena of Jupiter’s satellites, simply because the tele
scope cannot be directed steadily upon the planet. But even on land
Jupiter’s satellites afford but imperfect means of guessing at the
longitude. For, at present, their motions have not been thoroughly
mastered by astronomers, and though the Nautical Almanac gives
the estimated epochs for the various phenomena of the four satellites,
a carpenter) received £20,000. This sum had been offered for a marine chronometer
which would stand the test of two voyages of assigned length. Harrison labored fifty
years before he succeeded in meeting the required condition.
1 Newton, for excellent reasons, had opposed Whiston’s election to the Royal Society.
Like most small men, Whiston was eager to secure a distinction which, unless sponta
neously offered to him, could have conferred no real honor. Accordingly he was amusingly
indignant with Newton for opposing him. “ Newton perceived,” he wrote, “ that I could
not do as his other darling friends did, that is, learn of him without contradicting him
when I differed in opinion from him : he could not in his old age bear such contradiction,
and so he was afraid of me the last thirteen years of his life.”
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
yet, owing to the imperfection of the tables, these epochs are often
found to be appreciably in error. There is yet another difficulty.
The satellites are not mere points, but, being in reality also as large
as or larger than our moon, they have disks of appreciable though
small dimensions. Accordingly, they do not vanish or reappear in
stantaneously, but gradually, the process lasting in reality several
seconds (a longer or shorter time, according to the particular satellites
considered), and the estimated moment of the phenomenon thus comes
to depend on the power of the telescope employed, or the skill or the
visual powers of the observer, or the condition of the atmosphere, and
so on. Accordingly, very little reliance could be placed on such ob
servations as a mean for determining the longitude with any consid
erable degree of exactness.
No other celestial phenomena present themselves except those
depending on the moon’s motions.1 All the planets, as well as the
sun and moon, traverse at various rates and in different paths the
sphere of the fixed stars. But the moon alone moves with sufficient
1 If but one star or a few would periodically (and quite regularly) “ go out ” for a few
moments, the intervals between such vanishings being long enough to insure that one
would not be mistaken in point of time for the next or following one, then it would be pos
sible to determine Greenwich or other reference time with great exactness. And here
one cannot but recognize an argument against the singular theory that the stars were in
tended simply as lights to adorn our heavens and to be of use to mankind. The ideolo
gists who have adopted this strange view can hardly show how the theory is consistent
with the fact that quite readily the stars (or a few of them) might have been so contrived
as to give man the means of travelling with much more security over the length and
breadth of his domain than is at present possible. In this connection I venture to quote
a passage in which Sir John Herschel has touched on the usefulness of the stars, in terms
which, were they not corrected by other and better-known passages in his writings,
might suggest that he had adopted the theory I have just mentioned: “The stars,” he
said, in an address to the Astronomical Society, in 1827, “ are landmarks of the universe;
and, amid the endless and complicated fluctuations of our system, seem placed by its
Creator as guides and records, not merely to elevate our minds by the contemplation
of what is vast, but to teach us to direct our actions by reference to what is immutable
in his works. It is indeed hardly possible to over-appreciate their value in this point
of view. Every well-determined star, from the moment its place is registered, becomes
to the astronomer, the geographer, the navigator, the surveyor, a point of departure
which can never deceive or fail him—the same forever and in all places, of a delicacy
so extreme as to be a test for every instrument yet invented by man, yet equally adapted
for the most ordinary purposes; as available for regulating a town-clock as for con
ducting a navy to the Indies; as effective for mapping down the intricacies of a petty
barony as for adjusting the boundaries of transatlantic empires. When once its place
has been thoroughly ascertained, and carefblly recorded, the brazen circle with which
the useful work was done may moulder, the marble pillar may totter on its base, and
the astronomer himself survive only in the gratitude of posterity; but the record remains,
and transfuses all its own exactness into every determination which takes it for a
groundwork, giving to inferior instruments, nay, even to temporary contrivances, and
to the observations of a few weeks or days, all the precision attained originally at the
cost of so much time, labor, and expense.” It is only necessary, as a corrective to the
erroneous ideas which might otherwise be suggested by this somewhat high-flown pas
sage, to quote the following remarks from the work which represented Sir John Her-
�FINDING THE WAY AT SEA.
731
rapidity to act as a time indicator for terrestrial voyagers. It is hardly
necessary to explain why rapidity of motion is important; but the
following illustration may be given for the purpose. The hour-hand
of a clock does in reality indicate the minute as well as the hour;
yet, owing to the slowness of its motion, we regard the hour-hand as
an unsatisfactory time-indicator, and only consider it as showing what
hour is in progress. So with the more slowly-moving celestial bodies.
They would serve well enough, at least some among them would, to
show the day of the year, if we could only imagine that such informa
tion were ever required from celestial bodies. But it would be hope
less to attempt to ascertain the true time with any degree of accuracy
from their motions. Now, the moon really moves with considerable
rapidity among the stars.1 She completes the circuit of the celestial
sphere in 27£ days (a period less than the common lunation), so that
in one day she traverses about 13°, or her own diameter (which is
rather more than half a degree), in about an hour. This, astronomi
cally speaking, is very rapid motion; and, as it can be detected in a
few seconds by telescopic comparison of the moon’s place with that
of some fixed star, it serves to show the time within a few seconds,
which is precisely what is required by the seaman. Theoretically, all
he has to do is, to take the moon’s apparent distance from a known
star, and also her height and the star’s height above the horizon.
Thence he can calculate what would be the moon’s distance from the
star at the moment of observation, if the observer were at the earth’s
centre. But the Nautical Almanac informs him of the precise instant
of Greenwich time corresponding to this calculated distance. So he
has, what he requires, the true Greenwich time.
It will be manifest that all methods of finding the way at sea,
except the rough processes depending on the log and compass, re
quire that the celestial bodies, or some of them, should be seen.
Hence it is that cloudy weather, for any considerable length of time,
occasions danger, and sometimes leads to shipwreck and loss of life.
Of course the captain of a ship proceeds with extreme caution when
the weather has long been cloudy, especially if, according to his reck
oning, he is drawing near shore. Then the lead comes into play, that
by soundings, if possible, the approach to shore may be indicated,
schel’s more matured views, his well-known “ Outlines of Astronomy:” “For what
purpose are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of
space ? Surely not to illuminate our nights, which an additional moon of the thousandth
part of the size of our own world would do much better; nor to sparkle as a pageant
void of meaning and reality, and bewilder us among vain conjectures. Useful, it is
true, they are to man as points of exact and permanent reference, but he must have
studied astronomy to little purpose, who can suppose man to be the only object of his
Creator’s care; or who does not see, in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us,
provision for other races of animated beings.”
1 It was this doubtless which led to the distinction recognized in the book of Job,
where the moon is described as “ walking in brightness.”
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Then, also, by day and night, a careful watch is kept for the signs of
land. But it sometimes happens that, despite all such precautions, a
ship is lost; for there are conditions of weather which, occurring when
a ship is nearing shore, render the most careful lookout futile. These
conditions may be regarded as included among ordinary sea-risks, by
which term are understood all such dangers as would leave a captain
blameless if shipwreck occurred. It would be well if no ships were
ever lost save from ordinary sea-risks; but, unfortunately, ships are
sometimes cast ashore for want of care ; either in maintaining due
watch as the shore is approached, or taking advantage of oppor
tunities, which may be few and far between, for observing sun, or
moon, or stars, as the voyage proceeds. It may safely be said that
the greater number of avoidable shipwrecks have been occasioned by
the neglect of due care in finding the way at sea.
SECULAR PROPHECY.
LTHOUGH prophecy is usually supposed to be the special gift
of inspiration, nothing comes more glibly from secular pens.
Half of the leading articles in the daily newspapers are more or less
disguised predictions. The prophecies of the Times are more numer
ous, more confident, and more explicit, than those of Jeremiah or Isaiah.
“ Secular Prophecy fulfilled” would be a good title for a book written
after the model of those old and half-educated divines who zealously
looked through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse, for
shadowy hints that Hildebrand would enforce celibacy on the clergy
of the Latin Church ; that Luther would cut up the Christianity of the
West into two sections; that Cromwell would sign the death-warrant
of Charles I.; and that the Stuarts would become wanderers over the
face of the earth. There are still, we believe, devout, mystical, and
studious sectaries, who find such events as the disestablishment of
the Irish Church and the meeting of the Vatican Council plainly fore
told in the book of Revelation. They also find Mr. Gladstone’s name
written in letters of fire by inspired pens that left their record while
the captivity of Babylon was a recent memory, or while Nero was the
scourge of the Church. Nay, Dr. Cumming, who is as different from
those mystical interpreters as a smart Yankee trader is from Parson
Adams, sees that the Prophet Daniel and St. John had a still more
minute acquaintance with the home and Continental politics of these
latter days. But “ Secular Prophecy fulfilled ” would show a much
more wonderful series of glimpses into the future than we find in the
interpretations of Dr. Cumming, and it would certainly bring together
a strange set of soothsayers.
�SECULAR PROPHECY.
733
Arthur Young, Lord Chesterfield, and William Cobbett, are not
exactly the kind of men whom we should expect to find among the
prophets. Arthur Young was a shrewd traveller, with a keen eye for
leading facts, and a remarkable power of describing what he saw in
plain, homely words. Chesterfield was a literary and philosophical
dandy, who, richly furnished with the small coin of wisdom, and fear
ing nothing so much as indecorum, would have been a great teacher
if the earth had been a drawing-room. Cobbett was a coarse, rough
English farmer, with an extraordinary power of reasoning at the dic
tate of his prejudices, and with such a faculty of writing racy, vigorous
English as excites the admiration and the despair of scholars. It seems
almost ludicrous to speak of such men as prophets. And yet Arthur
Young foretold the coming of the French Revolution at a time when
the foremost men of France did not dream that the greatest of political
convulsions was soon to lay low the proudest of monarchies. And the
dandified morality of Lord Chesterfield did not prevent him from
making a similar prediction. Cobbett made a guess which was still
more notable ; for, at the beginning of the present century, he foretold
the secession of the Southern States. But the most remarkable of all
the secular prophets who have spoken to our time is Heine. He might
seem indeed to have been a living irony on the very name of prophet,
for he read backward all the sanctities of religion and all the com
mands of the moral law. Essentially a humorist, to whom life seemed
now the saddest of mysteries, and now the most laughable of jokes, he
made sport of every thing that he touched. His most fervid English
devotee, Mr. Matthew Arnold, is forced to admit that he was pro
foundly disrespectable. He quarrelled with his best friends for frivo
lously petty reasons, and he repaid their kindness by writing lampoons
which are masterpieces at once of literary skill and of malignity.
Neither Voltaire nor Pope scattered calumnies with such a lack of scru
ple, and Byron himself was not a more persistent or more systematic
voluptuary. Yet Heine was so true a prophet that his predictions
might have been accounted the work of inspiration if he had been as
famed for piety or purity as he was notorious for irreligion and profli
gacy. He predicted that Germany and France would fight, and that
France would be utterly put down. He predicted that the line of for
tifications which M. Thiers was then building round Paris would draw
to the capital a great hostile army, and that they would crush the
city as if they were a contracting iron shroud. He predicted that the
Communists would some day get the upper hand in Paris, that they
would strike in a spirit of fiendish rage at the statues, the beautiful
buildings, and all the other tangible marks of the civilization which
they sought to destroy; that they would throw down the Vendome
Column in their hate of the man who had made France the foe of
every other people ; and that they would further show their execration
for his memory by taking his ashes from the Invalides and flinging
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
them into the Seine. All these predictions, save the last, have been
fulfilled to the letter, and it would need a bolder prophet than even
Heine himself to say that the last will not be verified also. For
nothing is more remarkable in France than the success with which the
International is teaching the artisans that the first as well as the third
Napoleon was the worst enemy of their class. Although they still
regard his achievements with pride, they fervently believe that he was
the foe of their order, and the acts of the Commune showed their
eagerness to insult his name. And there may be another Commune.
Intrepid prophets would say that there certainly will be another. If
that should happen, it is quite possible that the fanatics of the In
ternational may fling the ashes of the great soldier into the Seine to
mark their abhorrence of military glory.
Prevost-Paradol was as different from Heine as a gifted voluptuary
can be from a polished, fastidious, and decorous gentleman. Yet the
refined, reserved, satirical Orleanist, who seemed to be uncomfortable
when his hands were not encased in kid gloves, and who was a mas
ter of all the literary resources of innuendo, would be as much out of
place among the Hebrew prophets as Heine himself. He would find
a place, nevertheless, in “ Secular Prophecy fulfilled,” by reason of
the startling exactness with which he foretold the outbreak of the
war between his own country and Germany. In a passage which
promises to become classic, he said that the two nations were like
two trains which, starting from opposite points, and placed on the
same line of rails, were driven toward each other at full speed.
There must be a collision. The only doubt was, where it would
happen, and when, and with what results. De Tocqueville better
fulfilled the traditionary idea of a prophet, and there is a startling
accuracy in some of the predictions as to the future of France which
he flung forth in talking with his friends, and of which we find a
partial record in the journal of Mr. Nassau Senior. Eighteen years
before the fall of the empire, he predicted that it would wreck itself
“ in some extravagant foreign enterprise.” “ War,” he added, “ would
assuredly be its death, but its death would perhaps cost dear.” M.
Renan also aspires to a place among the prophets, and he has made
a prediction which may be a subject of some curiosity when the next
pope shall be elected. The Church of Rome will not, he says, be
split up by disputes about doctrine. But he does look for a schism,
and it will come, he thinks, when some papal election shall be deemed
invalid; when there shall be two competing pontiffs, and Europe
shall see a renewal of the strife between Rome and Avignon.
It may be said, no doubt, that the verified predictions which we
have cited are only stray hits; that the oracles make still more re
markable misses; and that, since guesses about the future are shot off
every hour of the day, it would be a marvel if the bull’s-eye were not
struck sometimes. Such a theory might suffice to account for the hits,
�SECULAR PROPHECY.
735
if the prophecies were let off in the dark and at random ; but that is
not the case. It is easy to trace the path along which the mind of
Heine or De Tocqueville travelled to the results of the future, and.
their predictions betray nothing more wonderful than a rare power of
drawing correct inferences from confused facts. A set of general rules
might be laid down as a guide to prophecy. In the first place, we
might give the negative caution that the analogy of past events is mis
leading, because the same set of conditions does not appear at two
different times, and an almost unseen element might suffice to deter
mine an all-important event. Forgetting this fact, Archbishop Man
ning has ventured into the field of prophecy with the argument that
Catholics should not be made uneasy because the pope has lost his
temporal power, for they should remember that he has again and
again suffered worse calamities, and has then won back all his old au
thority. Between 1378 and 1418 the Church witnessed the scandal of
a schism, in which there were rival popes, and in which Rome and
Avignon competed for the mastery. That calamity is worse than any
which has come to the Church in our days, yet the Papacy regained
its old power and glory. So late as within the present century the
temporal power was reduced to nullity by the first Napoleon, and
Pius TX. himself had to flee from Rome in the beginning of his reign.
Why, then, should not the robber-band of Victor Emmanuel be
paralyzed in turn, and the Papacy once more regain its old splendor ?
Not being ambitious to play the part of prophets, we do not undertake
to say whether the Papacy will or will not again climb or be flung into
its ancient place, but it is not the less certain that Archbishop Man
ning’s prophecy is a conspicuous example of a false inference. When
he argues that a pope in the nineteenth century will again be the tem
poral ruler of Rome because a pope triumphed over the schism of
Avignon in the fifteenth, he forgets that the lapse of centuries has
wrought a vast change of conditions. At the end of the fourteenth
century a keen onlooker, a Heine or a De Tocqueville, might have con
fidently foretold that a pope of unquestioned authority would soon
govern the historic city of the Papacy, because the political and the
social interests of Europe, no less than the piety or superstition of the
times, required that the pope should be powerful and free. The cur
rent of the age, if we may use the philosophical slang, was running
from Avignon to Rome in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and
now the current of the age is not less distinctly running against the
temporal power. The very reasons which would have led a prophet
in 1400 to predict that Rome would again be the unquestioned seat of
the Papacy would lead the same soothsayer to affirm in 1873 that the
temporal power has been shattered forever.
It is in general causes that we find the guide of prophecy. Mr.
Buckle attached so much importance to the physical conditions of a
country, the food of a people, the air they breathe, the occupations
�736
I HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
which they are forced to follow, and the habits of thought which they
display, that he undertook to tell the end of a nation from the begin
ning. Spain was no mystery to him when he remembered that it had
originally been a country of volcanoes ; that the people had conse
quently been filled with a dread of the unseen and inscrutable power
which reveals itself in convulsions of the earth; that their diseased
fear of shadowy influences made them resent the teachings of science,
and hence left them an easy prey to the Holy Office and Ignatius
Loyola when Luther, Calvin, and Zwingle, drew away from sacerdotal
ism all the Christianity of Northern Europe. There can be no doubt
that Buckle’s theory did rest on a basis of truth, and that it erred
simply by trying to account for every thing. In fact, it is not spe
cially his doctrine, but simply the rigid and systematized application
of a principle which is as old as speculative curiosity. We apply it
every day of our lives. If a family go into a badly-drained house,
we say the chances are that they will have typhus, diarrhoea, or chol
era. If a rich and foolish young man bets largely on the turf, the prob
ability is that he will be ruined. And the statistician comes to help
us with a set of tables which throw uncomfortable light on the me
chanical character of those mental and moral processes which might
seem to be determined by the unprompted bidding of our own wills.
Mr. Buckle was no doubt beguiled by a mere dream when he fancied
that we could account for every turn and winding in the history of a
country if we had only a large knowledge of its general conditions,
such as the temperature of the land, the qualities of the soil, the food
of the people, and their relations to their neighbors. He paid too
little heed to subtle qualities of race, and he did not make sufficient
allowance for the disturbing force of men gifted with extraordinary
power of brain and will. Still it is a mere truism that the more cor
rectly and fully we know the general condition of a country, the more
does mystery vanish from its history, and the successive events tend
to take their place in orderly sequence.
It is impossible, however, to prophesy by rule, and such system
mongers as Mr. Buckle would be the most treacherous of all ora<?les.
Their hard and fast canons will not bend into the subtle crevices of
human life. Men who are so ostentatiously logical that they cannot
do a bit of thinking without the aid of a huge apparatus of sharplycut principles always lack a keen scent for truth. They blunder by
rule when less showy people find their way by mother-wit. Hence
they are the worst of all prophets. It was not by counting up how
many things tell in one way, and how many tell in another, that Heine
and De Tocqueville were able to guess correctly what was coming, but
by watching the chief currents of the age, or, as more homely folk
would say, by finding out which way the wind was blowing. They
had to decide which among many social, religious, or political forces
were the strongest, and which would be the most lasting. They had
�SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS IN MACHINERY. 737
to give a correct decision as to the stability of particular institutions
and the strength of popular passions. General rules could not be of
much avail, and they had to rely on their knowledge of human nature,
their acquaintance with the forces which have been at work in history,
and their own sagacity. Most likely Heine could not have given such
an explanation of the grounds on which he made his predictions as
would have satisfied any average jury of historical students. But he
could have said that he knew the working-men of Paris; that his
power of poetic sympathy enabled him to see how their minds veered
toward socialism, and he also knew what forces were on the side of
order; and that a mental comparison of the two made him look with
certainty to a ferocious outbreak of democratic passion. Being thus
sure that the storm would come, he had next to ask himself which
points the lightning would strike, and he looked for the most promi
nent symbols of kingship, wealth, refinement, and military glory. The
Tuileries would be a mark for the fury of the mob, because that was
the palace of the man who had destroyed the populace. The public
offices must go, because they represented what the bourgeois called order
and the workmen called tyranny. The Louvre must go, for the mere
sake of maddening rich people who took a delight in art. And the
Vendóme Column must go, because it glorified a man who was the in
carnation of the w ar-spirit, and who was consequently the w’orst foe
of the working-classes. To a select committee of the House of Com
mons such reasons would have seemed the dreams of a moon-struck
visionary, and they certainly did not admit of being logically defended.
No prophecy does. The power of predicting events is the power of
guessing, and those guess best who are least dependent on rules, and
most gifted with the mother-wit which works with the quietude and
unconsciousness of instinct.—Saturday Review.
4«»
SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS IN MACHINERY.*
By Pbof. J. LOVEEING,
.
OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
T the meeting of this Association in Burlington, I showed some
experiments in illustration of the optical method of making sen
sible the vibrations of the column of air in an organ-pipe. At the
Chicago meeting I demonstrated the way in which the vibrations of
strings could be studied by the eye in place of the ear, when these
strings were attached to tuning-forks with which they could vibrate in
sympathy; substituting for the small forks, originally used by Melde,
A
1 From the Proceedings of the Twenty-first Meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
—47
vol. hi.
�738
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
a colossal tuning-fork, the prongs of which were placed between the
poles of a powerful electro-magnet. This fork, which interrupted
the battery current, at the proper time, by its own motion, was
able to put a heavy cord, thirty feet in length, in the most ener
getic vibration, and for an indefinite time. I propose, at the present
time, to speak of those sympathetic vibrations which are pitched so
low as not to come within the limits of human ears, but which are
felt rather than heard, and to show how they may be seen as well
as felt.
All structures, large or small, simple or complex, have a definite
rate of vibration, depending on their materials, size, and shape, and as
fixed as the fundamental note of a musical cord. They may also vi
brate in parts, as the cord does, and thus be capable of various increas
ing rates of vibration, which constitute their harmonics. If one body
vibrates, all others in the neighborhood will respond, if the rate of
vibration in the first agrees with their own principal or secondary
rates of vibration, even when no more substantial bond than the air
unites a body with its neighbors. In this way, mechanical disturb
ances, harmless in their origin, assume a troublesome and perhaps a
dangerous character, when they enter bodies all too ready to move at
the required rate, and sometimes beyond the sphere of their stability.
When the bridge at Colebrooke Dale (the first iron bridge in the
world) was building, a fiddler came along and said to the workmen
that he could fiddle their bridge down. The builders thought this
boast a fiddle-de-dee, and invited the itinerant musician to fiddle away
to his heart’s content. One note after another was struck upon the
strings until one was found with which the bridge was in sympathy.
When the bridge began to shake violently, the incredulous workmen
were alarmed at the unexpected result, and ordered the fiddler to stop.
At one time, considerable annoyance was experienced in one of
the mills in Lowell, because the walls of the building and the floors
were violently shaken by the machinery: so much so that, on certain
days, a pail of water would be nearly emptied of its contents, while on
other days all was quiet. Upon investigation it appeared that the
building shook in response to the motion of the machinery only when
that moved at a particular rate, coinciding with one of the harmoriics
of the structure ; and the simple remedy for the trouble consisted in
making the machinery move at a little more or a little less speed, so
as to put it out of time with the building.
We can easily believe that, in many cases, these violent vibrations
will loosen the cement and derange the parts of a building, so that it
may afterward fall under the pressure of a weight which otherwise
it was fully able to bear, and at a time, possibly, when the machinery
is not in motion; and this may have something to do with such acci
dents as that which happened to the Pemberton Mills in Lawrence.
Large trees are uprooted in powerful gales, because the wind comes in
�SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS IN MACHINERY,
gusts; and, if these gusts happen to be timed in accordance with the
natural swing of the tree, the effect is irresistible. The slow vibra
tions which proceed from the largest pipes of a large organ, and
which are below the range of musical sounds, are able to shake the
walls and floors of a building so as to be felt, if not heard, thereby
furnishing a background of noise on which the true musical sounds
may be projected.
We have here the reason of the rule observed by marching ar
mies when they cross a bridge; viz., to stop the music, break step,
and open column, lest the measured cadence of a condensed mass of
men should urge the bridge to vibrate beyond its sphere of cohesion.
A neglect of this rule has led to serious accidents. The Broughton
bridge, near Manchester, gave way beneath the measured tread of
only sixty men who were marching over it. The celebrated engineer,
Robert Stephenson, has remarked 1 that there is not so much danger
to a bridge, when it is crowded with men or cattle, or if cavalry are
passing over it, as when men go over it in marching order. A
chain-bridge crosses the river Dordogne on the road to Bordeaux.
One of the Stephensons passed over it in 1845, and was so much struck
with its defects, although it had been recently erected, that he noti
fied the authorities in regard to them. A few years afterward it
gave way when troops were marching over it.’
A few years ago, a terrible disaster befell a battalion of French
infantry, while crossing the suspension-bridge at Angers, in France.
Reiterated warnings were given to the troops to break into sections,
as is usually done. But the rain was falling heavily, and, in the hurry
of the moment, the orders were disregarded. The bridge, which was
only twelve years old, and which had been repaired the year before at
a cost of $7,000, fell, and 280 dead bodies were found, besides many
who were wounded. Among the killed or drowned were the chief of
battalion and four other officers. Many of the guns were bent double,
and one musket pierced completely through the body of a soldier.
The wholesale slaughter at the bridge of Beresina, in Russia, when
Napoleon was retreating from Moscow, in 1812, and his troops crowded
upon the bridge and broke it, furnishes a fitting parallel to this great
calamity.
When Galileo set a pendulum in strong vibration by blowing on it
whenever it was moving away from his mouth, he gave a good illus
tration of the way in which small but regularly-repeated disturbances
grow into consequence. Tyndall tells us that the Swiss muleteers tie
up the bells of the mules, for fear that the tinkle should bring an
avalanche down. The breaking of a drinking-glass by the human
voice, when its fundamental note is sounded, is a well-authenticated
feat; and Chladni mentions an innkeeper who frequently repeated the
1 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. v., p. 255.
• Smiles’s “ Life of Stephenson,” p. 390.
�740
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
experiment for the entertainment of his guests and his own profit.
The nightingale is said to kill by the power of its notes. The bark of
a dog is able to call forth a response from certain strings of the piano.
And a curious passage has been pointed out in the Talmud, which dis
cusses the indemnity to be claimed when a vessel is broken by the
voice of a domestic animal. If we enter the domain of music, there
is no end to the illustrations which might be given of these sympathetic
vibrations. They play a conspicuous part in most musical instru
ments, and the sounds which these instruments produce would be
meagre and ineffective without them.
In the case of vibrations which are simply mechanical, without
being audible, or at any rate musical, the following ocular demonstra
tion may be given: A train of wheels, set in motion by a strong
spring wound up in a drum, causes an horizontal spindle to revolve
with great velocity. Two pieces of apparatus like this are placed at
the opposite sides of a room. On the ends of the spindles which face
one another are attached buttons about an inch in diameter, The two
ends of a piece of white tape are fastened to the rims of these buttons.
When the spindles, with the attached buttons, revolve, the two ends of
the tape revolve, and in such directions as to prevent the tape from twistunless the velocities are different. Even if the two trains of wheels
move with unequal velocities, when independent of each other, the
motions tend to uniformity when the two spindles are connected by
the tape. Now, by moving slightly the apparatus at one end of the
room, the tape may be tightened or loosened. If the tape is tight
ened, its rate of vibration is increased, and, at the same time, the ve
locity of the spindles is diminished on account of the greater resist
ance. If the tape is slackened, its rate of vibration is less, and the
velocity of the spindles is greater. By this change we can readily
bring the fundamental vibi’ation of the tape into unison with the machinery, and then the tape responds by a vibration of great amplitude,
visible to all beholders. If we begin gradually to loosen the tape, it
soon ceases to respond, on account of the twofold effect already de
scribed, until the time comes when the velocity of the machinery ac
cords with the first harmonic of the tape, and the latter divides beau
tifully into two vibrating segments with a node at the middle. As
the tension slowly diminishes, the different harmonics are successively
developed, until finally the tape is broken up into numerous segments
only an inch or two in length. The eye is as much delighted by this
visible music as the ear could be if the vibrations were audible; and
the optical demonstration has this advantage, that all may see, while
few have musical ears. A tape is preferred to a cord in this experi
ment, because it is better seen, and any accidental twist it may ac
quire is less troublesome.
�SPECULATION IN SCIENCE.
741
SPECULATION IN SCIENCE.1
By Pbof. J. LAWRENCE SMITH.
NOW pass to the second part of my discourse. It is in reference
to the methods of modern science—the caution to be observed in
pursuing it, if we do not wish to pervert its end by too confident as
sertions and deductions.
It is a very common attempt, nowadays, for scientists to transcend
the limits of their legitimate studies, and in doing this they run into
speculations apparently the most unphilosophical, wild, and absurd;
quitting the true basis of inductive philosophy, and building up the
most curious theories on little else than assertion; speculating upon
the merest analogy; adopting the curious views of some metaphysi
cians, as Edward von Hartmann; striving to work out speculative
results by the inductive method of natural science.
And such an example as this is of great value to the reflective
mind, teaching caution, and demonstrating the fact that, while the
rules by which we are guided in scientific research are far in advance
of those of ancient days, we must not conclude that they are perfect
by any means. In our modern method of investigation how many
conspicuous examples of deception we have had in pursuing even the
best method of investigation ! Take, for instance, the science of ge
ology, from the time of Werner to the present day. While we always
thought we had the true interpretation of the structural phenomena
of the globe, as we progressed from year to year, yet how vastly dif
ferent are our interpretations of the present day from what they were
in the time of Werner! In chemistry, the same thing is true. How
clearly were all things explained to the chemist of the last century by
Phlogiston, which, in the present century, receive no credence, and
chemical phenomena are now viewed in an entirely different light!
Lavoisier, in the latter part of the last century, elucidated the phe
nomena of respiration and the production of animal heat by one of the
most beautiful theories, based, to all appearances, upon well-observed
facts; yet, at the present day, more delicate observations, and the
discovery of the want of balance between the inhaled oxygen and ex
haled carbonic acid, subverted that beautiful theory, and we are left
entirely without one. It is true we have collated a number of facts
in regard to respiration, molecular changes in the tissues, etc., all of
which are recognized as having something to do with animal heat;
still it is acknowledged that we are incapable of giving any concrete
expression to the phenomena of respiration and animal heat as La
voisier did eighty or ninety years ago.
I
1 Abstract of the address before the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, at its late meeting in Portland, Me., by the retiring president.
�742
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
Electricity is the same now as it has ever been, yet it was once
spoken of as a fluid, then as a force, now as an energy readily con
vertible into caloric or mechanical energy; and in what light it will
be considered fifty years hence no one can predict.
Now, what I desire to enforce here is, that amid all these changes
and revolutions of theories, so called, it is simply man, the inter
preter, that has erred, and not Nature; her laws are the same; we
simply have not been able to read them correctly, and perhaps never
will be.
AVhat, it may be asked, are we to do, then ? Must we cease
theorizing ? Not at all. The lesson to be learned from this is to be
more modest in our generalizations; to generalize as far as our carefully-made-out facts will permit us, and no further; check the imagina
tion, and let it not run riot and shipwreck us upon some metaphysical
quicksand.
The fact is, it becomes a question whether there is such a thing as
pure theory in science. No true scientific theory deserves the name
that is not based on verified hypothesis; in fact, it is but a concise in
terpretation of the deductions of scientific facts. Dumas has well said
that theories are like crutches, the strength of them is, to be tested
by attempting to walk with them. And I might further add, that very
often scientists, who are without sure-footed facts to carry them along,
take to these crutches.
It is common to speak of the theory of gravitation, when there is
nothing purely hypothetical in connection with the manner in which it
was studied; in it we only see a clear generalization of observed laws
which govern the mutual attraction of bodies. If at any time New
ton did assume an hypothesis, it was only for the purpose of facilitat
ing his calculations: “Newton’s passage from the falling of an apple
to the falling of a moon was at the outset a leap of the imagination; ”
but it was this hypothesis, verified by mathematics, which gave to the
so-called theory of gravitation its present status.
In regard to light, we are in the habit of connecting with it a pure
hypothesis, viz., the impressions of light being produced by emission
from luminous bodies, or by the undulation of an all-pervading, at
tenuated medium; and these hypotheses are to be regarded as probable
so long as the phenomena of light are explained by them, and no
longer. The failure to explain one single well-observed fact is suffi
cient to cast doubt upon or subvert any pure hypothesis, as has been
the case with the emission theory of light, and may be the fate of the
undulatory theory, which, however, up to the present time, serves in
all cases.
It is not my object to criticise the speculations of any one or more
of the modern scientists who have carried their investigations into
the world of the imagination; in fact, it could not be done in a dis
course so limited as this, and one only intended as a prologue to the
�SPECULATION IN SCIENCE.
743
present meeting. But, in order to illustrate this subject of method
more fully, I will refer to Darwin, whose name has become synonymous
with progressive development and natural selection, which we had
thought had died out with Lamarck fifty years ago. In Darwin we
have one of those philosophers whose great knowledge of animal and
vegetable life is only transcended by his imagination. In fact, he is
to be regarded more as a metaphysician with a highly-wrought im
agination than as a scientist, although a man having a most wonderful
knowledge of the facts of natural history. In England and America
we find scientific men of the profoundest intellects differing completely
in regard to his logic, analogies, and deductions; and in Germany and
France the same thing—in the former of these countries some specu
lators saying that “his theory is our starting-point,” and in France
many of her best scientific men not ranking the labors of Darwin with
those of pure science. Darwin takes up the law of life, and runs it
into progressive development. In doing this, he seems to me to in
crease the embarrassment which surrounds us on looking into the mys
teries of creation. He is not satisfied to leave the laws of life where
he finds them, or to pursue their study by logical and inductive rea
soning. His method of reasoning will not allow him to remain at
rest; he must be moving onward in his unification of the universe.
He started with the lower order of animals, and brought them through
their various stages of progressive development until he supposed he
had touched the confines of man ; he then seems to have recoiled, and
hesitated to pass the boundary which separated man from the lower
order of animals ; but he saw that all his previous logic was bad if he
stopped there, so man was made from the ape (with which no one can
find fault, if the descent be legitimate). This stubborn logic pushes
him still further, and he must find some connecting link between that
most remarkable property of the human face called expression; so his
ingenuity has given us a very curious and readable treatise on that
subject. Yet still another step must be taken in this linking together
man and the lower order of animals ; it is in connection with language;
and before long it is not unreasonable to expect another production
from that most wonderful and ingenious intellect on the connection be
tween the language of man and the brute creation.
Let us see for a moment what this reasoning from analogy would
lead us to. The chemist has as much right to revel in the imaginary
formation of sodium from potassium, or iodine and bromine from
chlorine, by a process of development, and call it science, as for the
naturalist to revel in many of his wild speculations, or for the physicist
who studies the stellar space to imagine it permeated by mind as well
as light—mind such as has formed the poet, the statesman, or the
philosopher. Yet any chemist who would quit his method of investi
gation, of marking every foot of his advance by some indelible im
print, and go back to the speculations of Albertus Magnus, Roger
�744
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
Bacon, and other alchemists of former ages, would soon he dropped
from the list of chemists and ranked with dreamers and speculators.
What I have said is, in my humble opinion, warranted by the de
parture Darwin and others have made from true science in their purely
speculative studies; and neither he nor any other searcher after truth
expects to hazard great and startling opinions without at the same
time courting and desiring criticism; yet dissension from his views in
no way proves him wrong—it only shows how his ideas impress the
minds of other men. And just here let me contrast the daring of
Darwin with the position assumed by one of the great French natural
ists of the present day, Prof. Quatrefages, in a recent discourse of his
on the physical character of the human race. In referring to the ques
tion of the first origin of man, he says distinctly that, in his opinion,
it is one that belongs not to science; these questions are treated
by theologians and philosophers: “Neither here nor at the Museum
am I, nor do I wish to be, either a theologian or a philosopher. I
am simply a man of science; and it is in the name of comparative
physiology, of botanical and zoological geography, of geology and
paleontology, in the name of the laws which govern man as well as
animals and plants, that I have always spoken.” And, studying man
as a scientist, he goes on to say: “ It is established that man has two
grand faculties, of which we find not even a trace among animals. He
alone has the moral sentiment of good and evil; he alone believes in
a future existence succeeding this natural life; he alone believes in
beings superior to himself, that he has never seen, and that are capable
of influencing his life for good or evil; in other words, man alone is
endowed with morality and religion.” Our own distinguished nat
uralist and associate, Prof. Agassiz, reverts to this theory of evolution
in the same positive manner, and with such earnestness and warmth
as to call forth severe editorial criticisms, by his speaking of it as a
“ mere mine of assertions,” and the “ danger of stretching inferences
from a few observations to a wide field; ” and he is called upon to col
lect 11 real observations to disprove the evolution hypothesis.” I
would here remark, in defence of my distinguished friend, that scien
tific investigation will assume a curious phase when its votaries are
required to occupy time in looking up facts, and seriously attempting
to disprove any and every hypothesis based upon proof, some of it
not even rising to the dignity of circumstantial evidence.
I now come to the last point to which I wish to call the attention
of the members of the Association in the pursuit of their investiga
tions, and the speculations that these give rise to in their minds. Ref
erence has already been made to the tendency of quitting the physical
to revel in the metaphysical, which, however, is not peculiar to this
age, for it belonged as well to the times of Plato and Aristotle as it
does to ours. More special reference will be made here to the pro
clivity of the present epoch among philosophers and theologians to be
�SPECULATION IN SCIENCE.
745
parading science and religion side by side, talking of reconciling sci
ence and religion, as if they have ever been unreconciled. Scientists
and theologians may have quarrelled, but never science and religion.
At dinners they are toasted in the same breath, and calls made on cler
gymen to respond, who, for fear of giving offence, or lacking the fire
and firmness of St. Paul, utter a vast amount of platitudes about the
beauty of science and the truth of religion, trembling in theii* shoes
all the time, fearing that science falsely so called may take away their
professional calling, instead of uttering in a voice of thunder, like the
Boanerges of the Gospel, that the “ world by wisdom knew not God.”
And it never will. Our religion is made so plain by the light of faith
that the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein.
No, gentlemen, I firmly believe that there is less connection be
tween science and religion than there is between jurisprudence and
astronomy, and the sooner this is understood the better it will be for
both. Religion is based upon revelations as given to us in a book, the
contents of which are never changed, and of which there have been no
revised or corrected editions since it was first given, except so far as
man has interpolated; a book more or less perfectly understood by
mankind, but clear and unequivocal in all essential points concerning
the relation of man to his Creator; a book that affords practical di
rections, but no theory; a book of facts, and not of arguments ; a book
that has been damaged more by theologians than by all the panthe
ists and atheists that have ever lived and turned their invectives
against it—and no one source of mischief on the part of theologians is
greater than that of admitting the profound mystery of many parts
of it, and almost in the next breath attempting some sort of explana
tion of these mysteries. The book is just what Richard Whately says
it is, viz., “ Not the philosophy of the human mind, nor yet the philos
ophy of the divine nature in itself, but (that which is properly religion)
the relation and connection of the two beings—what God is to us,
what he has done and will do for us, and what we are to be in regard
to him.” . . . Let us stick to science, pure, unadulterated science, and
leave to religion things which pertain to it; for science and religion
are like two mighty rivers flowing toward the same ocean, and, before
reaching it, they will meet and mingle their pure streams, and flow
together into that vast ocean of truth which encircles the throne
of the great Author of all truth, whether pertaining to science or
to religion. And I will here, in defence of science, assert that there
is a greater proportion of its votaries who now revere and honor re
ligion in its broadest sense, as understood by the Christian world, than
that of any other of the learned secular pursuits.
But, before concluding, I cannot refrain from referring to one great
event in the history of American science during the past year, as it
will doubtless mark an epoch in the development of science in this
country. I refer to the noble gift of a noble foreigner to encourage
�746
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
the pool* but worthy student of pure science in this country. It is
needless for me to insist on the estimation in which Prof. John Tyndall
is held among us. We know him to be a man whose heart is as large
as his head, both contributing to the cause of science. We regard
him as one of the ablest physicists of the time, and one of the most
level-headed philosophers that England has ever produced—a man
whose intellect is as symmetrical as the circle, with its every point
equidistant from the centre. We have been the recipient of former
endowments from that land which, we thank God, was our mother
country, for from it we have drawn our language, our liberty, our
laws, our literature, our science, and our energy, and without whose
wealth our material development would not be what it is at the pres
ent day. Count Rumford, the founder of the Royal Society of Lon
don, in earlier years endowed a scientific chair in one of our larger
universities, and Smithson transferred his fortune to our shores to
promote the diffusion of science. Now, while these are noble gifts,
yet Count Rumford was giving to his own countrymen—for he was
an American—and they were posthumous gifts from men of large for
tune. But the one I now refer to was from a man who ranks not with
the wealthy, and he laid his offering upon the altar of science in this
country with his own hands; and it has been both consecrated and
blest by noble words from his own lips; all of which makes the gift a
rich treasure to American science; and I think we can assure him that,
as the same Anglo-Saxon blood flows in our veins as does in his (tem
pered, ’tis true, with the Celtic, Teutonic, Latin, etc.), he may expect
much from the American student in pure science as the offspring of his
gift and his example.
THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS.
By Prof. JOHN TYNDALL.
OON after my return from America, I learned with great concern
that a little book of mine, published prior to my departure, had
given grave offence to some of the friends and relatives of the late
Principal Forbes; and I was specially grieved when informed that the
chastisement considered due to this offence was to be administered by
gentlemen between whom and myself I had hoped mutual respect and
amity would forever reign. We had, it is true, met in conflict on an
other field; but hostilities had honorably ceased, old wounds had, to
all appearance, been healed, and I had no misgiving as to the per
manence of the peace established between us.
The genesis of the book referred to is this: At Christmas, 1871, it
fell to my lot to give the brief course of “ Juvenile Lectures ” to which
S
�THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS.
Faraday for many years before his death lent such an inexpressible
charm. The subject of glaciers, which I had never previously treated
in a course of lectures, might, it was thought, be rendered pleasant
and profitable to a youthful audience. The sight of young people
wandering over the glaciers of the Alps with closed eyes, desiring
knowledge, but not always finding it, had been a familiar one to me,
and I thought it no unworthy task to respond to this desire, and to
give such of my young hearers as might visit the Alps an intelligent
interest in glacier phenomena.
The course was, therefore, resolved upon; and, to render its value
more permanent, I wrote out copious “Notes,” had them bound to
gether, and distributed among the boys and girls. Knowing the
damage which elementary books, wearily and confusedly written, had
done to my own young mind, I tried, to the best of my ability, to
confer upon these “ Notes ” clearness, thoroughness, and life. It was
my particular desire that the imaginary pupil chosen for my com
panion in the Alps, and for whom, odd as it may sound, I entertained
a real affection, should rise from the study of the “ Notes ” with no
other feeling than one of attachment and respect for those who had
worked upon the glaciers. I therefore avoided all allusion to those
sore personal dissensions which, to the detriment of science and of
men, had begun fifteen years prior to my connection with the glaciers,
and which have been unhappily continued to the present time.
Prof. Youmans, of New York, was then in London, organizing the
“ International Scientific Series,” with which his name and energy are
identified. To prove my sympathy for his work, I had given him per
mission to use my name as one of his probable contributors, the date
of my contribution being understood to belong to the distant, and in
deed indefinite, future. He, however, read the “ Notes,” liked them,
urged me to expand them a little, and to permit him to publish them
as the first volume of his series. His request was aided by that of an
other friend, and I acceded to it—hence the little book, entitled the
“Forms of Water,” which the friends and relatives of Principal
Forbes have read with so much discontent.
That modest volume has, we are informed, caused an uncontem
plated addition to be made to the Life of Principal Forbes, lately
published under the triple auspices of Principal Shairp, the successor
of Principal Forbes in the College of St. Andrew’s, Mr. AdamsReilly, and Prof. Tait. “ It had been our hope,” says Principal Shairp,
in his preface, “ that we might have been allowed to tell our story
without reverting to controversies which, we had thought, had been
long since extinguished. But, after most of these sheets were in press,
a book appeared, in which many of the old charges against Principal
Forbes in the matter of the glaciers were, if not openly repeated, not
obscurely indicated. Neither the interests of truth, nor justice to the
dead, could suffer such remarks to pass unchallenged. How it has
�748
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
been thought best for the present to meet them, I must leave my friend
and fellow-laborer, Prof. Tait, to tell.”
The book here referred to is the unpretending volume whose blame
less advent I have just described.
I have not the honor of knowing Principal Shairp personally, but
he will, I trust, permit me to assure him of two things : Firstly, that,
in writing my book, I had no notion of rekindling an extinct fire, or
of treating with any thing but tenderness the memory of his friend.
Secondly, that, had such been my intention, the negative attribute,
“ not obscure,” is hardly the one which he would have chosen to de
scribe the words that I should have employed. But the fact is, the fire
was not extinct : the anger of former combats, which I thought spent,
was still potential, and my little book was but the finger which pulled
the trigger of an already-loaded gun.
Let the book speak for itself. I reproduce here in extenso the ref
erences to Principal Forbes, which have been translated into “ charges ”
against him by Principal Shairp. Having, in section 20, mentioned
the early measurements of glaciers made by Hugi and Agassiz, I con
tinue thus :
“ We now approach an epoch in the scientific history of glaciers. Had the
first observers been practically acquainted with the instruments of precision
used in surveying, accurate measurements of the motion of glaciers would
probably have been earlier executed. We are now on the point of seeing such
instruments introduced almost simultaneously by Al. Agassiz on the glacier of
the Unteraar, and by Prof. Forbes on the Aler de Glace. Attempts had been
made by Af. Escher de la Linth to determine the motion of a series of wooden
stakes driven into the Aletsch Glacier, but the melting was so rapid that the
stakes soon fell. To remedy this, Af. Agassiz, in 1841, undertook the great
labor of carrying boring-tools to his ‘hotel,’ and piercing the Unteraar Glacier
at six different places to a depth of ten feet, in a straight line across the glacier.
Into the holes six piles were so firmly driven that they remained in the glacier
for a year, and, in 1842, the displacements of all six were determined. They
were found to be 160 feet, 225 feet, 269 feet, 245 feet, 210 feet, and 125 feet, re
spectively.
“ A great step is here gained. You notice that the middle numbers are the
largest. They correspond to the central portion of the glacier. Hence, these
measurements conclusively establish, not only the fact of glacier motion, but
that the centre of the glacier, like that of a river, moves more rapidly than the
sides.
“ With the aid of trained engineers, AT. Agassiz followed up these measure
ments in subsequent years. His researches are recorded in a work entitled
‘ Système Glaciaire,’ which is accompanied by a very noble Atlas of the Glacier
of the Unteraar, published in 1847.
“ These determinations were made by means of a theodolite, of which I will
give you some notion immediately. The same instrument was employed the
same year by the late Principal Forbes upon the Afer de Glace. He established
independently the greater central motion. He showed, moreover, that it is not
necessary to wait a year, or even a week, to determine the motion of a glacier ;
with a correctly-adjusted theodolite he was able to determine the motion of va
rious points of the Afer de Glace from day to day. He affirmed, and with truth,
that the motion of the glacier might be determined from hour to hour. We
shall prove this farther on. Prof. Forbes also triangulated the Afer de Glace,
and laid down an excellent map of it. His first observations and his survey
are recorded in a celebrated book published in 1843, and entitled ‘ Travels in
the Alps.’
�THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS.
“ These observations were also followed up in subsequent years, the results
being recorded in a series of detached letters and essays of great interest. These
were subsequently collected in a volume entitled ‘ Occasional Papers on the
Theory of Glaciers,’ published in 1859. The labors of Agassiz and Forbes are
the two chief sources of our knowledge of glacier phenomena.”
It would be difficult for an unbiassed person to find in these words
any semblance of a “ charge ” against Principal Forbes. His friends
and relatives may be dissatisfied to see the name of M. Agassiz placed
first in relation to the question of the quicker central flow of glaciers ;
but in giving it this position I was guided by the printed data which
are open to any writer upon this subject.
I have checked this brief historic statement by consulting again
the proper authorities, and this is the result: In 1841 Principal Forbes
became the guest of M. Agassiz on the glacier of the Aar; and in a
very able article, published some time subsequently in the Edinburgh
Review, he speaks of “ the noble ardor, the generous friendship, the
unvarying good temper, the true hospitality ” of his host. In order
to explain the subsequent action of Principal Forbes, it is necessary to
say that the kindly feeling implied in the foregoing words did not
continue long to subsist between him and M. Agassiz. I am dealing,
however, for the moment with scientific facts, not with personal dif
ferences ; and, as a matter of indisputable fact, M. Agassiz did, in
1841, incur the labor of boring six holes in a straight line across the
glacier of the Aar, of fixing in these holes a series of piles, and of
measuring, in 1842, the distance through which the motion of the
glacier had carried them. This measurement was made on July 20th ;
some results of it were communicated to the Academy of Science in
Paris on August 1st, and they stand in the “ Comptes Rendus ” of the
Academy as an unquestionable record, from which date can be taken.
But the friends quarrelled. Who was to blame I will not venture
here to intimate; but the assumption that M. Agassiz was wholly in
the wrong would, I am bound to say, be required to justify the sub
sequent conduct of Principal Forbes. He was, I gather from the Life,
acquainted with the use of surveying instruments; and knowing
roughly the annual rate of glacier-motion, he would also know that
through the precision attainable with a theodolite, a single day’s—
probably a single hour’s motion—especially in summer, must be dis
cernible. With such knowledge in his possession, as early as June,
1842, and without deeming it necessary to give his host of the Aar
any notice of his intention, Principal Forbes repaired to the Mer de
Glace, made in the first instance a few rapid measurements at the
Montanvert, and in a letter dated from Courmayeur, on July 4th, com
municated them to the editor of the Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal.
He did not at that time give any numbers expressing the ratio of
the side to the central motion of the glacier, but contented himself
with announcing the result in these terms: “ The central portion of
�75°
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
the Mer de Glace moves past the edges in a very considerable pro
portion, quite contrary to the opinion generally entertained.” This
communication, as I have said, bears the date of July 4th; but it was
first published in the October number of the journal to which it was
addressed. My reason, therefore, for mentioning Agassiz first in the
“Forms of Water” is, that, apart from all personal complications,
his experiment was begun ten months prior to that of his rival, and
that he had also two months’ priority of publication.
Neither in his “ Travels in the Alps,” nor in his “ Occasional Pa
pers,” does Principal Forbes, to my knowledge, make any reference
to this communication of Agassiz. I am far from charging him with
conscious wrong, or doubting that he justified this reticence to his
own mind. But my duty at present lies with objective facts, and not
with subjective judgments. And the fact is that, for eighteen years
subsequent to this campaign of 1842, Agassiz, as far as the glaciers
are concerned, was practically extinguished in England. The labors
of the following years failed to gain for him any recognition. His
early mistake regarding the quicker motion of the sides of a glacier,
and other weaknesses, were duly kept in view; but his positive meas
urements, and his Atlas, which prove the observations upon the glacier
of the Aar to be far more complete than those made upon any other
glacier, were never permitted to yield the slightest credit to their au
thor. I am no partisan of Agassiz, but I desire to be just.
Here, then, my case ends as regards the first reference to Principal
Forbes, in section 20 of the “Forms of Water.”
In section 48 I describe the dirt-bands of the Mer de Glace, and
ascribe the discovery of them to Principal Forbes. There can be no
thought of a “ charge ” here.
The next reference that has any bearing upon this discussion oc
curs in sections 59 and 60 of the “ Forms of Water.” I quote it fully:
By none of these writers is the property of viscosity or plasticity ascribed
to glacier-ice; the appearances of many glaciers are, however, so suggestive of
this idea that we may be sure it would have found more frequent expression
were it not in such apparent contradiction with our every-day experience of ice.
“ Still the idea found its advocates. In a little book, published in 1773, and
entitled ‘Picturesque Journey to the Glaciers of Savoy,’Bordier, of Geneva,
wrote thus: ‘ It is now time to look at all these objects with the eyes of reason;
to study, in the first place, the position and the progression of glaciers, and to
seek the solution of their principal phenomena. At the first aspect of the ice
mountains an observation presents itself, which appears sufficient to explain all.
It is that the entire mass of ice is connected together, and presses from above
downward after the manner of fluids. Let us, then, regard the ice, not as a
mass entirely rigid and immobile, but as a heap of coagulated matter, or as
softened wax, flexible and ductile to a certain point.’ Here probably for the
hrst^time the quality of plasticity is ascribed to the ice of glaciers.
To us, familiar with the aspect of the glaciers, it must seem strange that
this idea once expressed did not at once receive recognition and development,
those early days explorers were few, and the ‘Picturesque Journey’
Pr°t>ably but little known, so that the notion of plasticity lay dormant for more
t an half a century. But Bordier was at length succeeded by a man of far
greater scientific grasp and insight than himself. This was Rendu, a Catholic
�THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS. 751
priest and canon when he wrote, and afterward Bishop of Annecy. In 1841
Rendu laid before the Academy of Sciences of Savoy his 4 Theory of the Gla
ciers of Savoy,’ a contribution forever memorable in relation to this subject.
“Rendu seized the idea of glacier plasticity with great power and clearness,
and followed it resolutely to its consequences. It is not known that he had
ever seen the work of Bordier; probably not, as he never mentions it. Let me
quote for you some of Rendu’s expressions, which, however, fail to give an ade
quate idea of his insight and precision of thought: 4 Between the Mer de Glace
and a river there is a resemblance so complete that it is impossible to find in
the glacier a circumstance which does not exist in the river. In currents of
water the motion is not uniform, either throughout their width or throughout
their depth. The friction of the bottom and of the sides, with the action of
local hindrances, causes the motion to vary, and only toward the middle of the
surface do we obtain the full motion.’
“ This reads like a prediction of what has since been established by meas
urement. Looking at the glacier of Mont Dolent, which resembles a sheaf in
form, wide at both ends and narrow in the middle, and reflecting that the upper
wide part had become narrow, and the narrow middle part again wide, Rendu
observes: 4 There is a multitude of facts which seem to necessitate the belief
that glacier-ice enjoys a kind of ductility, which enables it to mould itself to its
locality, to thin out, to swell, and to contract, as if it were a soft paste.’
“ To fully test his conclusions, Rendu required the accurate measurement
of glacier motion. Had he added to his other endowments the practical skill
of a land-surveyor, he would now be regarded as the prince of glacialists. As
it was, he was obliged to be content with imperfect measurements. In one of
his excursions he examined the guides regarding the successive positions of a
vast rock which he found upon the ice close to the side of the glacier. The
mean of five years gave him a motion for this block of forty feet a year.
44 Another block, the transport of which he subsequently measured more
accurately, gave him a velocity of 400 feet a year. Note his explanation of this
discrepancy: 4 The enormous difference of these two observations arises from
the fact that one block stood near the centre of the glacier, which moves most
rapidly, while the other stood near the side, where the ice is held back by fric
tion.’ So clear and definite were Rendu’s ideas of the plastic motion of gla
ciers, that, had the question of curvature occurred to him, I entertain no doubt
that he would have enunciated beforehand the shifting of the point of maximum
motion from side to side across the axis of the glacier (§ 25).
44 It is right that you should know that scientific men do not always agree
in their estimates of the comparative value of facts and ideas ; and it is espe
cially right that you should know that your present tutor attaches a very high
value to ideas when they spring from the profound and persistent pondering of
superior minds, and are not, as is too often the case, thrown out without the
warrant of either deep thought or natural capacity. It is because I believe
Rendu’s labors fulfil this condition that I ascribe to them so high a value. But,
when you become older and better informed, you may differ from me; and I
write these words lest you should too readily accept my opinion of Rendu.
Judge me, if you care to do so, when your knowledge is matured. I certainly
shall not fear your verdict.
44 But, much as I prize the prompting idea, and thoroughly as I believe that
often in it the force of genius mainly lies, it would, in my opinion, be an error
of omission of the gravest kind, and which, if habitual, would insure the ulti
mate decay of natural knowledge, to neglect verifying our ideas, and giving them
outward reality and substance when the means of doing so are at hand. In
science, thought, as far as possible, ought to be wedded to fact. This was at
tempted by Rendu, and in great part accomplished by Agassiz and Forbes.
“ Here, indeed, the merits of the distinguished glacialist last named rise con
spicuously to view. From the able and earnest advocacy of Prof. Forbes, the
public knowledge of this doctrine of glacial plasticity is almost wholly derived.
He gave the doctrine a more distinctive form ; he first applied the term viscous
to glacier-ice, and sought to found upon precise measurements a ‘viscous
theory ’ of glacier-motion.
44 I am here obliged to state facts in their historic sequence. Prof. Forbes,
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
when he began his investigations, was acquainted with the labors of Rendu. In
his earliest works upon the Alps he refers to those labors in terms of flattering
recognition. But, though, as a matter of fact, Rendu’s ideas were there to
prompt him, it would be too much to say that he needed their inspiration.
Had Rendu not preceded him, he might none the less have grasped the idea of
viscosity, executing his measurements, and applying his knowledge to maintain
it. Be that as it may, the appearance of Prof. Forbes on the Unteraar Glacier
in 1841, and on the Her de Glace in 1842, and his labors then and subse
quently, have given him a name not to be forgotten in the scientific history of
glaciers.”
Here, again, I have to declare that, in writing thus, I had no no
tion of “raking up” an old controversy. My object was to render
my account historically continuous, and there is not a single word to
intimate that I took exception to Principal Forbes’s treatment of
Rendu. Nay, while placing the bishop in the position he merited, I
went out of my way to point out that, in all probability, Principal
Forbes required no such antecedent. So desirous was I that no un
kind or disparaging word should escape me regarding Principal Forbes,
that, had a reasonable objection to the phraseology here used been
communicated to me by his friends, I should have altered the whole
edition of the work sooner than allow the objectionable matter to ap
pear in it............
My final reference to Principal Forbes was in § 67 of the “ Forms
of Water,” where the veined structure of glacier-ice is dealt with. Its
description by Guyot, who first observed it, is so brief and appropriate
that I quoted his account of it. But this was certainly not with a
view of damaging the originality of Principal Forbes. In paragraph
474 of my book the observation of the structure upon the glacier of
the Aar is thus spoken of: “The blue veins were observed indepen
dently three years after M. Guyot had first described them. I say in
dependently, because M. Guyot’s description, though written in 1838,
remained unprinted, and was unknown in 1841 to the observers on the
Aar. These were M. Agassiz and Prof. Forbes. To the question of
structure, Prof. Forbes subsequently devoted much attention, and it
was mainly his observations and reasonings that gave it the important
position now assigned to it in glacier phenomena.”
This is the account of Guyot’s observation given by Principal
Forbes himself. But it may be objected that I am not correct in class
ing him and Agassiz thus together, and that to Principal Forbes alone
belongs the credit of observing the veined structure upon the Aar
Glacier. This may be true, but would an impartial writer be justified
in ignoring the indignant protests of M. Agassiz and his companions ?
With regard to the development of the subject, I felt perfectly sure
of the merits of Principal Forbes, and did not hesitate to give him
the benefit of my conviction.
Such, then, are the grounds of Principal Shairp’s complaint quoted
at the outset—such the “charges ” that I have made “against Prin
cipal Forbes,” and which the “ interests of truth” and “justice to the
�THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS. 753
dead” could not “suffer to pass unchallenged. ” There is, I submit,
no color of reason in such a complaint, and it would never, I am per
suaded, have been made had not Principal Shairp and his colleagues
found themselves in possession of a document which, though pub
lished a dozen years ago by Principal Forbes, was never answered by
me, and which, in the belief that I am unable to answer it, is now re
produced for my confutation.
The document here referred to appeared soon after the publication
of the “ Glaciers of the Alps ” in 1860. It is entitled “ Reply to Pro
fessor Tyndall’s Remarks in his Work on the ‘ Glaciers of the Alps,
relating to Rendu’s ‘ Theorie des Glaciers.’ ” It was obviously written
under feelings of great irritation, and, longing for peace, the only
public notice I took of it at the time was to say that “ I have ab
stained from answering my distinguished censor, not from inability to
do so, but because I thought, and think, that within the limits of the
case it is better to submit to misconception than to make science the
arena of personal controversy.” My critics, however, do not seem to
understand that, for the sake of higher occupations, statements may
be allowed to pass unchallenged which, were their refutation worth
the necessary time, might be blown in shreds to the winds. Of this
precise character, I apprehend, are the accusations contained in the
republished essay of Principal Forbes, which his friends, professing to
know what he would have done were he alive, now challenge me to
meet. I accept the challenge, and throw upon them the responsibility
of my answer, . . ?
Having thus disposed of the two really serious allegations in the
reply, I am unwilling to follow it through its minor details, or to spend
time in refuting the various intimations of littleness on my part con
tained in it. The whole reply betrays a state of mental exacerbation
which I willingly left to the softening influence of time, and to which,
unless forced to it, I shall not recur.
The biographer who has revived this subject speaks of “ the numer
ous controversies into which he” (Principal Forbes) “was dragged.”
I hardly think the passive verb the appropriate one here. The fol
lowing momentary glimpse of Principal Forbes’s character points to a
truer theory of his controversies than that which would refer them to
a “ drag ” external to himself :
“ The hasty glance,” says this biographer, “ which I have been able
to bestow upon his less scientific letters has shown me that Forbes at
tached great importance to mere honorary distinctions, as well as the
opinion of others regarding the value of his discoveries. It has opened
up a view of a, to me, totally unexpected feature of his character.”
This is honest, but that the revelation should be “unexpected” is to
me surprising. The “ love of approbation ” here glanced at was in
Principal Forbes so strong that he could not bear the least criticism
1 We omit this portion of the discussion, for lack of space.—Editor.
vol. hi.—4S
�754
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
of his work without resenting it as personal. I well remember the
late excellent William Hopkins describing to me his astonishment
when, at the meeting of the British Association at York, a purely sci
entific remark of his on Forbes’s glacier theory was turned, with sud
den acerbity, into a personal matter. It is of a discussion arising out
of this remark that Principal Forbes writes thus : “We had a post
poned discussion on glaciers on Saturday morning, when Hopkins and
I did battle, and I am sorry to say I felt it exceedingly; it discomposed
my nerves and made me very uncomfortable indeed, until I was soothed
by the minster-service yesterday.” 1
But no amount of “ minster-service ” could cope with so strong a
natural bias, and many a bitter drop fell from the pen of Principal
Forbes into the lives of those whom he opposed subsequent to this
service at York. On hearing of the paper presented by Mr. Huxley
and myself to the Royal Society, he at once jumped to the conclusion
that the glaciers were to be made a “ regular party question.” “ All
I can do,” he says, “ is to sit still till the indictment is made out; and
I cordially wish my enemy to write a book and print it speedily, as
any thing is better than innuendo and suspense.”9 What he meant
by “ indictment ” I do not know; and, with regard to “ innuendo,”
neither of the writers of the paper would be likely to resort to it in
preference to plain speaking. The words of a witty philosopher at
the time here referred to are significant: “ Tyndall,” he said, “ is be
ginning with ice, but he will end in hot water.” He knew the circum
stances, and was able to predict the course of events with the cer
tainty of physical prevision.
The quality referred to by his biographer, and the tendency arising
from it to look at things in a personal light, caused his intellect to run
rapidly into hypotheses of moral action which had no counterpart in
real life. I read with simple amazement his explanation to his friend
Mr. Wills of the postponement of the publication of the “ Glaciers of
the Alps.” Some of his supporters in the Council of the Royal So
ciety had proposed him for the Copley Medal, but without success.
Had the rules of good taste been observed, he would have known
nothing of these discussions ; and, knowing them, he ought to have
ignored them. But he writes to his friend : “ I believe the effect of
the struggle, though unsuccessful in its immediate object, will be to
render Tyndall and Huxley and their friends more cautious in their
further proceedings. For instance, Tyndall’s book, again withdrawn
from Murray’s ‘ immediate ’ list, will probably be infinitely more care
fully worded relative to Rendu than he first intended.” 8
I should be exceedingly sorry to apply to Principal Forbes the
noun-substantive which Byron, in “ Childe Harold,” applied to Rous
seau, but the adjective “ self-torturing” is, I fear, only too applicable.
His quick imagination suggested chimerical causes for events, but
1 Life, p. 165.
9 Ibid., p. 369.
8 Ibid., p. 387.
�THE GLACIERS AND THEIR INVESTIGATORS. 755
never any thing more chimerical than that here assigned for the post
ponement of my book and its probable improvement. The “ struggle ”
in the council had no influence upon me, for this good reason, if for
no other, that I knew absolutely nothing of the character of the strug
gle. In Naiure, for May 22, 1873, Prof. Huxley has effectually dis
posed of this hypothesis ;1 and those who care to look at the opening
sentences of a paper of mine in Mr. Francis Galton’s “ Vacation Tour
ists for 1860,” will find there indicated another reason for the delay.
I may add, that the only part I ever took in relation to Principal
Forbes and a medal was to go on one occasion to the Royal Society
with the express intention of recommending that he should have one.
The features of character partly revealed by his biographer also
explain that tendency on the part of Principal Forbes to bring his
own labors into relief, to the manifest danger of toning down the
labors of others. This is illustrated by the foot-note appended to page
419. It is also illustrated by his references to Rendu, which, frequent
and flattering as they are, left no abiding impression upon the reader’s
mind. By some qualifying phrase the quotation in each case is de
prived of weight; while practical extinction for eighteen years was,
as already intimated, the fate of the “ generous ” and “ hospitable ”
Agassiz.
Toward the close of the “ Life ” his biographer, while admitting
that “ to say that Forbes thoroughly explained the behavior of gla
ciers would be an exaggeration,” claims for him that he must “ ever
stand forward in the history of the question as one of its most effective
and scientific promoters.” This meed of praise I should be the last
to deny him, for I believe it to be perfectly just. To secure it, how
ever, no bitterness of controversy, no depreciation of the services of
others, was necessary. One point here needs a moment’s clearing up.
The word.“ theory,” as regards glaciers, slides incessantly, and with
out warning, from one into the other of two different senses. It means
sometimes the purely physical theory of their formation, structure, and
motion, with which the name of Principal Forbes is so largely iden
tified. But it has a wider sense where it embraces the geological
action of glaciers on the surface of the globe. For a long time “ gla
cier theory ” had reference mainly to the geological phenomena ; it was
in this sense that the words were employed by Principal Forbes in his
article in the Edinburgh Review, published in 1842. It is in this
sense that they are now habitually applied by M. Agassiz, and in rela
tion to the theory thus defined it is no more than natural for his sup
porters to assign to M. Agassiz the highest place. I mention this to
abolish the mystification which threatens to surround a question which
this simple statement will render clear.
I trust I may be permitted to end here. Strong reasons may cause
1 The words “ drift of ray statement,” employed in Prof. Huxley’6 letter, ought to
be draft of my statement.
�756
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
me to revert to this question, but they must be very strong. I would
only warn my readers against the assumption that, if I do not reply
to further attack, I am unable to reply to it. The present rejoinder
furnishes sufficient proof of the doubtfulness of such a conclusion.
There is one darkly-expressed passage in the “Life of Principal
Forbes” which may cover something requiring notice. We are in
formed that he preserved and carefully docketed all letters written to
him, and that he retained copies of all his own. It is with regard to
this correspondence that his biographer writes thus : “ Many extracts,
and even entire letters, may be selected which are free from contro
versy, yet in general these would give but an imperfect notion of the
import of the whole. Others again cannot be published at present, be
cause the writers supply him with details of that mysterious wire
pulling which seems to be inseparable from every transaction involving
honors (scientific, in common with all others, it is humiliating to con
fess). The value of this unique series is, however, so great, and its
preservation so complete, that it is to be hoped it may be safely de
posited (under seal) in the care of some scientific society or institution,
to be opened only when all the actors have passed from the scene.”
These undignified allusions to “ wire-pulling ” are perfectly dark
to me; but if the letter addressed to Mr. Wills may be taken as a
specimen of the entire “series,” here referred to, then I agree with the
biographer in pronouncing it “ unique.” Would it not, however, be a
manlier course, and a fairer one to those who, writing without arrièrepensée, retain no copies of what they write, to let them know, while
they are here to take care of themselves, how their reputations are
affected by these letters of Principal Forbes ? For my own personal
part I am prepared to challenge the production of this correspondence
now.— Contemporary Review.
THE MOON.
JJR satellite holds a somewhat anomalous position in the liter.
ature of astronomy. The most beautiful object in the heavens,
the orb which telescopists study under the most favorable conditions,
and the planet—for a planet she is—which has afforded the most im
portant information respecting the economy of the universe, she never
theless has not received that attention from descriptive writers which
she really merits. The cause is, perhaps, not far to seek. The beauty
of the moon can scarcely be described in words, and cannot be pict1 “ The Moon : her Motions, Aspect, Scenery, and Physical Condition.” By Richard
A. Pïoctor, B. A., Cambridge (England), Honorary Secretary of the Royal Astronomical
Society of London ; author of the “ Sun,” “ Saturn,” “ Other Worlds,” etc. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Price, $4.50.
�THE HO ON.
757
ured by the most skilful artist; the information conveyed by the
telescope is too definite to permit of speculation as with the other
planets, yet not definite enough to solve the questions about which
the students of astronomical works take most interest; and the infor
mation which astronomers have obtained from the moon’s motions can
only be appreciated when those motions are thoroughly analyzed, and
it has not been found easy to simplify this analysis, that the general
reader might fairly be expected to take interest in the matter.
The work before us is intended to remove this long-recognized
want in the literature of astronomy. The time has come when this is
practicable. The splendid photographs of Rutherford, of New York,
and De La Rue, in England, supply the means of exhibiting truthfully
the real nature of our satellite’s surface. Mr. Proctor has been for
tunate in obtaining from Mr. Rutherford permission to use three of his
most effective photographs of the moon to illustrate the present work.
Recent researches, ¿gain, into the processes which are going on withiu
the solar system (so long mistakenly supposed to be unchanging in
condition), suggest considerations respecting the past condition of
the moon, at once bringing her within the range of speculation and
theory. Telescopic observations, also more scrutinizing than those
made of yore, and applied more persistently, begin to indicate the
possibility at least of recognizing the signs of change, and perhaps of
showing that our moon is not the dead and arid waste which astron
omers have hitherto supposed her to be. The heat measurements of
Lord Rosse also throw important light on the question of her present
condition. And then, as respects those points which constitute the
main scientific interest of our satellite, her motions under the varying
influences to which she is subjected, Mr. Proctor has devoted here his
full energies and the results of a long experience, to the endeavor to
make clear, even to those who are not mathematicians, the consider
ations which, weighed and analyzed in the wonderful brain of Newton,
supplied the means of demonstrating the theory of the universe.
On this important department of his subject, Mr. Proctor makes
the following remarks in his preface : “In Chapter II. I have given a
very full account of the peculiarities of the moon’s motions ; and, not
withstanding the acknowledged difficulty of the subject, I think my
account is sufficiently clear and simple to be understood by any one,
even though not acquainted with the elements of mathematics, who
will be at the pains to read it attentively through. I have sought to
make the subject clear to a far wider range of readers than the class
for which Sir G. Airy’s treatise on ‘ Gravitation ’ was written, while
yet not omitting any essential points in the argument. In order to
combine independence of treatment with exactness and completeness,
I first wrote the chapter without consulting any other work. Then I
went through it afresh, carefully comparing each section with the cor
responding part of Sir G. Airy’s ‘Gravitation,’ and Sir J. Herschel’s
�758
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
chapters on the lunar motions in his ‘ Outlines of Astronomy.’ I was
thus able to correct any errors in my own work, while in turn I de
tected a few (mentioned in the notes) in the works referred to. I have
adopted a much more complete and exact system of illustration in
dealing with the moon’s motions than either of my predecessors in
the explanation of this subject. I attach great importance to this feat
ure of my explanation, experience having satisfied me not only that
such matters should be very freely illustrated, but that the illustra
tions should aim at correctness of detail, and (wherevei- practicable) of
scale also. Some features, as the advance of the perigee and the retreat
of the nodes, have, I believe, never before been illustrated at all.”
In Chapter III. Mr. Proctor gives, among other matters, a full
explanation of the effects due to the strange balancing motion called
the lunar librations. He says: “ I have been surprised to find how
imperfectly this interesting and important subject has been dealt with
hitherto. In fact, I have sought in vain for any discussion of the
subject with which to compare my own results. I have, however, in
various ways sufficiently tested these results.”
But probably, to the greater number of readers, the main interest
of the book will be found in the chapters relating to the condition of
the moon’s surface—the mountains, craters, hills, valleys, which diver
sify its strange varieties of brightness, color, and tone, and the changes
of appearance which are noted as the illumination varies, and as the
lunar librations change the position of different regions. It is, bythe-way, to be noted that the moon, which we regard as of silvery
whiteness, is in reality more nearly black than white, a fact which will
recall to many of our readers a remark of Prof. Tyndall’s in the first
lecture of the course recently delivered here.
“ The moon appears to us,” he said, “ as if
‘ Clothed in white samite, mystic, beautiful,’1
but, were she covered with the blackest velvet, she would still hang in
the heavens as a white orb, shining upon the world substantially as
she does now.”
Mr. Proctor discusses also the phenomena presented to lunarians,
if such there be. The extreme rarity of the lunar atmosphere ren
ders the idea of existence on the moon rather strange to our concep
tions, but, as Sir J. Herschel has said in a similar case, “ we should do
wrong to judge of the fitness or unfitness of” the condition of luna
rians “ from what we see around us, when perhaps the very combina
tions which convey to our minds only images of horror may be, in
reality, theatres of the most striking and glorious displays of benefi
cent contrivance.” Speaking of the appearances presented by lunar
landscapes, two of which we borrow from his work, Mr. Proctor remarks
1 We quote Tyndall.
Tennyson wrote :
“ Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.”
�THE MO OX.
739
that “ we know far too little respecting the real details of lunar scenery
to form any satisfactory opinion on the subject. If a landscape-painter
were invited to draw a picture presenting his conceptions of the
scenery of a region which he had only viewed from a distance of a hun
dred miles, he would be under no greater difficulties than the astrono
mer who undertakes to draw a lunar landscape, as it would actually
appear to any one placed on the surface of the moon. We know cer
tain facts—we know that there are striking forms of irregularity, that
the shadows must be much darker as well during the lunar day as
during an earth-lit lunar light, than on our own earth in sunlight or
moonlight, and we know that, whatever features of our own land
scapes are certainly due to the action of water in river, rain, or flood,
to the action of wind and weather, or to the growth of forms of vege
tation with which we are familiar, ought assuredly not to be shown in
any lunar landscape. But a multitude of details absolutely necessary
for the due presentation of lunar scenery are absolutely unknown to
us. Nor is it so easy as many imagine to draw a landscape which
shall be correct even as respects the circumstances known to us. For
instance, though I have seen many pictures called lunar landscapes, I
have never seen one in which there have not been features manifestly
due to weathering and to the action of running water. The shadows,
again, are never shown as they would be actually seen if regions of the
indicated configuration were illuminated by a sun, but not by a sky
of light. Again, aerial perspective is never totally abandoned, as it
ought to be in any delineation of lunar scenery. I do not profess to
have done better myself in the accompanying lunar landscapes. I
have, in fact, cared rather to indicate the celestial than the lunarian
features shown in these drawings. Still, I have selected a class of
lunar objects which may be regarded as, on the whole, more charac
teristic than the mountain-scenery usually exhibited. And, by pictu
ring the greater part of the landscape as at a considerable distance, I
have been freer to reproduce what the telescope actually reveals. In
looking at one of these views, the observer must suppose himself sta
tioned at the summit of some very lofty peak, and that the view shows
only a very small portion of what would really be seen under such cir
cumstances in any particular direction. The portion of the sky shown
in either picture extends only a few degrees from the horizon, as is
manifest from the dimensions of the earth’s disk; and thus it is shown
that only a few degrees of the horizon are included in the landscape.
Our author then pictures the aspect of the lunar heavens by night
and by day. We have space but for a few passages from this descrip
tion : • “ To an observer stationed upon a summit of the lunar Apen
nines on the evening of November 1, 1872, a scene was presented un
like any known to the inhabitants of earth. It was near the middle
of the long lunar night. On a sky of inky blackness stars innu
merable were spread, among which the orbs forming our constella-
�760
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
tions could be recognized by their superior lustre, but yet were almost
lost amid myriads of stars unseen by the inhabitants of earth.
Nearly overhead shone the Pleiades, closely girt round by hundreds
of lesser lights. From them toward Aldebaran and the clustering
Hyades, and onward to the belted Orion, streams and convolutions of
stars, interwoven as in fantastic garlands, marked the presence of that
mysterious branch-like extension of the Milky-Way which the ob
server on earth can, with unaided vision, trace no farther than the
winged foot of Perseus. High overhead, and toward the north, the
Milky-Way shone resplendent, like a vast inclined arch, full ‘ thick in
laid with patines of bright gold.’ Instead of that faint, cloud-like
zone known to terrestrial astronomers, the galaxy presented itself as
an infinitely complicated star-region—
‘ With isles of light and silvery streams,
And gloomy griefs of mystic shade.’
“ On all sides, this mighty star-belt spread its outlying bands of
stars, far away on the one hand toward Lyra and Bobtes, where on
earth we see no traces of milky lustre, and on the other toward the
Twins and the clustering glories of Cancer—the ‘ dark constellation ’
of the ancients, but full of telescopic splendors. Most marvellous,
too, appeared the great dark gap which lies between the Milky-Way
and Taurus ; here, in the very heart of the richest region of the heavens—with Orion and the Hyades and Pleiades blazing on one side, and
on the other the splendid stream laving the feet of the Twins—there
lay a deep, black gulf which seemed like an opening through our star
system into starless depths beyond.
Yet, though the sky was thus aglow with starlight, though stars
far fainter than the least we see on the clearest and darkest night were
shining in countless myriads, an orb was above the horizon whose
light would pale the lustre of our brightest stars. This orb occupied
a space on the heavens more than twelve times larger than is occupied
by the full moon as we see her. Its light, unlike the moon’s, was
tinted with beautiful and well-marked colors. . . .
“ The globe which thus adorned the lunar sky, and illuminated the
lunar lands with a light far exceeding that of the full moon, was our
earth. The scene was not unlike that shown to Satan when Uriel—
* One of the seven
Who in God’s presence, nearest to the throne,
Stand ready at command ”—
pointing earthward from his station amid the splendor of the sun,
said to the arch-fiend:
‘ Look downward on that globe whose hither side
AX ith light from hence, though but reflected, shines:
That place is earth, the seat of man ; that light
His day, which else, as th’ other hemisphere,
Night would invade.’
�THE MOON.
761
“ In all other respects the scene presented to the spectator on the
moon was similar; but, as seen from the lunar Apennines, the glorious
orb of earth shone high in the heavens; and the sun, source of the
light then bathing her oceans and continents, lay far down below the
level of the lunar horizon. . . .
“ Infinitely more wonderful, however, and transcending in sublimity
all that the heavens display to the contemplation of the inhabitants
of earth, was the scene presented when the sun himself had risen. I
shall venture here to borrow some passages from an essay entitled ‘ A
Voyage to the Sun,’ in which a friend of mine has described the aspect
of the sun as seen from a station outside that atmosphere of ours
which veils the chief glories of the luminary of day: ‘ The sun’s
orb was more brilliantly white than when seen through the air, but
close scrutiny revealed a diminution of brilliancy toward the edge of
the disk, which, when fully recognized, presented him at once as the
globe he really is. On this globe could be distinguished the spots
and the bright streaks called faculse. This globe was surrounded with
the most amazingly complex halo of glory. Close around the bright
whiteness of the disk, and shining far more beautiful by contrast with
that whiteness than as seen against the black disk of the moon in
total eclipses, stood the colored region called the chromatosphere, not
red, as it appears during eclipses, but gleaming with a mixed lustre
of pink and green, through which, from time to time, passed the most
startlingly brilliant coruscations of orange and golden yellow light.
Above this delicate circle of color towered tall prominences and mul
titudes of smaller ones. These, like the chromatosphere, were not red,
but beautifully variegated. . . .’
“Much more might be said on this inviting subject, only that the
requirements of space forbid, obliging me to remember that the
moon and not the sun is the subject of this treatise. The reader,
therefore, must picture to himself the advance of the sun with his
splendid and complicated surroundings toward the earth, suspended
almost unchangingly in the heavens, but assuming gradually the cres
cent form as the sun drew slowly near, lie must imagine also how,
in the mean time, the star-sphere was slowly moving westward, the
constellations of the ecliptic in orderly succession passing behind the
earth at a rate slightly exceeding that of the 6un’s approach, so that
he, like the earth, only more slowly, was moving eastward, so far as
the star-sphere was concerned, even while the moon’s slow diurnal ro
tation was carrying him westward toward the earth.”
In the last chapter the physical condition of the moon’s surface is
treated, and the processes by which she probably reached her present
condition are discussed at considerable length.
�THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,
EDITOR’S TABLE.
ing many excellent suggestions, was not
conformed to the better type of such
HE twenty-second meeting of the productions. It is the custom of the
American Association for the Ad eminent scientific men who are honored
vancement of Science, which com with the office but once in their lives
menced at Portland, Me., August 20th, to devote the occasion, either to a gen
was fairly attended by the members, eral review of recent scientific work,
and presented very good results in the or to some special subject with which
way of scientific work. In estimating they are most familiar, and upon which
its contributions, we must not over they can speak with the force of au
look the fact that, while the numbers thority. Dr. Smith has been favorably
of those in this country who are at known in the world of science as a
liberty to pursue original investigations chemist who has made valuable con
untrammelled, is not large, on the other tributions in its inorganic department.
hand we have two national associations, The great activity in chemical inquiries
through which the moderate amount of at the present time, and the impor
original research that takes place is pub tant transition through which chemical
lished to the world. While the Ameri theory is now passing, would certainly
can Association was the only organiza have afforded the president a most per
tion of national scope for the publication tinent and instructive theme, but he
of new scientific results, its papers were preferred to employ the occasion in
creditable both in number and quality, considering certain aspects of science
and it compared favorably with its pro that are now prominent in public atten
totype, the British Association for the tion, and upon which the scientific
Advancement of Science. But, when, world is in much disagreement. The
a few years ago, a considerable number leading feature of the address was an
of its ablest members joined in the or attack on the Darwinians, and this
ganization of the National Academy portion of it we publish; and, as the
of Sciences, having substantially the question is thus reopened officially, it
same object in view as the American becomes a proper subject of comment.
The predecessor of President Smith,
Association, but exclusive in its mem
bership, and under government patron Dr. Asa Gray, of Harvard College, had
age, the necessary effect was greatly to followed the better usage of presid
weaken the older organization. The ing officers in his address at Dubuque
National Academy meets twice a year, last year, and discussed some of the
and draws closely upon the original larger problems of botany in the light
work of its associates. If, therefore, of the derivation theory. The most
the numbers in attendance upon the eminent of American botanists, an old
Association and the grade of scientific and untiring student of the subject, a
contributions might seem to indicate a man of philosophic grasp, and with a
decline in American science, the cir candor and sincerity of conviction that
cumstances here referred to will suffi commanded the highest respect, after
long and thorough study of the ques
ciently qualify the conclusion.
tion, Prof. Gray did not hesitate to
The address of the retiring presi give the weight of his authority to that
dent, J. Lawrence Smith, while contain view of the origin and diversities of
AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION—
PRESIDENT SMITH'S ADDRESS.
�EDITOR'S TADLE.
living forms of which Mr. Darwin is
now the leading representative. And
although in the field of biology large
numbers of its most eminent students,
who are of all men most competent to
decide upon it, have accepted that doc
trine as representing the truth of Na
ture more perfectly than any other, and
as of immense value in their researches
into the laws of life, yet Dr. Smith, as
our readers will see, denounces it as a
groundless hypothesis due to a riotous
imagination, and, in the language of
Agassiz, a “mere mire of assertions.”
His declarations have called forth the
applause of the press—always so can
did, and intelligent, and independent,
on such matters—who seize the occa
sion to preach new sermons on the “ va
garies of science,” and declare that they
“take sides with the angels against the
monkeys,” and are “ with the Creator
against Darwin.”
The course of the president was
not commended even by his own
party. Dr. Newberry, an eminent
student of biology and geology, is re
ported as having spoken in the follow
ing decided way : “ Prof. Newberry,
after a handsome allusion to the re
tiring president, Prof. J. Lawrence
Smith, protested against the opposition
to the development theory as ex
pounded in that gentleman's address.
Prof. Newberry said he was not him
self a Darwinian, but he recognized
the value of the evolution theory in
science. You cannot measure its value
as you can the work of an astronomer,
measured by definite ratios of space
and time; but he considered the hy
pothesis one of the most important con
tributions ever made to a knowledge
of Nature. Most men and women are
partisans, and some are willing to sup
pose that the hypothesis is sufficient to
account for all the phenomena of the
animal kingdom, while, on the other
hand, there are those who see in it
nothing but failure and deficiency. Let
us assume a judicial position, and al
763
low the tests of time and truth to settle
the questions involved. Go, however,
in whatever direction the facts may lead,
and throw prejudice to the winds. Rec
ollect that all truth is consistent with
itself.”
Dr. Smith can hardly be said to
have argued the question of Darwinism.
He gave us his own opinion of it, and
quoted, to sustain it, two distinguished
authorities in natural history. But he
gave the influence of his name and po
sition to the charge that it transcends
the legitimate limits of inductive in
quiry, and is only a wild and absurd
speculation. While the technical and
difficult questions of natural history by
which the truth or falsity of the doc
trine must be determined are beyond
the reach of unscientific readers, and
belong to the biologists to decide, the
question here raised as to whether
the investigation, as conducted, is le
gitimately scientific or not, is one of
which all intelligent persons ought to
be capable of forming a judgment.
We have repeatedly considered thi3
point in the pages of The Populae Sci
ence Monthly, and have endeavored
to show that the present attitude of
the doctrine of evolution is precisely
the attitude which all the great es
tablished theories and laws of science
had to take at their first promulgation.
It is familiar to all who know any thing
of the progress of science, that astrono
my and geology, in their early stages,
passed through precisely the same or
deal that biology is passing through
now; their leading doctrines were rep
robated as false science, and the wild
dreams of distempered imaginations.
Let us now take another case, in the
department of pure physics, and see
how scientific history repeats itself:
The undulatory theory of light is
now a firmly established principle in
physics. Dr. Smith says that “the
failure to explain one single well-ob
served fact is sufficient to cast doubt
upon, or subvert, any pure hypothesis,”
�764
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
and, he adds, in reference to the undulatory theory, that, “ op to the present
time, it serves in all cases.” In order
that this theory, now so perfect, should
be adopted, it had, of course, to be first
propounded. The conception of an
ethereal medium to explain the phe
nomena of light was suggested by Huyghens and Euler, but they did not ex
perimentally demonstrate it, and their
authority was overborne by that of
Newton,who maintained the emission or
corpuscular theory. The true founder
of the undulatory hypothesis of light
was Dr. Thomas Young, Professor of
Natural Philosophy in the Royal Insti
tution of Great Britain, and whom
Prof. Tyndall regards as the greatest
physicist who has appeared since New
ton. Dr. Young is thus estimated by
the German Helmholtz: “ His was one
of the most profound minds that the
world has ever seen; but he had the
misfortune to be in advance of his age.
He excited the wonder of his contem
poraries, who, however, were unable
to follow him to the heights at which
his daring intellect was accustomed to
soar. His most important ideas lay,
therefore, buried and forgotten in the
folios of the Royal Society, until a new
generation gradually and painfully
made the same discoveries, and proved
the exactness of his assertions, and the
truth of his demonstrations.”
Now, in this case, there was no
monkey in the question, and no capital
of public prejudice that could be made
available in the discussion, to repress
obnoxious opinions. The hypothesis
was certainly innocent enough, and its
truth or falsehood was a matter of sim
ple determination by experiment. Dr.
Young made the experiments which es
tablished it—the Royal Society recog
nized the value of the experiments,
and, in 1801, assigned to their author
the distinguished honor of delivering
the Bakerian lecture, in which his ex
periments were described, and their con
clusions demonstrated. Yet, with the
Royal Society to back him, and with
his views capable of proof before all
men, Dr. Young was crushed, and that
by outside influences appealing to the
public, on the ground that his hypothe
sis was spurious science—mere wild ab
surdity of the imagination.
We ask attention to the similarity of
the present ground of attack upon Dar
win, and the ground of attack upon Dr.
Young three-quarters of a century ago.
Dr. Smith prefaces his strictures upon
Darwinism with the following declara
tion : “It is a very common attempt
nowadays for scientists to transcend the
limits of their legitimate studies, and,
in doing this, they run into speculations
apparently the most unphilosophical,
wild, and absurd; quitting the true
basis of inductive philosophy, and
building up the most curious theories
on little else than assertion.”
Henry Brougham, afterward LordChancellor of England, writing in the
second number of the Edinburgh Re
view concerning Young’s Bakerian lect
ure, said: “We have of late observed
in the physical world a most unac
countable predilection for vague hy
potheses daily gaining ground ; and we
are mortified to see that the Royal So
ciety, forgetful of those improvements
in science to which it owes its origin,
and neglecting the precepts of its most
illustrious members, is now, by the pub
lication of such papers, giving the
countenance of its highest authority to
dangerous relaxations in the principles
of physical logic. We wish to raise
our feeble voice against innovations
that can have no other effect than to
check the progress of science, and re
new all those wild phantoms of the
imagination which Bacon and Newton
put to flight from her temple. . . .
Has the Royal Society degraded its
publications into bulletins of new and
fashionable theories for the ladies of
the Royal Institution ? Prohpudor ! 1
Let the professor continue to amuse his
audience with an endless variety of
For shame!
�EDITOR'S TABLE.
such harmless trifles, but, in the name
of science, let them not find admittance
into that venerable repository which
contains the works of Newton and
Boyle. . . . The making of an hy
pothesis is not the discovery of a truth.
It is a mere sporting with the subject ;
it is a sham-fight which may amuse in
the moment of idleness and relaxation,
but will neither gain victories over pre
judice and error, nor extend the em
pire of science. A mere theory is in
truth destitute of merit of every kind,
except that of a warm and misguided
imagination.” Dr. Young’s theory
“ teaches no truth, reconciles no con
tradictions, arranges no anomalous
facts, suggests no new experiments,
and leads to no new inquiries. It has
not even the pitiful merit of affording
an agreeable play to the fancy. It is
infinitely more useless, and less ingen
ious, than the Indian theory of the
elephant and tortoise. It may be
ranked in the same class with that
stupid invention of metaphysical the
ology. ... We cannot conclude our
review of these articles without en
treating for a moment the attention
of that illustrious body which has ad
mitted of late years so many paltry
and unsubstantial papers into its trans
actions. ... We implore the coun
cil, if they will deign to cast their
eyes upon our humble page, to prevent
a degradation of the institution which
has so long held the first rank among
scientific bodies.”
For the second time Dr. Young was
selected by the Royal Society to give
the Bakerian lecture, and he again
chose for its subject “Experiments and
Calculations relative to Physical Op
tics,” and again the Edinburgh Review
came down upon him as follows : “ The
paper which stands first is another Ba
kerian lecture, containing more fan
cies, more blunders, more unfounded
hypotheses, more gratuitous fictions,
all upon the same field on which New
ton trode, and all from the fertile yet
7^5
fruitless brain of the same eternal Dr.
Young.” The reviewer thus winds up
the controversy: “We now dismiss, for
the present, the feeble lucubrations of
this author, in which we have searched
without success for some traces of
learning, acuteness, and ingenuity, that
might compensate his evident defi
ciency in the powers of solid thinking,
calm and patient investigation, and
successful development of the laws of
Nature, by steady and modest observa
tion of her operations. We came to
the examination with no other preju
dice than the very allowable prepos
session against vague hypothesis, by
which all true lovers of science have
for above a century and a half been
swayed. We pursued it, both on the
present and on a former occasion, with
out any feelings except those of regret
at the abuse of that time and oppor
tunity which no greater share of tal
ents than Dr. Young’s are sufficient to
render fruitful by mere diligence and
moderation. From us, however, he
cannot claim any portion of respect,
until he shall alter his mode of pro
ceeding, or change the subject of his
lucubrations; and we feel ourselves
more particularly called upon to ex
press our disapprobation, because, as
distinction has been unwarily bestowed
on his labors by the most illustrious
of scientific bodies, it is the more ne
cessary that a free protest should be
recorded before the more humble tri
bunals of literature.”
The reader will perceive that this
strain is not unfamiliar. Young was
denounced as Darwin is now de
nounced, professedly in the interest
of science; but the pretext was as
false then as it is now. In the former
case the animus of the assault was
mere personal spite: Brougham’s in
ordinate vanity having been wounded
by some very moderate criticisms of
Dr. Young upon his mathematical
works. But a man who did not un
derstand the subject, appealing to a
�766
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
tribunal which knew nothing about it,
against wild speculations degrading to
science, was able to depreciate and
suppress for a quarter of a century one
of the most solid and perfect theories
of natural phenomena that modern re
search has produced. And, strange as
it may seem, the work was effectually
done; for, although Young made a
masterly reply, but a single copy was
sold, and, as Tyndall remarks, “for
twenty years this man of genius was
quenched—hidden from the apprecia
tive intellect of his countrymen —
deemed, in fact, a dreamer through
the vigorous sarcasm of a writer who
had then possession of the public ear.”
Happily, the time is past when the
investigators of Nature can be thus
crushed out; but still the old tactics
are imitated, and not without evil
effect for the time. The men of sci
ence, to whom the question belongs,
are not left to pursue it in peace. The
press and the pulpit, with such scientific
help as it is not difficult to get, stir up
such a clamor of popular opprobrium
that biological students who hold to
evolution as the fact and law of Na
ture, and guide their researches by
its light, do not choose to have it pub
licly known that they are adherents
of the doctrine. We are behind Eng
land in fair and tolerant treatment
of the Darwinian question, but may
expect the same improvement in this
respect that Huxley tells us has taken
place with the English. In a recent
article he remarks: “The gradual lapse
of time has now separated us by more
than a decade from the date of the pub
lication of the ‘ Origin of Species; ’ and
whatever may be thought or said about
Mr. Darwin’s doctrines, or the manner
in which he has propounded them, this
much is certain, that, in a dozen years,
the ‘ Origin of Species’ has worked as
complete a revolution in biological sci
ence as the ‘ Principia ’ did in astrono
my—and it has done so, because, in
the words of Helmholtz, it contains
‘ an essentially new creative thought.’
And, as time has slipped by, a happy
change has come over Mr. Darwin’s
critics. The mixture of ignorance and
insolence which, at first, characterized
a large proportion of the attacks with
which he was assailed, is no longer the
sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criti
cism. Instead of abusive nonsense,
which merely discredited its writers,
we read essays, which are, at worst,
more or less intelligent and apprecia
tive ; while, sometimes, like that which
appeared in the North British Review
for 1867, they have a real and perma
nent value.”
THE EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION AT
ELIIIRA.
The national educational associa
tion recently held at Elmira, N. Y.,
was of unusual interest, and evinced a
marked progress in the public method
of dealing with educational subjects.
We have for some years refrained from
attendance upon teachers’ conventions,
having been wearied ■with the narrow
technical range and pedantic pettiness
of the discussions. But the recent
meeting showed that educators are be
ginning to outgrow their old profes
sional limitations, and to consider the
various questions that come before them
in the light of broad principles, and in
the spirit of radical and rational im
provement. Many men of ability, presi
dents of leading colleges, eminent pro
fessors, principals of high-schools, and
State and city superintendents, were
present, contributing valuable papers,
and giving strength and character to
the debates which followed them.
President McCosh delivered an able
address on the higher education, and
maintained that the national Govern
ment should not give the balance of its
lands to the agricultural colleges, nor
yet to other collegiate institutions, but
should appropriate them for the benefit
of high-schools and academies through
�EDITOR'S TABLE.
767
out the country. Dr. McCosh thus old scholastic culture which took its
stated his main position :
shape at a period when popular educa
“ I don’t propose that any portion of this tion was not thought of, and culture
$90,000,000 should be given to colleges. We was confined to the professional classes.
cannot aid all, and to select a few would be These institutions are not holding their
injurious. In regard to elementary educa own at the present time. Their stu
tion, the Northern, the Middle, and the dents are falling off, for the reason that
Western States, are able and willing to do there is a decline in the academies by
their duty. I venture to propose that in
these the unappropriated lands be devoted which the colleges are fed; that is, as
to the encouragement of secondary schools. Dr. McCosh says, “ the grand difficulty
Let each State obtain its share, and the which colleges have to contend against
money handed over to it under certain rigid arises from there being so few schools
rules and restrictions to prevent the abuse fitted to prepare young men for them.”
of the public money. In particular, to se
But the cause of the decline of the
cure that upper schools be endowed only
where needed, I suggest that money be allo academies is the rivalry of the newlycated only when a district, or, it may be, a instituted high-schools, and these are
combination of two or more districts, has the outgrowth and now an essential
raised a certain portion, say one-half, of the part of the common - school system.
necessary funds. By this means the money
The modern idea of universal educa
may be made to stimulate the erection
of high-schools all over America. These tion has become organized in such a
schools would aid colleges far more power way as to antagonize the old college
fully than a direct grant to them, as, in fact, system. The common schools are not
the grand difficulty which colleges have to constructed upon the scholastic pattern;
contend against ariseB from there being so they aim to give to all a useful practical
few schools fitted to prepare young men for
education, that shall be available in
them with their rising standard of excellence.
the common work of life. It was
But I plead for these schools, not merely as
a means of feeding colleges, but as compe found that they did not go far enough
tent to give a high education in varied in this direction for the wants of many,
branches, literary and scientific, to a far and so high-schools were organized in
greater number who do not go on to any thing which the pupils of the common schools
higher. These schools, like the elementary
schools, should be open to all children, of might graduate into the working world
the poor as well as the rich. They should with a better preparation than the
be set up, like the German gymnasium, in lower schools can furnish. It was stated
convenient localities, so that all the popula in the discussion that but one in fif
tion may have access to them. They should teen hundred of the population passes
embrace every useful branch suited to young through college, while it is left for
men and women under sixteen and eighteen
years of age—English composition, English the common and high schools to edu
language, history, classics, modern language, cate the rest of the people. As the
and elementary science. The best scholars old academies disappear, therefore,
in our primary schools would be drafted up the colleges seek to get control of
to these higher schools, and thus the young the high-schools, to be used as feeders
talent of the country would be turned to
for themselves; and this, of course, ne
good account, while the teachers in the com
mon schools would be encouraged by seeing cessitates a high-school curriculum fit
ted to prepare young men for college.
their best pupils advance.” «
This is the point at which the two sys
The discussion that followed this tems are unconformable, and is to be
speech brought out difficulties which the point of conflict in the future.
the doctor had not considered, and, in What shall be the course of study in
fact, opened the way to the most vital the high-schools? Shall it be a sequel
problem of American education. The to the common schools, or a prelude to
colleges of the country represent the the colleges, for these are different
�768
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
things? Already in some of them we
have two distinct systems of education.
A principal of one of these institutions
in the West said to the writer: “We
are working under the disadvantages
of a double curriculum. We have a
scheme of studies, scientific and practi
cal, drawn with reference to the larger
number of our pupils who come from
the common schools, and who close their
studies with us. We take them through
an English course, with mathematics,
book-keeping, political economy, phys
ics, chemistry, botany, and physiology.
And we have also a classical course for
a small number of students who are
preparing for college. But the exac
tions of Latin and Greek are so great
upon these that they get hardly a smat
tering of the subjects pursued by the
other students.” The tactics of Dr.
McCosh were admirable. To keep the
proceeds of the public lands from going
to the agricultural colleges and scien
tific institutions, he is willing to resign
all claim upon them for the benefit of
the classical colleges ; at the same time,
if the money is expended for the ex
tension of high-schools, as the doctor
says, “ these schools would aid colleges
far more powerfully than a direct grant
to them.” Yet, as long as the two sys
tems of education remain so diverse that
the regular high-school graduation is
not accepted as preparation for college,
there will be conflict for the control of
these establishments. Only as the col
lege curriculum becomes more broad,
modern, and scientific, and the classical
studies are restricted to the special
classes who have need of them, can
American education become harmon
ized in its elements and unified in its
system.
Tne report of President Eliot, of
Harvard, on a national university, was
a strong document. We publish the
last portion of it, which deals with the
main question, and ask attention to the
high grounds on which he bases his de
mand for the non-interference of gov
ernment with the system of higher edu
cation. His paper started a warm
debate on the broad and important
question of the proper relations of gov
ernment to the work of instruction,
and, of course, his views met with
vigorous opposition. It was maintained
that there is no break in the logic by
which government action is prescribed;
and that, admitting the propriety of
state action in primary education, there
is no halting-place until the govern
ment takes charge of the entire school
machinery of the country. And such
is the overshadowing influence of poli
tics, and so profound the superstition
regarding government omnipotence,
that this view found its urgent advo
cates, who seem blind to the conse
quences that are certain to follow when
the people shirk the responsibilities of
attending directly to the education of
the young, and shoulder it off upon a
mass of politicians holding the offices
of government. The friends of state
education certainly pressed their case
to its extreme conclusions. Govern
ment contributes money to support
common schools, and appoints officers
to regulate them; therefore let it
appropriate $20,000,000 to establish
a national university at Washington,
with $1,000,000 a year to be divided
among the congressional appointees,
who will hold the professorships. Dr.
McCosh suggested that recent congres
sional experiences were hardly calcu
lated to inspire confidence in the action
of that body, and asked what guarantee
we should have against a university
ring and systematic educational job
bing ; and it was objected by others
that the class of men who congregate
in the capital, and the whole spirit of
the place, would make it more unfit
than any other in the country for such
an institution. Prof. Eichards, of
Washington, came to the rescue of the
reputation of his town, and asked, em
�EDITOR'S TABLE.
phatically, “Where do its knaves and
rascals come from? We do not make
them; you send them to us from all
parts of the nation.” But the argu
ment was not helped by the retort, for
it is quite immaterial whether Wash
ington breeds its scoundrels or imports
them. If our republican system is one
that sifts out its most venal and un
scrupulous intriguers and sharpers, and
gathers them into one place, it is ques
tionable whether that place had better
not be avoided as the seat of a great
model university—especially if said in
triguers and sharpers are to have the
management of it.
769
for 1872-’73, and presents the statistics
which bear upon the subject. The
“ elections ” of subjects of study or
choices of the students are shown in a
succession of tables, the last of which
divides the college studies into “dis
ciplinary” and “practical,” and ex
hibits the results as follows:
DISCIPLINARY STUDIES.
Ancient languages
. 100
History.....................................
8T
Mathematics
....
. 21
Philosophy..............................
15
Political science ....
. 12
185
PRACTICAL STUDIES.
Modern languages
Physics and chemistry
Natural history ....
.
.
80
87
28
145
ELECTIVE STUDIES AT HARVARD.
In an instructive article upon this
subject, the Nation says : “ There was
a vague but very general impression,
a few years ago, that, if the elective
system were introduced into the older
American colleges, the practical sci
ences, as they are called, especially
physics, chemistry, and natural his
tory, would crowd out the study of
the ancient languages. There was also
a feeling that the obvious utility of the
modern languages, and particularly of
French and of German, would help to
throw the “ dead languages ” into the
background. A great many enthusiasts
fancied that the good time a-coming
was at hand, when books would be
thrown aside, and all intellectual ac
tivity would be narrowed down to the
study of physical Nature; and so much
noise has been made about the natural
sciences that a great many people un
doubtedly think this is the principal if
not the only subject taught where an
elective system prevails.”
To submit this matter to a test, and
“ ascertain what it is that the mass of
students feel the need of most and flock
to most when the choice is left entirely
to themselves,” the Nation overhauls
the university catalogue of Harvard
vol. hi.—49
“By this arrangement the disci
plinary studies preponderate over the
practical in the ratio of 185:145 or
100: 78.”
Upon this the Nation proceeds to
remark: “ The figures show conclusive
ly that, in spite of the crusade which
has been carried on against the ancient
languages, they are still full of vitality,
still a power, still a popular study, and,
in fact, the greatest interest in the
little college world. As our inquiry is
purely numerical and statistical, we do
not ask why the students make the
selections they do. Doubtless, the
reasons are not very obvious; still, one
fact is plain, that they are not guided
wholly by utilitarian views.”
Now, if the Nation had looked a
little into the “ why ” of this matter,
we are sure it would have found the
reasons for this state of things obvious
enough, and, although it might have
somewhat qualified its conclusion, it
would have made the statement more
valuable. The number of votes cast
at an election is usually an expression
of public opinion, but, if in any case
there happen to have been military
interference and dictation, the numeri
cal report of ballots cast, if taken alone,
would be misleading. We are told that
�770
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
the working of the option system at Har
vard affords an indication of the prefer
ences and tendencies of the students in
regard to the studies they incline to pur
sue ; but is not entrance to Harvard a
part of its policy, and what about the
option there? Is there not at the door
of the university a big winnowingmachine which delivers the “ discipli
nary ” studies as acceptable wheat, and
blows the “ utilitarian ” studies to the
winds as the veriest chaff? All the
preparation exacted of students for
entrance to college is in the “ discipli
nary ” studies, and mainly in the Latin
and Greek languages. Besides being
incessantly told in the preparatory
schools that the very poles of the intel
lectual world are two dead languages,
and that a classical education is the
only real broad liberal education, they
are kept for years drilling at Latin
and Greek as the only condition upon
which they can get to college at all.
The standard is here kept as high as it
was twenty years ago, and President
Eliot stated at the late Elmira conven
tion that, in the estimation of the pre
paratory teachers in New England, Har
vard requires a year more study of
Latin and Greek than the other col
leges. The student thus enters college
warped and biassed by his preparation
for it. Of the sciences he knows noth
ing, and he is prejudiced against them
as mere utilitarian studies to be con
trasted on all occasions with liberal
mental pursuits. When these facts are
remembered, it is certainly no matter
of surprise that Latin and Greek lead
in the collegiate elections of study; it
is rather surprising that they lead by
so small a number. It is very far from
being a fair or open choice when a
pupil has to repudiate his past acquisi
tions, and stem the tide of opinion
which has forced them upon him, to
take up studies under the grave dis
advantage of no early preparation. We
think the lesson of the Harvard statis
tics is not altogether exhilarating to
the partisans of the classics. When
Harvard will accept a scientific prep
aration for college as of equal value
with the classical, we shall be better
prepared to estimate the strength of
the tendencies in the two directions.
LIFE OF PRINCIPAL FORBES.
biographer of Sir Walter Scott
alludes to a “ first love ” which ended
unfortunately for the great romancer.
It is related that, rain happening to fall
one Sunday after church-time, Scott
offered his umbrella to a young lady,
and, the tender having been accepted,
he escorted her to her home. The ac
quaintance was continued, and ripened
into a strong attachment on the part
of Scott; but he was doomed to
disappointment, and Lockhart states
that it produced a profound effect upon
his character. “Keble, in a beautiful
essay on Scott, more than hints a .be
lief that it was this imaginary regret
haunting Scott all his life long which
became the true well-spring of his in
spiration in all his minstrelsy and ro
mance.” Be that as it may, the lady,
whose name was Williamina Belches,
instead of marrying Scott, chose his
friend, Sir William Forbes. They had
a family, of which the youngest, James
David, was born in 1809. When the
son was nineteen years old his father
died, and, under the immediate influ
ence of the bereavement, he drew up
a set of brief resolutions for the regu
lation of his life, one of which was “ to
curb pride and over-anxiety in the
pursuit of worldly objects, especially
fame.” Young Forbes became a fa
mous man. He took to science, and mas
tered it rapidly under the guidance of
his intimate friend Sir David Brewster,
choosing physics as his department.
At the death of Sir John Leslie, Pro
fessor of Natural Philosophy in the
University of Edinburgh, he offered
himself as a candidate for the chair, in
The
�EDITOR'S TABLE.
opposition to his old friend Brewster
and others, and was elected to the po
sition at the age of twenty-four. He
was an original investigator in a wide
field of physics, contributed to the ex
tension of knowledge in many direc
tions, and was an able writer. His
health failing, he resigned his chair in
the Edinburgh University, and accept
ed the principalship of St. Andrew’s,
and is therefore known as Principal
Forbes. He died the last day of 1868,
and an elaborate biography, by three
of his Scotch friends, has just been pub
lished by Macmillan, which is an ex
tremely interesting book.
Among other subjects of his inves
tigation were the glaciers, upon which
he published an important volume. He
met Agassiz in the Alps, while that
gentleman was experimenting upon
glacial motions, and they made obser
vations together, but subsequently fell
out with each other about the division
of the honors of discovery. The com
plication extended, involving the claims
of Bishop Rendu, Prof. Guyot, and
others. In his “ Glaciers of the Alps,”
published in 1860, Prof. Tyndall under
took to do justice to the claims of all
parties. Prof. Forbes was not satisfied
with the awards, and replied to Prof.
Tyndall’s work, vindicating his own
claims to a larger share of the investi
gation than had been accorded him. To
this Prof. Tyndall at the time made no
rejoinder; but in his recently-published
“Forms of Water” he restated the
case in a way that was not satisfactory
to Forbes’s biographers, who have met
it by an appendix to the volume. In
the Contemporary Review for August,
Prof. Tyndall returns to the question
in an elaborate paper, entitled “ Prin
cipal Forbes and his Biographers,” of
which we publish the first and last
portions, that are of most general
interest. We have not space for the
whole article, which is long, and omit
ted the extended extracts from Rendu’s
work in French, and that portion of
771
the argument which will mainly con
cern the special students of glacial lit
erature. In an introductory note to
the article, Prof. Tyndall briefly states
the origin and cause of the controversy,
and earnestly deprecates its present re
vival. He says, speaking of the biogra
phers : “I am challenged to meet their
criticisms, which, I find, are considered
to be conclusive by some able public
journals and magazines. Thus the at
titude of a controversialist is once more
forced upon me. Since the death of
Principal Forbes no one has heard me
utter a word inconsistent with tender
ness for his memory; and it is with an'
unwillingness amounting to repugnance
that I now defend myself across his
grave. His biographers profess to
know what he would have done were
he alive, and hold themselves to be the
simple executors of his will. I cannot
act entirely upon this assumption, or
deal with the dead as I should with
the living. Hence, though these pages
may appear to some to be sufficiently
full, they lack the completeness, and
still more the strength, which I ’should
have sought to confer upon them had
my present position been forced upon
me by Principal Forbes himself instead
of by his friends.”
It is to be feared that Prof. Forbes
did not sufficiently abide by the rule
of life which was formed under the
solemn circumstances of his father’s
death.
We commend to the attention of
our scientific readers, with philosophi
cal inclinations, the series of articles
on “The Primary Concepts of Modern
Physical Science,” the first of which
appears this month, on “The Theory
of the Atomic Constitution of Matter.”
The depth and force of the criticism are
only equalled by the clearness of the
conceptions, and the precision and
felicity of the statement. The interest
of the discussion will not be lessened
�772
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
when we say that ;t is by an Ohio law
yer-formerly a judge of Cincinnati.
It has been held as one of the redeem
ing features of the English bar, that
the author of the able and admirable
essay on “The Correlation of Forces ”
belongs to it; and it is certainly to the
credit of the legal profession in this
country that a member of it has culti
vated physical philosophy to such ex
cellent purpose as is evinced by the
article we now publish.
• LITERARY NOTICES.
A
Popular Introduction to the Study of
the Forces of Nature. From the French
of M. Emile Saigey. With an Intro
duction and Notes by Thomas Freeman
Moses, A. M., M. D. Boston : Estes &
Laureat. Price $1.50. 253 pages.
Although this neat and attractive little
volume claims to be a popular introduction
to the study of the forces of Nature, we
think it should rather be regarded as a
book for those who have been previously
introduced to the subject. It is rather
devoted to an exposition of the author’s
speculative views than to a simplified and
elementary statement for those who are
beginning to study. The author holds to a
universal ether, and maintains besides that
matter is constituted from it, and consists
of it, and he aims to build up the universe
of ethereal atoms and motion. The work
is written from the modem point of view
of the correlation of forces, and contains
much interesting information upon this
subject, but the author is less concerned
merely to interpret the phenomena of inter
action among the forces than to get below
them to what he regards as the causes of
their unity. “The atom and motion, be
hold the universe! ” is a somewhat Frenchy
and fantastic cosmology. To readers of a
speculative turn of mind the book will prove
interesting.
The Unity of Natural Phenomena.
Sanitary Engineering : a Guide to the
Construction of Works of Sewerage and
House-Drainage. By Baldwin Latham,
C. E. 352 pages. Price $12. New
York : E. & F. N. Spon.
This work is in all respects a contrast
to that of M. Saigey. Instead of transcen
dental ether, it treats of descendental sew
erage, and, instead of remote imaginative
speculations, it is occupied with the most
immediate and practical of the interests of
daily life. Of the importance of the sub
ject treated, the preservation of life and
health by the thorough construction of
sanitary works, there can be no question,
and the author claims that it is the first
book exclusively devoted to subjects re
lating to sanitary engineering. He has
gathered his material from official reports,
periodical papers, and various works which
touch the subject incidentally, and, adding
to them the results of his own practice, has
produced a most valuable treatise. As
science unravels the complicated conditions
of life, it becomes more and more apparent
that health can only be maintained by the
destruction or thorough removal of those
deleterious products which are engendered
in dwellings. The necessity of drainage is
well understood, and the art has been long
practised in all civilized countries; but, like
all other arts, its intelligent and efficient
practice depends upon scientific principles,
and therefore progresses with a growing
knowledge of the subject. The questions
involved in the proper sewerage of a district
are numerous. Its geological character and
physical features have to be considered;
the meteorological element of rainfall is
important; the constitution of the soil and
subsoil must be taken into account; the
sources and extent of artificial water-supply
are of moment; and the area of the district
to be sewered, and its present and pro
spective population, cannot be overlooked.
Much information of this kind requires also
to be called into requisition in the construc
tion of separate country-residences. The
physical circumstances being given, there
then arise numerous questions in regard to
drainage, construction, household contriv
ances, the materials employed, and the cost,
efficiency, and permanency of works. Mr.
Latham’s volume treats this whole series
of topics in a systematic and exhaustive
way. It is profusely illustrated with wood
cuts and maps, and contains numerous
tables which are indispensable for the
guidance of constructors. It is not re
printed, but is supplied by the New-York
branch of the London house, who hold it
at an exorbitant pice.
�LITERARY NOTICES.
773
and Myth-Makers: Old Tales and attractiveness, due to a certain subtle tact
Superstitions interpreted by Compara or refinement hard to analyze, but quite
tive Mythology. By John Fiske. Price, sensibly felt, which marks the best Ameri
$2.00. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.,
can essay-writing; and his manner of deal
1873.
ing with his subject is well fitted to reassure
Travellers to the United States, and those who have been deterred from seeking
American authors themselves, have often any acquaintance with comparative my
remarked on the affectionate veneration thology, either by the formidable appearance
shown by Americans for the oldest things of philological apparatus and Vedic proper
in Europe, and for all the associations con names, or by the aggressive boldness of
necting their present life with the life of one or two champions of the new learning.
their forefathers in the old country. Not It is very natural to feel a rebellious impulse
long ago, it may be remembered, the build at being told that half the gods and heroes
ers of a new meeting-house at Boston of the classical epics, or even the nursery
(United States), sent for a brick from the tales, which have delighted us from our
prototype still standing at our Boston in youth up, are sun and sky, light and dark
England. We now find an officer of Har ness, summer and winter, in various dis
vard University putting forth labor which guises.
is evidently a labor of love, and the literary
The myth is in its origin neither an al
skill and taste in which the best American legory—as Bacon and many others have
writers set an example worth commending thought—nor a metaphor—as seems now
to many of ours ; and the things he speaks and then to be implied in the language of
of belong to the Old World; to a world, modern comparative mythologists—but a
indeed, so far off that for centuries we had genuinely-accepted explanation of facts, a
lost its meaning, and have only just learned “ theorem of primitive Aryan science,” as
to spell it out again. His theme takes Mr. Fiske happily expresses it. This view
him back from the New World, not only to is brought out in the last essay of the vol
England, not only to Europe, but to the ume, entitled “ The Primeval Ghost World,”
ancient home of the Aryan race, a world where the genesis of mythology is held not
still full of wonders for the dwellers in it, to be explicable by the science of language
whose changes of days' and seasons, inter alone, and is rather ascribed to the complete
preted by the analogy of human will and absence of distinction between animate and
action, were instinct with manifold life; inanimate Nature, which is now known to
where the imagination of our fathers shaped be common to all tribes of men in a primi
the splendid and gracious forms which have tive condition, and to which Mr. Tylor has
gone forth over the earth, as their children given the name of Animism. We are
went forth, and prevailed in many lands, pleased to find Mr. Fiske praising Mr. Tyand have lived on through all the diverse lor’s work warmly, and even enthusiasti
fates of the kindred peoples in India, in cally : here is another of the many proofs
Greece, in Iceland, to bear witness in the that the ties of common language and cult
latter days to the unity of the parent stock. ure are in the long-run stronger than diplo
This book, which Mr. Fiske modestly intro macy and Indirect Claims. We find men
duces as a “ somewhat rambling and unsys tioned, among other instances of animism,
tematic series of papers,” seems to us to the belief that a man’s shadow is a sort of
give the leading results of comparative my ghost or other self. This belief has, in
thology in a happier manner and with comparatively-recent times, made its mark
greater success than has yet been attained even in so civilized a tongue as the Greek,
in so small a compass. It is the work of
in Romaic is a ghost, or rather a
a student who follows in the steps of the personified object generally, and seems to
great leaders with right-minded apprecia correspond exactly to the other self attrib
tion, and who, though he does not make uted by primitive man to all creatures, liv
any claim to originality, is no ordinary ing or not living, indiscriminately. Mr.
compiler. He is enthusiastic in his pursuit, Geldart, in a note to his book on Modem
without being a fanatic; his style has the Greek (Oxford, 1870), which well deserves
Myths
�774
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
the attention of students of language and
mythology, traces this as well as older al
lied meanings from the original meaning of
aroi-xYiov in classical Greek, as the shadow
on the sun-dial, acutely observing that the
moving shadow would seem to the natural
man far more alive and mysterious than the
fixed rod.
There are several matters dealt with in
special chapters by Mr. Fiske which we
must put off with little more than allusion:
the book is indeed a small one, but so full
of interest that choice among its contents
is not easy. An essay on “ The Descent of
Fire ” treats of the divining-rod and other
talismans endowed with the faculty of rend
ing open rocks and revealing hidden treas
ure, which all appear to be symbols, some
times obvious, sometimes remotely and fan
cifully derived, of the lightning which breaks
the cloud and lets loose the treasures of the
rain. There is also a chapter on the my
thology of non-Aryan tribes, showing the
difference between the vague resemblance
of these to Aryan myths and to one another,
and the close family likeness which leads to
the certain conclusion that the great mass
of Aryan mythology came from a common
stock.—Spectator.
and School : A Journal of Popular
Education. Morton & Co., Louisville.
In a late number of this journal is an
excellent article by Prof. Alexander Hogg,
of the Alabama Agricultural and Mechani
cal College, entitled “ More Geometry—
less Arithmetic,” that contains various sug
gestions worthy the thoughtful attention of
teachers. It was a favorite idea of the
late Josiah Holbrook, which he enforced
upon educators on all occasions, that rudi
mentary geometry should be introduced
into all primary schools; but he insisted
with equal earnestness upon his theory of
their order, which was embodied in his
aphorism, “ Drawing before writing, and
geometry before arithmetic.” The priority
of geometrical or arithmetical conception
in the unfolding mind is a subtle psycho
logical question, into which it is not neces
sary for the teacher to go, the practical
question being to get a recognition of the
larger claims of geometry, and this is the
point to which Prof. Hogg wisely directs
Home
the discussion. The fact is, mental devel
opment has been too much considered in
its linear and successive aspects, and the
theories that are laid down concerning the
true order of studies have been hitherto
too much confined to this idea. Starting
with inherited aptitudes, mental develop
ment begins in the intercourse of the infant
mind with the environment, and, while it is
true that there is a sequence of mental ex
perience in each increasing complexity, it is
equally true that many kinds of mental ac
tion are unfolded together. Ideas of form
are certainly among the earliest, and there
fore should have an early cultivation. To
all that Prof. Hogg says about the need of
increasing the amount of geometry in edu
cation we cordially subscribe, and we think
he is equally right in condemning the excess
of attention that is given to arithmetic,
which is mainly due to its supposed prac
tical character as a preparation for business.
But neither is geometry without its impor
tant practical uses. The professor says :
“ Let us see, then, what a pupil with
enough arithmetic and the plane geometry
can perform. He can measure heights and
distances; determine areas; knows that,
having enclosed one acre with a certain
amount of fencing, to enclose four acres
he only has to double the amount of fencing;
that the same is true of his buildings. In
circles, in round plats, or in cylindrical ves
sels, he will see a beautiful, universal law
pervading the whole—the increase of the
circumference is proportional to the in
crease of the diameter, while the increase
of the circle is as the square of the diam
eter. . . .
“ Thousands of boys are stuffed to re
pletion with ‘interest,’ ‘discount,’ and
‘ partnership,’ in which they have experi
enced much ‘ loss ’ but no ‘ profit; ’ have
mastered as many as five arithmetics, and
yet, upon being sent into the surveyor’s of
fice, machine-shop, and carpenter-shop,
could not erect a perpendicular to a
straight line, or find the centre of a circle
already described, if their lives depended
upon it. Many eminent teachers think that
young persons are incapable of reasoning,
and that the truths of geometry are too ab
struse to be comprehended by them. . . .
“ Children are taught to read, not for
�LITERARY NOTICES.
what is contained in the reading-books, but
that they may be able to read through life;
so, let enough of the leading branches be
taught, if no more, to enable the pupil to
pursue whatever he may need most in after
life. Let, then, an amount of geometry
commensurate with its importance be
taught even in the common schools; let it
be taught at the same time with arithmetic;
let as much time be given to it, and we shall
find thousands who, instead of closing their
mathematical books on leaving school, will
be led to pursue the higher mathematics in
their maturer years.”
The Mystery of Matter and Other Es
says. By J. Allanson Picton. 12mo,
pp. 482. Price $3.50. Macmillan & Co.
The purpose of this work is to reconcile
the essential principles of religious faith with
the present tendencies of thought in the
sphere of positive and physical science. Mr.
Picton is not a votary of modem skepti
cism, although he recognizes the fact of its
existence, and its bearing on vital questions.
Nor is he a partisan of any of the current
systems of philosophy or science, but dis
cusses their various pretensions in the spirit
of intelligent and impartial criticism. He
has no fear of their progress or influence;
he accepts many of their conclusions; he
honors the earnestness and ability of their
expounders ; while he believes that their re
sults are in harmony with the essential ideas
of religion. It is possible, he affirms, that
all forms of finite existence may be reduced
to modes of motion. But this is of no con
sequence in a religious point of view, for
motion itself is only the visible manifesta
tion of the energy of an infinite life. “ To
me,” he says, “ the doctrine of an eternal
continuity of development has no terrors ;
for, believing matter to be in its ultimate
essence spiritual, I see in every cosmic revo
lution a ‘ change from glory to glory, as by
the Spirit of the Lord.’ I can look down
the uncreated, unbeginning past, without
the sickness of bewildered faith. I want no
silent dark eternity in which no world was ;
for I am a disciple of One who said, * My
Father worketh hitherto.’ My sense of
eternal order is no longer jarred by the sud
den appearance in the universe of a dead,
inane substance, foreign to God and spiritual
775
being. And if, with a true insight, I could
stand so high above the world as to take
any comprehensive survey of its unceasing
evolutions—here a nebula dawning at the
silent fiat ‘ be light,’ there the populous
globe, where the communion of the many
with the One brings the creature back to
the Creator—I am sure that the oneness of
the vision, so far from degrading, would un
speakably elevate my sense of the dignity
and blessedness of created being. I have
no temptation, therefore, to join in cursing
the discoverer who tracks the chain of divine
forces by which finite consciousness has
been brought to take its present form ; be
cause I know he can never find more than
that which was in the beginning, and is, and
ever shall be—the ‘ power of an endless
life.’ ”
With regard to the speculations of Prof.
Huxley, the author, so far from bewailing
their effects, pronounces them decidedly
favorable to the interests of religion. They
present a formidable barrier to the encroach
ments of materialism. In this respect, he
thinks that Prof. Huxley has rendered ser
vices to the Church, if less signal, not less
valuable, than those which he has rendered
to science. He has brought the religious
world face to face with facts with a vigor
and a clearness peculiar to himself. Not
only so. In the opinion of the author, he
has made suggestions concerning those facts
of vast importance to the future of religion.
He has defined the only terms on which
harmony is possible between spiritual re
ligion and physical science. Equalling
Berkeley in transparent distinctness of
statement, while he far surpasses him in
knowledge of physical phenomena, Mr. Hux
ley has shown that, whether we start with
materialism or idealism, we are brought at
length to the same point. He has thus
proved himself one of the most powerful op
ponents that materialism ever had. All
that he did in his celebrated discourse on
the “ Physical Basis of Life ” was, to call
attention to certain indisputable facts.
“And perhaps it was the impossibility of
denying these facts which was a main cause
of the uneasiness that most of us felt.
Thus he told us that all organizations, from
the lichen up to the man, are all composed
mainly of one sort of matter, which in all
�776
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
cases, even those at the extremity of the deed follow that materialism, in a fair sense
scale, is almost identical in composition. of the word, is impossible, still the conclu
And the one other fact on which he insisted sion cannot be avoided that materialism
was, that every living action, from the vi and spiritualism would then exhibit only
brations of cilia by the foraminifer to the different aspects of the same everlasting
imagination of Hamlet or the composition fact, and physical research might henceforth
of the Messiah, is accompanied by, and in a unfold to us only the energies of Infinite
sense finds an equivalent expression in, a Life self-governed by eternal law.
definite waste or disintegration of material
But, admitting the universal action of
tissue. Thus it is no less certain that the molecular mechanics, the author adduces
muscles of a horse are strained by a heavy numerous instances which show that the
load, than it is that the brain of a Shake explanation they offer of the phenomena of
speare undergoes molecular agitation, pro sensation cannot be realized in conscious
ducing definite chemical results, in the sub ness. Nothing is really an explanation
lime effort of imagination.”
which cannot be reproduced in conscious
But, at first blush, such statements pro ness as such. We demand a cause from
duce a shock in the minds of most readers. which the effect can rationally be educed.
They are reluctant to be told that the soul The perception of distance, for example, is
never acts by itself apart from some excite explained by the action of the muscular
ment of bodily tissue. It seems monstrous sense and the experience of touch. This is
that thought and love, which in one direc an adequate explanation, for it can be re
tion find their expression in the majesty of alized in consciousness. But the case is far
eloquence, should in another direction find otherwise with the explanation of sensation
their expression in evolving carbonic acid by molecular mechanics. Physical research
and water. Such a union between soul and lands us in a dead inert substance called
body seemed to amount to identity. And matter, which, though without soul or mean
yet the soul was conscious that, whatever ing in itself, produces by its vibrations the
might be said, it was not one of the chemi most beautiful visions and sublime emotions
cal elements, nor all of them put together.
in our consciousness. But the external phe
The mental anxiety referred to has been nomena, inseparable from our consciousness
aggravated by the hold which has been of sight or sound, cannot be rationally con
taken on most inquiring minds, by the doc nected with the consciousness that gives
trine of development. Whether natural them all their interest. No one to whom
selection is or is not sufficient to account the Hallelujah Chorus utters the joy of
for the origin of species, the idea of suc heaven, or for whom a sonata of Beethoven
cessive acts of creation out of nothing has gives a voice to the unutterable, can make
been virtually abandoned by all whose ob it seem real to himself that his mind is in
servations of Nature have been on such a vaded by mere waves of vibrating air. At
scale as to entitle their opinions to any no point in the chain of vibrations, not even
weight. What was once the property of a the point most deeply buried in the brain,
few isolated thinkers has been made com can we conceive that molecular action is
pletely accessible to minds of common in converted into any thing besides material
telligence. But the terrors which have movement, or resistance to movement. But
been awakened by the popular reception of this does not exhaust the consciousness.
novel scientific theories are entirely founded The emotional, imaginative, and moral
on the assumption that matter and spirit wealth of human life opens a world of re
are fundamentally distinct in their nature. ality immeasurably greater than can be con
It has been the general belief that matter tained in mere mechanical movement.
was something heavy, lifeless, inert, some
Assuming, then, the fact of a nature in
thing that forms the hidden basis of the man, of which the molecular laws are not
ethereal vision of the world. But, argues the substance, but the condition, the author
the author, if that assumption be the mere takes up the inquiry as to the essential
creature of false analogy, and is wholly in nature of religion. This he defines to be
congruous and unthinkable, it does not in the endeavor after a practical expression of
�LITERARY NOTICES.
man’s conscious relation to the Infinite.
The savage who wonders at the unseen but
mighty wind that streams from unknown
realms of power has already the germ of
the feeling which inspires religion. But the
conscious relation to the Infinite includes
every stage in this consciousness, just as
the name of a plant includes the blade as
well as the fruit. If the evolution of reli
gion be a normal phase in the development
of mankind, there must be at the root of it
that grand and measureless Power which is
the inevitable complement of the conception
of evolution. All evolution implies a divine
Power, but religious evolution has to do
with the dim apprehension of that Power in
consciousness. Mr. Herbert Spencer, to
continue the reasoning of the author, has
been much blamed, by many religious think
ers, for making the reconciliation between
science and religion to lie in the recognition
on both sides that “ the Power which the
universe manifests to us is utterly inscru
table.” Yet the very persons who most
strenuously object to this suggestion are in
the habit of quoting the words of Scripture
which declare the unsearchable mystery of
the Divine Nature. Those words are used
to rebuke the arrogance of philosophy. But,
when philosophy learns the lesson, its hu
mility is condemned as wilful blindness.
The true philosophy of ignorance, however,
retains as an indestructible element of hu
man consciousness an apprehension of
something beyond all fragmentary existence,
the Absolute Being, at once the only true
substance, and the One that constitutes a
universe from the phenomenal world. It
is inevitable that attempts should be made
to give practical expression to this feeling.
And in such efforts we find the first germs
of religion.
With the imperfect summary which we
have given of the views maintained in this
volume, it will be perceived that its position
in literature is that of a commentary on
new developments of thought, rather than
of a complete exposition of any system of
philosophy or science. Accepting the con
sequences of modem physical research, it
aims to establish their consistency with the
principles of a high religious faith, and thus
to remove the vague alarms which their
prevalence has called forth in certain por
711
tions of the community. The author is
evidently a man of an ardent poetical tem
perament, of a reverent and tender spirit,
and an aptitude for illustration rather than
for demonstration.—N. Y. Tribune.
Chimneys for Furnaces, Fireplaces, and
Steam-Boilers. By R. Armstrong, C.
E., 12mo, 76 pages. Price, 50 cents.
This is number one of Van Nostrand’s
science series, and is a technological mono
graph that will be useful to engineers and
builders. The author says : “ Furnaces or
closed fireplaces, which it is the main de
sign of this essay to treat upon, are essen
tially different in principle and construction
to the ordinary open fireplaces of dwelling
houses, as they are exceedingly different in
their general scope and object, and in the
vast variety of their applications; ” and he
then proceeds to expound the general phi
losophy of special chimneys for furnaces
and steam-boilers.
Steam-Boiler Explosions. By Zerah Col
burn. 12mo, 98 pages.
New York :
D. Van Nostrand.
This is number two of the same series,
and is a most instructive and readable essay.
The editor states that, although published
ten years ago, later experiences would add
but little if any thing to the knowledge it
affords. The various observed scientific
questions in regard to the causes of steamboiler explosions, such as over-heating, elec
tricity, the spheroidal state, decomposed
steam, etc., are considered, but Mr. Colburn
maintains that, whether these are valid
causes of explosion or not, they are colleotively as nothing compared with the one
great cause—defective boilers. The style
in which this essay is written is a model of
simplicity and clearness.
Bulletin
ural
of the Buffalo Society of Nat
Sciences. Vol. I., Nos. 1 and 2.
Buffalo, 1873.
The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences
commences this year the publication of their
Bulletin, which it is proposed to continue,
four numbers to be issued annually. The
two numbers before us contain seven papers,
six of which are devoted to the describing
and cataloguing of American moths, and
one gives descriptions of new species of
�778
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
fungi. The author of the latter paper is
Charles H. Peck ; all the others are by Au
gustus R. Grote. Mr. Grote is well known
to entomologists as an authority on the sub
jects which he discusses, and the Buffalo
society is to be congratulated for being the
medium through which the laborious and
valuable researches of so able a naturalist
are published to the world. The papers are
strictly scientific and technical, being in
tended solely for those who pursue method
ically the special branches of science to
which they refer. They are not popular
expositions, but rather brief notes on cer
tain departments of natural science, to be
understood and valued only by the initiated.
The Bulletin is handsomely printed on good
paper, in octavo form. Subscription price,
$2.50 per volume.
Scientific and Industrial Education. A
Lecture. By G. B. Stebbins. Detroit, 1873,
pp. 24.
The Railroads of the United States. By
Henry V. Poor. New York : H. V. & H. W.
Poor, 68 Broadway, pp. 29.
Cosmical and Molecular Harmonics, No.
II. By Pliny Earle Chase, M. A. Philadel
phia, 1873, pp. 16.
Nickel.
pp. 19.
By Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger,
Diminution of Water on the Earth, and
its Permament Conversion into Solid Forms.
By Mrs. George W. Houk. Dayton, 0., 1873,
pp. 39.
Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of
the Peabody Museum of American Archaeol
ogy and Ethnology. Cambridge, 1873, pp.
Atmospheric Theory of the Open Polar 27. Mr. Gillman’s report of his explora
Sea : with Remarks on the Present State tions of the ancient mounds on the St. Clair
of the Question. By William W. Wheil- River is an important contribution to ar
don. First Paper. Boston, 1872.
chaeology. The museum is in a flourishing
This paper was read at the meeting of the state, and growing steadily. The Niccolucci
American Association for the Advancement collection of ancient crania and implements
of Science, held at Newport, R. I., in 1860, was the most important addition made
and was published in the volume of proceed during the past year.
ings of the Association for that year. The ex
traordinary interest taken in Arctic affairs
during the past two years has led to its re
MISCELLANY.
issue in pamphlet form, with brief introduc
Utilization of Waste Coal.—The English
tory observations on the present state of the
problem. Accepting the view, now quite gen Mechanic gives an historical sketch of the
erally held, that an open sea, or at least a various processes suggested for the utiliza
much ameliorated climate, exists in the vi tion of the waste of coal-mines. From this
cinity of the pole, the author, in this paper, account it would appear that so early as the
aims to show that such a condition of things close of the sixteenth century the waste of
“ is largely if not entirely <Me to the cur small coal attracted notice. About the year
rents of the air from the equatorial regions 1594 one Sir Hugh Platt proposed a mixture
which move in the higher strata of the of coal-dust and loam, together with such
earth’s atmosphere, bearing heat and moist combustible materials as sawdust and tan
ure with them.” How well he succeeds in ners’ bark: the loam being the cement
this undertaking, we leave the readers of which was to hold the other ingredients to
gether. But Sir Hugh’s suggestions did not
the argument to judge.
receive much attention in those early times,
when coal was but little, used, wood being
the staple fuel of England.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
It was only at the beginning of the
Washington Catalogue of Stars. By or present century that this question began to
der of Rear-Admiral Sands, U. S. N. Wash receive serious attention. A patent was
ington, 1873.
then granted for a mixture of refuse coal
First Annual Report of the Minnesota with charcoal, wood, breeze, tan, peat, saw
State Board of Health. St. Paul, 1873, dust, cork-cuttings, and other inflammable
pp. 102.
ingredients. A capital objection to such a
�MISCELLANY.
scheme is its expense. The product would
necessarily cost about as much per ton as
good coal, without being at all as service
able. The next attempt was the production
of “gaseous coke.” Here the object was to
convert small coal, by the addition of coaltar, either pure, or mixed with naphtha, into
a well-mixed mass. It was then to be put
into an oven and coked ; afterward it was
to be broken into suitable blocks for use.
There were several modifications of this
process, but as they all more or less involved
the previous manufacture of their most es
sential ingredient, coal-tar, the anticipations
of the projectors were not realized.
In 1823 a step was taken in the right
direction by the combination of bituminous
and anthracite coals, and converting them,
by partial carbonization in an oven, into a
kind of soft coke. In 1845 Frederick Ran
some introduced a plan for cementing to
gether small coal by means of a solution of
silica dissolved in caustic soda, the small
refuse coal so treated to be then compressed
into blocks suitable for use. In 1849 Henry
Bessemer proposed simply to heat small
coal sufficient to soften it, and thus render
it capable of being easily pressed into
moulds and formed into solid blocks. The
coal, according to this plan, might be soft
ened either by the action of steam or in
suitable ovens. Coal alone was used, no
extraneous matter of any kind being em
ployed. In 1856 F. Ransome brought for
ward one of the best plans yet offered. He
placed the small coal in suitable moulds,
which were then passed into an oven, and
there heated just sufficiently to cause the
mass to agglomerate.
Though the writer in the Mechanic com
mends highly the Ransome and the Besse
mer plans, it is clear that they do not fully
solve the problem, for inventors are still
busy on both sides of the Atlantic devising
other and better methods. Perhaps, how
ever, the successful working of the Crans
ton “Automatic Reverberatory Furnace,”
which is adapted for the consumption of
powdered coal, will cause such a demand
for small coal as will leave these utilizing
processes without material to work on.
779
nia of the Human Races,” and recently
laid before the Paris Academy of Sciences
a synopsis of the results which he there
proposes to establish. The materials he
has at hand for this investigation are
abundant—no less than 4,000 skulls; and
he acknowledges the valuable assistance
rendered to him by the most eminent sa
vants both of France and of the rest of
Europe. He holds that the fossil races are
not extinct, but that, on the contrary, they
have yet living representatives. He regards
the skull discovered in 1700 at Canstadt,
near Stuttgart, as the type of the most an
cient human race of which we have ac
knowledge. This skull is dolichocephalous
—that is, having a length greater than its
breadth. With the Canstadt skull he
classes those of Enghisheim, Brux, Nean
derthal, La Denise, Staengenaes, Olmo, and
Clichy—the last-named three being the
skulls of females. Among the representa
tives, in historical times, of the dolichoceph
alous race, M. Quatrefages reckons Kay
Lykke, a Danish statesman of the seven
teenth century, whose skull is portrayed in
the forthcoming work; Saint Mansuy, Bishop
of Toul in the fourth century, whose skull is
also figured ; and Robert Bruce. Whether
the cranium is long or short—dolichoceph
alous or brachycephalous—is a question
which has nothing to do with the intel
lectual status of the man, according to M.
Quatrefages.
Heart-Disease and Overwork.—The ear
ly break-down of health observed among
Cornish miners, and commonly regarded
as an affection of the lungs —“ miners’
phthisis ”—is declared, by competent au
thority, to proceed rather from disturbed
action of the heart; and this, according to
Dr. Houghton, the distinguished Dublin
physiologist, is caused by the great and
sudden strain put upon the system by the
ascent from the pits, at a time when the
body is not sufficiently fortified with food.
In his valuable address on the “ Relation
of Food to Work,” Dr. Houghton says:
“ The labor of the miner is peculiar, and his
food appears to me badly suited to meet its
requirements. At the close of a hard day’s
Qnatrefages on Human Crania.—Quatre- toil the weary miner has to climb, by verti
fages is engaged on a work entitled “ Cra cal ladders, through a height of from 600 to
�780
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
1,200 feet, before he can reach his cottage,
where he naturally looks for his food and
sleep. This climbing of the ladders is per
formed hastily, almost as a gymnastic feat,
and throws a heavy strain (amounting to
from one-eighth to one-quarter of the whole
day’s work) upon the muscles of the tired
miner, during the half-hour or hour that con
cludes his daily toil. A flesh-fed man (as a
red Indian) would run up the ladders like a
cat, using the stores of force already in re
serve in his blood ; but the Cornish miner,
who is fed chiefly upon dough and fat, finds
himself greatly distressed by the climbing of
the ladders—more so, indeed, than by the
slower labor of quarrying in the mine. His
heart, over-stimulated by the rapid exer
tion of muscular work, beats more and
more quickly in its efforts to oxidate the
blood in the lungs, and so supply the force
required. Local congestion of the lung it
self frequently follows, and lays the founda
tion for the affection so graphically though
sadly described by the miner at forty years
of age, who tells you that his other works
are very good, but that he is ‘ beginning to
leak in the valves ’ Were I a Cornish miner,
and able to afford the luxury, I should train
myself for the ‘ ladder-feat ’ by dining on
half a pound of rare beefsteak and a glass
of ale from one to two hours before com
mencing the ascent,”
San Jorge. In 1866, for instance, the vol
cano of Santorin emitted smoke charged
with acid, which produced on plants effects
similar to those observed at San Jorge in
1808.
A writer in the Revue Scientijique is of
the opinion that the facts above stated
give the solution of some of the problems
raised by the exhumations at Pompeii. The
strange posture of skeletons found in the
streets of that town is very difficult to ac
count for, if we insist on finding analogies
with phenomena observed in modem erup
tions of Vesuvius. A shower of ashes, how
ever heavy, however charged with humidity,
could never have thrown down and choked
a strong man like the one who met his
death while making his escape, in company
with his two daughters, along one of the
public roads. They must have inhaled a
poisonous gas of some kind, which caused
them to perish in fearful agony. This gas
would not lie in a layer of equal thickness :
in some places it might have a greater depth
than in others. Hence, while some of the
inhabitants would perish, the remainder
would escape.
It is very probable that the eruption in
the year 79 was accompanied with local
emissions of carbonic acid, springing from
points remote from the crater. In all vol
canic regions, says the author, there are
localities where, even when the volcano is
inactive, carbonic acid exists in the atmos
phere, in quantities sufficient to produce
asphyxia: and the neighborhood of Vesu
vius is particularly noted for the number of
6uch localities. During an eruption, the
amount of the gas given out is usually in
creased, and wells, ditches, quarries, etc.,
are filled with carbonic acid. It is some
times dangerous to enter cavities in the
rocks on the coast when a fresh breeze does
not keep them free of the poisonous gas.
In 1861 Ste.-Claire Deville came near meet
ing his death by entering one of these cavi
ties for a few moments. The following
week he and the author barely escaped
being asphyxiated in the bed of a great
quarry, which they had previously visited
many a time with impunity.
Poisonous Volcanie Gases. — During a
volcanic eruption on the little island of San
Jorge, one of the Azores, in the year 1808,
vaporous clouds were seen to roll down the
sides of the mountain, and to move along
the valley. Wherever they passed, plants
and animals wilted and perished instanta
neously. From this asphyxiating action,
as also from their downward movement on
the mountain-side and toward the sea, we
may conclude that they consisted chiefly of
some dense, deleterious gas, most probably
carbonic acid. Their opacity is to be at
tributed to the presence of watery vapor,
and their reddish color to the presence of
tine volcanic dust. Finally, their injurious
action on plants was doubtless owing to the
presence of chlorhydric and sulphurous acid.
Similar phenomena have been observed
on occasion of other volcanic outbreaks,
A Relie of Ancient Etrurian Art. — An
but nowhere so marked as in the case of antiquarian discovery of very considerable
�MISCELLANY.
interest was recently made at Cervetri,
Italy, being a terra-cotta sarcophagus of
native Etruscan production. The ancient
Etrurians were noted for the honor they
bestowed upon their dead, and their custom
of paying homage to ancestors by placing
their effigies upon their tombs seems to
have been peculiar to themselves, and un
known among the Greeks. The recentlydiscovered sarcophagus is now in the British
Museum. It measures internally four feet
ten inches in length, and two feet in width.
The floor is hollowed out, or rather marked
by a raised border, which takes the form
of a human figure. It rests upon four claw
feet projecting beyond the angles, and ter
minating above in the head and breasts of
a winged siren. The lid of the sarcophagus
represents an upholstered couch upon which
recline two human figures, male and female.
There are inscriptions on the four sides of
the couch. The panel at the foot has the
figures of two warriors in panoply, and the
front panel exhibits the same pair of war
riors engaged in mortal combat. Several
accessory figures are also to be seen. On
the panel at the head of the couch are rep
resented four sitting figures in opposing
pairs, plunged in deep sorrow. The monu
ment has no counterpart among those of its
kind hitherto discovered, the only one at
all resembling it being that of the Campana
Collection in the Louvre. The latter is,
however, of a much more recent date than
the former, nor is it adorned with either
reliefs or inscriptions. The Cervetri sar
cophagus probably dates from the period of
Etruscan ascendency in Italy.
Audible and Inaudible Sounds.—The
phenomenon of color-blindness is a familiar
fact; but an analogous phenomenon, what
might be called pitch-deafness, though not
uncommon, is not so generally known. By
•Ditch-deafness is meant insensibility to cer
tain sound-vibrations. Prof. Donaldson, of
the University of Edinburgh, used to illus
trate the different grades of sensibility to
sound by a very simple experiment, namely,
by sounding a set of small organ-pipes of
great acuteness of tone. The gravest note
would be sounded first, and this would be
heard by the entire class. Soon some one
would remark, “ There, ’tis silent,” whereas
781
all the rest, perhaps, would distinctly hear
the shrill piping continued. As the tone
rose, one after another of the students
would lose sensation of the acute sounds,
until finally they became inaudible to all.
There is reason for supposing that per
sons whose ear is sensitive to very acute
sounds are least able to hear very grave
notes, and vice versa. Probably the hear
ing capacity of the human ear ranges over
no more than 12 octaves. The gravest
note audible to the human ear is supposed
to represent about 15 vibrations per second,
and the sharpest 48,000 per second.
The auditory range of animals is doubt
less very different from that of man; they
hear sounds which are insensible to us, and
vice versa. Many persons are insensible to
the scream of the bat—it is too acute. But
to the bat itself that sound must be in all
cases perfectly sensible. If, then, we sup
pose the bat to have an auditory range of
12 octaves, and its scream or cry to stand
midway in that range, the animal would
hear tones some six octaves higher than
those audible to the human ear—two and a
half million vibrations per second.
Scoresby and other arctic voyagers and
whale-hunters have observed that whales
have some means of communicating with
one another at great distances. It is prob
able that the animals bellow in a tone too
grave for the human ear, but quite within
the range of the cetacean ear.
The Motions of the Heart.—According
to the generally-accepted teachings of phys
iologists, the heart rests after each pulsa
tion ; that is, each complete contraction
during which the auricles are emptied into
the ventricles, and the ventricles into the
vessels, is followed by a moment’s repose,
when the organ is entirely at rest. Dr. J.
Bell Pettigrew, in his recently-published
lectures on the “ Physiology of the Circula
tion,” takes a different view, affirming that
the normal action of the heart is a con
tinuous one, and that as a whole it never
ceases to act until it comes to a final stop.
He says : “ When the heart is beating nor
mally, one or other part of it is always mov
ing. When the veins cease to close, and
the auricles to open, the auricles begin to
close and the ventricles to open ; and so on
�782
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
in endless succession. In order to admit
of these changes, the auriculo-ventricular
valves, as has been stated, rise and fall like
the diaphragm in respiration; the valves
protruding, now into the auricular cavities,
now into the ventricular ones. There is in
reality no pause in the heart’s action. The
one movement glides into the other as a
snake glides into the grass. All that the
eye can detect is a quickening of the gliding
movements, at stated and very short inter
vals. A careful examination of the sounds
of the heart shows that the sounds, like the
movements, glide into each other. There
is no actual cessation of sound when the
heart is in action. There are periods when
the sounds are very faint, and when only a
sharp or an educated ear can detect them,
and there are other periods when the sounds
are so distinct that even a dull person must
hear; but the sounds—and this is the point
to be attended to—merge into each other
by slow or sudden transitions. It would
be more accurate, when speaking of the
movements and sounds of the heart, to say
they are only faintly indicated at one time,
and strongly emphasized at another, but that
neither ever altogether ceases. If, however,
the heart is acting more or less vigorously
as a whole, the question which naturally
presents itself is, How is the heart rested ?
There can be little doubt it rests, as it acts,
viz., in parts. The centripetal and centrif
ugal wave-movements pass through the
sarcous elements of the different portions
of the heart very much as the wind passes
through the leaves : its particles are stirred
in rapid succession, but never at exactly the
same instant; the heart is moving as a
whole, but its particles are only moving at
regular and stated intervals ; the periods
of repose, there is every reason to believe,
greatly exceeding the periods of activity.
The nourishment, life, and movements of
the heart are, in this sense, synonymous.”
phere being represented as 100), he found
the birds seized with violent convulsions.
The same result followed when sparrows
were confined in common air under a press
ure of 17 atmospheres. In oxygen, at 3|
atmospheres’ pressure, or in air at 22 at
mospheres, the convulsions were extremely
violent and quickly fatal. The symptoms
in the latter case were these: Convulsions
set in after four or five minutes: in moving
about, the bird hobbles on its feet, as
though walking on hot coals. It then flut
ters its wings, falls on its back, and spins
about, the claws doubled up. Death super
venes after a few such spasms.
The toxic dose of oxygen for a dog was
found to require, for convulsions, a pressure
of 350 in oxygen; and a pressure of 500 is
fatal. The amount of oxygen in the arterial
blood of a dog in convulsions was found to
be considerably less than twice the normal
quantity. Hence the author’s startling con
clusion, that oxygen is the mostfearful poison
known.
Taking a dog in full convulsion out of
the receiver, M. Bert found the paws rigid,
the body bent backward in the shape of an
arch, the eyes protruding, pupil dilated,
jaws clinched. Soon there is relaxation,
followed by another crisis, combining the
symptoms of strychnine-poisoning and of
lockjaw. The convulsionary periods, at
first recurring every five or six minutes, be
come gradually less violent and less fre
quent.
The author sums up his conclusions as
follows : 1. Oxygen behaves like a rapidlyfatal poison, when its amount in the arte
rial blood is about 35 cubic centimetres per
cent, of the liquid; 2. The poisoning is
characterized by convulsions which repre
sent, according to the intensity of the symp
toms, the various types of tetanus, epilepsy,
poisoning by phrenic acid and strychnine,
etc.; 3. These symptoms, which are allayed
by chloroform, are due to an exaggeration
of the excito-motor power of the spinal cord;
4. They are accompanied by a considerable
and constant diminution of the internal tem
perature of the animal.
Poisoning by Oxygen.—M. Paul Bert,
whose observations upon the physiological
effects of high atmospheric pressure we have
already noted in the Monthly, communi
cates to the Paris Academy of Sciences the
Infant Mortality.—During the year 1868,
results of his observations on the toxic ac
tion of oxygen. Placing sparrows in oxygen 23,198 children under one year of age,
under a pressure of 850 (that of the atmos died by convulsions in England, the num
�NOTES.
ber of births being 786,858—one in 34.
In the same year the births in Scotland
were 115,514, and only.312 infants under
one year—one in 370—fell victims to con
vulsions. This striking difference in the
mortality statistics of the two countries is
accounted for in a report of the Scottish
Registrar-General by the difference between
the English and the Scottish modes of rear
ing infants. “ The English,” he writes,
“ are in the habit of stuffing their babies
with spoon-meat almost from birth, while
the Scotch, excepting in cases where the
mother is delicate, or the child is out nurs
ing, w isely give nothing but the mother’s
milk till the child begins to cut its teeth.”
The statistics of infantile deaths from
diarrhoea may also be adduced as an argu
ment in favor of the Scottish system. In
England more than twice as many infants
die of this disorder than in Scotland.
On comparing these statistics with those
of the last United States census, it will be
seen that the chances of life for infants in
their first year are far more favorable in
this country than in England, though not so
favorable as in Scotland. In the year end
ing May 31, 1870, there were born in the
United States 1,100,475 children. Of these
there died, during the same year 4,863 by
convulsions, and 1,534 by diarrhoea, or one
in 236 from the former cause, and one in
724 from the latter. In England the deaths
from diarrhoea amounted to 138 in 100,000
infants, and in Scotland to 66 in the same
number. It will be seen, on computation,
that the proportion of deaths from this
cause are by a very small fraction less in
the United States than in Scotland. But
now are we to attribute these very credita
ble results to our more rational system of
rearing children, or to the better social con
dition of the population here ?
783
He has the testimony of fifty-six witnesses
who saw the young enter the parent’s
mouth. Of these fifty-six, nineteen testify
that they heard the parent snake warning
her young of danger by a loud whistle.
Two of the witnesses waited to see the young
emerge again from their refuge, after the
danger was past; and one of them went
again and again to the snake’s haunt, ob
serving the same act on several successive
days. Four saw the young rush out when
the parent was struck ; eighteen saw the
young shaken out by dogs, or escaping from
the mouth of their dead parent. These tes
timonies are confirmed by the observations
of scientific men, such as Prof. Smith, of
Yale College, Dr. Palmer, of the Smithsonian
Institution, and others.
NOTES.
The year 1759, which witnessed the
completion of the Eddystone Lighthouse,
closed with tremendous storms, and the
courage of the light-keepers was tested to
the utmost. A biography of John Smeaton,
the builder of the Eddystone, states that
for twelve days the sea ran over them so
much that they could not open the door of
the lantern, or any other door. “The
house did shake,” said one of the keepers,
“ as if we had been up a great tree. The
old men were frightened out of their lives,
wishing they had never seen the place.
The fear seized them in the back, but rub
bing them with oil of turpentine gave them
relief!”
Sir Charles Lyell, in his “ Geology,”
speaking of Madagascar, says that, with two
or three small islands in its immediate vicin
ity, it forms a zoological sub-province, in
which all the species except one, and nearly
all the genera, are peculiar. He singles out
for special remark the lemurs of Madagas
car, comprising seven genera, only one of
which has any representatives on the nearest
main-land of Africa. Hitherto no fossil re
mains of these Madagascar species have
Snakes swallowing their Young.—The been known to exist, but M. Delfortrie, of
question, “ Do snakes swallow their young ?” the French Academy of Sciences, announces
that he has found, in the phosphorite of
that is, give them shelter in the maternal the department of Lot, an almost complete
stomach when danger threatens, was dis skull of an individual belonging to this lecussed in a paper presented to the Ameri murine family.
can Association by G. Brown Goode. The
Of the 35,170,294 passengers carried
author some time since asked, through the over the railroads of Pennsylvania last year,
public press, for testimony bearing on this only thirty-three were killed, less than one
subject, and he now comes forward with in a million. But the English lines make a
far more favorable showing, the number
what appears to be perfectly satisfactory killed in the year 1871 being only twelve—■
evidence in favor of the affirmative side. or one in 31,000,000.
�784
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
In the “ History of the Fishes of the Brit
ish Islands,” Giraldus Cambrensis, a writer
of the twelfth century, is quoted for the•
observation that in the Lyn y Cwn, or Pool1
of Dogs, in Wales, the trout, the perch, andI
the eel, were deficient of the left eye. A
recent work on “ Trout and Salmon Fishing;
in Wales,” strangely enough, confirms in
part this observation, asserting that one-•
eyed trout are still caught in the same
waters.
Professor Smee recently, at the Berlin
Chemical Society, proposed a method for
detecting organic matters contained in the
air, and for effecting at the same time a
kind of distillation by cold. A glass fun
nel, closed at its narrow end, is held sus
pended in the air and filled with ice. The
moisture of the air is condensed, in contact
with the exterior surface; it trickles to the
bottom of the apparatus, and falls into a
small basin placed for its reception. The
liquid obtained in a given time is weighed.
It generally contains ammonia, which is de
termined by known methods. Distillation
by cold may be employed for separating
volatile substances which might be injured
by heat. Thus, if flowers are placed under
a large bell-glass along with the refrigerat
ing funnel, a liquid is obtained in the basin
saturated with the odorous principles of
the flowers.
At various points on the river Thames,
between Woolwich and Erith, there are
visible at low water the remains of a sub
merged forest, over which the river now
flows. This fact, taken in connection with
other local phenomena, has led geologists
to conclude that the present outlet of the
Thames to the North Sea is of quite recent
origin, the waters having formerly passed
southward into the Weald by channels
which still remain. Excavations in the
marshes expose to view a deep stratum of
twigs, leaves, seed-vessels, and stools of
trees, chiefly of the yew, alder, and oak
kinds.
A traveller in Zanzibar describes the
red and black ants as one of the greatest
scourges with which Eastern Africa is af
flicted. These insects, he says, move along
the roads in masses so dense that beasts of
burden refuse to step among them. If the
traveller should fail to see them coming, in
time to make his escape, he soon finds them
swarming about his person. Sometimes,
too, they ascend the trees and drop upon
the wayfarer. The natives call them madinodo, that is, boiling water, to signify the
scalding sensation produced by their bite.
These ants are of great size, and burrow so
deep into the flesh that it is not easy to
pick them out. In certain forests they are
said to exist in such numbers as to be able
to destroy rats and lizards.
An eccentric and methodical man is Dr.
Rudolf, Danish governor of Upernavik,
Greenland. Dr. Rudolf is a scientist of some
distinction, and has contributed his share
to the scientific literature of his own coun
try, yet it is his choice to live in a region
where darkness prevails four months in the
year, and where he can have no communication with civilized life beyond the annual
visit from the government storeship, and the
casual arrival of whalers. By the storeship
the governor receives annually a file of
Danish newspapers; but instead of glan
cing through them hastily, he takes a fresh
journal every morning, reading the Dagblad
of Jan. 1, 1872, on Jan. 1, 1873. He thus
follows, day for day, the changes in the mind
of Denmark: is glad in the order in which
Copenhagen is glad, and vice versa, but al
ways precisely twelve months after the event.
If the white of an egg be immersed for
some 12 hours in cold water, it undergoes a
chemico-molecular change, becoming solid
and insoluble. The hitherto transparent
albumen assumes an opaque and snow-white
appearance, far surpassing that of the ordi
nary egg. Dr. John Goodman, writing in
the Chemical News, recommends this mate
rial for diet in cases where a patient’s blood
lacks fibrine. The substance being light and
easily digested, it is not rejected even by a
feeble stomach; and as it creates a feeling
of want rather than of repletion, it pro
motes, rather than decreases, the appetite
for food. After the fibrine has been pro
duced in the manner described above, it
must be submitted to the action of a boil
ing heat, and is then ready for use.
One of the great dangers attending the
use of the various sedatives employed in
the nursery is that they tend to produce
the opium-habit. These quack medicines
owe their soothing and quieting effects to
the action of opium, and the infant is by
them given a morbid appetite for narcotic
stimulants. The offering for sale of such
nostrums should be prohibited, as tending
to the physical and moral deterioration of
the race. In India mothers give to their
infants sugar-pills containing opium, and
the result is a languid, sensual race of hope
less debauchees. In the United States the
poisonous dose is administered under an
other name ; but the consequences will prob
ably be the same.
During last autumn, says the Journal of
ithe Society of Arts, there were no less than
1
seventeen companies engaged in extracting
j
gold from the auriferous sand of Finland.
'The alluvial deposits at Toalo are said to be
<extremely rich in gold, the total production
1last season being estimated at about $50,000.
<One of the companies returned a dividend
<of 70 per cent The largest nugget weighed
t40 grammes.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 3, October 1873
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Harlan, Iowa]
Collation: [657]-784 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Complete issue. Contents: Silk-worms and sericulture / A. de Quatrefages -- Mental science and sociology / Herbert Spencer -- A national university / Charles Eliot -- Agassiz and Darwinism / John Fiske -- The primary concepts of modern physical science / J.B. Stallo -- Finding the way at sea / R.A. Proctor -- Secular prophecy [from Saturday Review] -- Sympathetic vibrations in machinery / Prof. J. Lovering -- Speculation in science / Prof. J. Lawrence Smith -- The glaciers and their investigation / Prof. John Tyndall -- The Moon / Richard A. Proctor. The Popular Science is an American bi-monthly magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects; edited by Joe Brown.
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1873
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D. Appleton and Company
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Science
Periodicals
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G5426
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Science