B 3 112 573 ** - V • . .' • : V • '■■ '■'.'' » . ■ . \ r ' ;'■■'. . > • - - V ri^ ■ fljSlj . . ft LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received ARR 1Q 1893 . iSg ^Accessions No. &0 Q ' «>T Class No. OL'fl I liUdncv. ^ -" ' u LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 6~o^/6~ LONDON: bAVILL AND EDWARDS, PBINTEK;:, OHANDOS 3THEBT. J PREFACE. \\ THEN the Managers of the Royal Institution decided, early in the present year, upon the delivery, after Easter, of a series of Lectures on Education, they appointed a sub-Committee to make the necessary arrangements. In accordance with the usual practice of the Royal Institution, the number of the Lectures was unavoid- ably limited by the number of weeks between Easter and the termination of the session; and the subjects of the Lectures could not be altogether determined by the Committee, but in some instances were neces- sarily left to the choice of the Lecturers. Each Lec- turer, also, was at perfect liberty to treat his subject in his own mode; and no communication upon the course to be pursued took place between the different Lecturers. Hence arises the limitation of the subjects and the want of mutual connexion between the separate members of the group of discourses here presented to the reader. Whatever advantage may be thus lost is, however, perhaps counterbalanced by tho increased authority which is derived from so many and such considerable names being found pleading 5 PREFACE. together, though independently of each other, the important cause of Scientific Education. It appeared desirable to the Managers that the widest circulation should be given to these Lectures ; and each Lecturer, by placing his manuscript at the disposal of the Committee, has conferred an addi- tional favour on the Members of the Royal Institution, and has rendered possible the publication of the present volume, which it is hoped will materially assist in promoting the extension of Scientific Education among all classes of the community. Royal Institution, October, 1854. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. Page ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTOEY OF SCIENCE UPON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. BY "W. WHEWELL, D.D., F.E.S • • 3 LECTURE II. OBSEEVATIONS ON MENTAL EDUCATION. BY PEOFESSOB FABADAY, LL.D., F.E.S 39 LECTURE III. ON THE IMPOBTANCE OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AS A BBANCH OF EDUCATION FOE ALL CLASSES. BY BOBEBT GOBDON LATHAM, M.D., F.E.S 91 LECTURE IV. ON THE IMPOBTANCE OF THE STUDY OF CHEMISTEY AS A BBANCH OF EDUCATION FOB ALL CLASSES. BY CHABLES G. B. DAUBENY, M.D., F.E.S I I 7 LECTURE V. ON THE IMPOBTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSICS AS A BBANCH OF EDUCATION FOB ALL CLASSES. BY PEO- FESSOB TYNDALL, F.E.S '7 1 7 fOHlvSsiTT] ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPOX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. THE managers of the Royal Institution having determined to provide for their members and others a series of Lectures upon Education, and having expressed their wish that I should offer to the audience here assembled any views which may appear to me suited to such a purpose, I venture to do so, relying upon an indulgence which I have more than once experienced here on similar occa- sions. Of such indulgence I strongly feel the need, on various accounts, but especially on these two — first, that being so unfrequently in this metropolis, I do not know what trains of thought are passing in the minds of the greater part of my audience, who live in the midst of a stimulation produced by the lively interchange of opinion and discussion on the promi- nent questions of the day, to one of which what I have now to say in a great degree refers ; and next, that in this hall, where you are accustomed to listen, [ 3 ] B -1 DR. WHEWELL to the most lively explanations of scientific dis- coveries, illustrated by the most skilful and striking experiments, / have to present to you a series of remarks on subjects more or less abstract and vague, without being able to aid my exposition by anything addressed to the eye. The pictures which words can give of abstruse and general mental conceptions, when they alone form a diorama on which the mental eye of an assembly is to be directed for a whole hour, always appear to me to be in great danger of fading awav into a dream of cloudland or a vacant blank. However, as to that point, I have an advantage in speaking on th^ History of Science, which is my pre- sent subject, m this room. To those of you who are in the habit of coming here, the walls must appear, from their customary aspect, to be hung with pictures which illustrate my theme. The striking facts in the history of science which you have presented to you in this place, week after week, are illustrations, in particu- lar cases, of the general views which I have to offer to vou ; and if such expressions as experience and theory, discovery and generalization, Baconian ascents to com- prehensive axioms, and descents thence to wonderful wor Jc S — if such expressions be in danger of being to others vague and empty sounds, to you they will be, I may trust, all enlivened and embodied by what you have again and again seen here. [4] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. The subject on which I am desirous of making a few remarks to you at present is this ; The Influence of Scientific Discovery upon Intellectual Education : — the influence of the scientific discoveries of any period upon the intellectual education of the succeeding period : the influence, that is, of the intellectual achievements of one or two gifted men, at various epochs of the world's history, upon all those persons, in the next succeeding generations, who have aimed to obtain, for themselves or for their children, the highest culture, the best discipline, of which man's intellec- tual faculties are capable. I wish to show that there has been such an influence, and that it has been great at all periods; that is, at all those periods of intellec- tual energy and activity which come within the con- ditions of the terms ; — all periods which have been periods of discovery. I wish to show that this in- fluence has been so great, that its results constitute, at this day, the whole of our intellectual education ; — that in virtue of this influence, intellectual education has been, for those who avail themselves of the means which time has accumulated, progressive ; — that our intellectual education now, to be worthy of the time, ought to include in its compass elements contributed to it in every one of the great epochs of mental energy which the world has seen ; — that in this re- spect, most especially, we are, if we know how to "> oy _ V * ft DE. WHEWELL use our advantages, inheritors of the wealth of all the richest times ; strong in the power of the giants of all ages ; placed on the summit of an edifice which thirty centuries have been employed in building. Perhaps I shall most simply make myself intelli- gible by stating plainly and frankly a proposition which I wish to illustrate by various examples, as it has been exemplified in various ages and countries. The proposition is this : That every great advance in intellectual education has been the effect of some considerable scientific discovery, or group of dis- coveries. Every improvement of the mental disci- pline of those who stand in the forefront of humanity has followed some signal victory of their leaders ; every addition to the means of intellectual culture has been the result of some extraordinary harvest, some more than ordinary bounty of the intellectual soil, bestowed on the preceding years. Without further preface, let us proceed to ex- amples. The first great attempt made for the im- provement of intellectual education, so far as history tells us, was that undertaken and prosecuted with persevering vigour by Socrates and Plato. The aim of those philosophers was, I say, mainly and pecu- liarly, an improvement of the intellectual education of their countrymen. The Athenians of that time, — 1 mean, the more eminent and affluent classes of [6] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. them, — had already an education in a very consider- able degree elaborate, and large and elevated in its promises. The persons by whom this education was, in its higher departments, conducted — the teachers whom Socrates and Plato perseveringly opposed — have been habitually called the Sophists ; because, though at the time their ascendancy was immense, in the course of ages Plato's writings have superseded theirs, and he so describes them. But it has been shown recently, in the most luminous and striking manner, by one among ourselves, that the educa- tion which these teachers professed to give, and fre- quently gave, was precisely what we commonly mean by a good education. It was an education enabling a young man to write well, speak well, and act efficiently, on all ordinary occasions, public and pri- vate. The moral doctrines which they taught, even according to the most unfavourable representation of them, were no worse than the moral doctrines which are most commonly taught among ourselves at the present day, — the morality founded upon utility ; but many of them repudiated this doctrine as sordid and narrow, and professed higher principles, which they delivered in graceful literary forms, some of which are still extant in the books which we put in the hands of the young. Such were the Sophists, against whom Socrates [ 7 ] DK. WHEWELL and Plato carried on their warfare. And why did Socrates and Plato contend against these teachers ; and how was it that they contended so successfully, that the sympathy of all posterity has heen with them in their opposition ? It was because Socrates and Plato sought for solid principles in this specious teach- ing, and found none. It was because, while these professors of speaking well and acting well imparted their precepts to their pupils, and exemplified them by their practice, they could not bear the keen cross- questioning of Socrates, when he tried to make them tell what it was to speak well and to act well ; they could not tell Plato what was that ' First Good, First Perfect, and First Fair/ from which everything else derived goodness, beauty, and perfection. Socrates and Plato were not content with illustrations, they asked for principles ; they were not content with rhetoric, tbey wanted demonstration ; it was not enough for them that these men taught the young Athenian to persuade others, they wanted to have him know, and to know what he knew. These were the demands, as you will many of you recollect, that recur again and again in the Platonic Dialogues. This is the tendency of all the trains of irresistible logic which are put in the mouth of Plato's imagi- nary Socrates. What do we know ? How do we know it ? By what reasoning ? From what princi- [8 ] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. pies ? These questions are perpetually asked. They are never completely answered. The respondent always breaks down at some point or other ; and then Socrates says, with his calm irony, ' How disappoint- ing ! How vexatious ! We are where we were ! We must begin again. We have not yet found what we were seeking. We have not yet got hold of the real and essential truth/ And what was it that had put Socrates and Plato upon this eager and obstinate search of a real and essential truth? How was it they could not be satisfied without it ? Why might not that which had been taught by the wise and eloquent men of previous generations suffice for their generation ? Why must their inquiries go further than the in- quiries of their ancestors had done ? This real and essential truth which they sought, what had put the notion of it into their heads ? What had made them think that such a thing could be found ? Had they seen any example of such truth ; had they seen any specimen of this treasure, which they sought for with so vehement and persevering a quest ? Yes : for this is the point to which I wish to draw your attention ; they had seen specimens of this trea- sure. They had had placed before them examples of real and certain truth ; they had been admitted to contemplate clear and indisputable truths ; truths [9] DR. WHEWELL which they could demonstrate to be true ; truths which they could trace to principles of intuitive evi- dence ; truths which it did not appear to be speaking too highly of, if they called them necessary and eternal. Such truths they had already seen and known ; for they had known some of the truths of geometry. No doubt some of these truths, — the truths of geome- try, — some casual and happy guesses — had been known at a much earlier period. Pythagoras had known that the squares on the two sides of a right angled triangle are equal to the square on the third. But the lore of Pythagoras, imparted in a mysterious manner to an initiated few, had long crept stealthily among the secret societies of the Italian coast, and hardly made its way, in any considerable degree, into Greece, till it was introduced by Plato and his friends. But the age of Plato was an age of great geometrical dis- covery in Greece. The general body of geometry, such as it exists to this dav, was then constructed. Plato himself was an eminent geometer, not only by geometrical discoveries which he made, but still more by his clear and strong perception of the importance of the study. He repeatedly exhorts his fellow- countrymen to pursue this study ; he promises that it shall lead them to a true view of the heavens ; he discerns how this is to be done ; he points out new branches of mathematical science which must be [ io ] OX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. constructed for this purpose ; he repeatedly refers to the Definitions, the Axioms, the Proofs of Geo- metrical Propositions ; he writes over the gate of the gardens of Academus, where his disciples meet to listen to his teaching — OvSeig ajiOfxtrpijTog tlaiTit). 'Let no one enter who is destitute of Geometry/ And why this requirement ? Why this prohibi- tion ? "What was the need of Geometiy for his disciples ? AVhat use was he to make of it ? What inference was he to draw from it when they had it ? Precisely the inference which I have mentioned; — that there was a certain and solid truth ; a knowledge which was not mere opinion ; science which was more than seeming : that man has powers by which such truth, such knowledge, such science, may be ac- quired ; that therefore it ought to be sought, not in geometry alone, but in other subjects also ; that since man can know, certainly and clearly, about straight and curved in the world of space, he ought to know, — he ought not to be content without knowing, — no less clearly and certainly, about right and wrong in the world of human action. That man has such powers, was the beginning of Plato's philosophy. To use them for such purposes was the constant aim of his mental activity. The impression which had been left upon his mind by the geometrical achievements of his con- temporaries, and by those which he himself began, was, [ » 1 DR. WHEWELL that the powers by which such discoveries are made are evidences of the exalted nature of the human mind ; of its vast profundity ; of its lofty destiny. He repeatedly, and with obvious gratification, refers to geometrical truths as evidences of the nature of the human mind, and even of its hope of immor- tality. Since the mind can thus reason to certain truths, it must have in it the principles of truth ; and whence did it derive them ? Since it can know what it has not learned from the senses, it must have some other source of knowledge ; and how much is implied in this ! Since it can conceive and bring forth eternal truths, how can it be the child of a day, a transient creature, born one moment and perishing the next ? Perhaps it may serve to add distinctness to the account I am trying to give you of Plato's teaching, if I give you, in his own way, an example of this teaching of his. It shall be very brief. In Plato's Dialogue, called Meno, Socrates, in discourse with Meno the Thessalian, is trying to discover what Virtue is : and pressing his inquiry from point to point, and finding the truth perpetually escape him, he is led to ask, at last, 'What is meant by dis- covering anything ? Can we do it ? If so, how ¥ And on this, with more of direct assertion than he commonly ventures upon, he declares that we can do ' E » 3 ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. it, and that he will show how we do it. He calls up a young and intelligent boy, an attendant of Meno, and he propounds to him a geometrical problem, simple, yet not quite obvious. He draws a diagram in the sand, and asks him various questions as to the lines which serve to illustrate this problem : and the boy, though at first he says he does not know, is soon led to answer rightly to these interrogations, by his natural apprehension of the relations of space. At every step, Socrates says, ' You see I tell him nothing. He goes on towards the truth, but I do not teach him. He finds it in his own mind. He does not learn from another, he recollects what he has already known. His knowledge is recollection. His science is reminiscence/* This doctrine — that knowledge is recollection, that science is reminiscence — is the main result deduced in the Meno from this geometrical investigation. In that Dialogue, as I have said, the doctrine is applied to illustrate the nature of the discoverv of truth in general. In the Phedo — that Dialogue which has so deeply moved thoughtful men in every age, in which Socrates, standing before the gates of death, reasons with his weeping friends as to what he shall find be- yond them — this same doctrine is employed to warm * This portion of Plato's Dialogue, the Meno, was given briefly in the Lecture, a diagram being exhibited. See the Note. [ <3 ] DR. WHEWELL their hopes and elevate their thoughts. Since, it is argued, the soul thus contains in itself the principles of eternal truth, it must be itself eternal. But it is not with this purpose that I here refer to the use thus made of geometrical reasoning. My object is to establish this view : — that the great step in pure scientific discovery, made by the Greeks of Plato's time, — the construction of a connected and compre- hensive body of geometrical truths, led to the con- viction that geometry was an immensely valuable element in intellectual education. The apprehen- sions of such truths threw a new light upon the nature of all truth, and the means of attaining to it. It was 'seen that, thenceforth, they who were alto- gether ignorant of geometry, were destitute of the best means then known, of showing them what is the genuine aspect of essential truth, — what is the nature of the intellectual vision by which it is seen, — what is the consciousness of intuitive power on which its foundations rest. And thus, in virtue of the geome- trical discoveries of the Platonic epoch, geometry became a part of the discipline of the Platonic school; — became the starting point of the Platonic reformation of the intellectual education of Athens; — became an element of a liberal education. And not only became so then, but has continued so to this day : so that among ourselves, and in every other [ 14 ] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. country of high cultivation, no education is held to be raised on good foundations which does not include geometry, — elementary geometry, at least, — among its component portions. And thus, in our Education, as in our Science, the completest form, in the latest time, includes and assumes the earliest steps of real progress : and this is so, in the one case as in the other, because the one must always depend on the other ; because the progress of Education is affected, at every great and principal step, by the progress of Science. You will not be surprised to be thus told that our modern education has derived something from the ancient Greek education, because you know that our modern science has derived much from the aucient Greek science. You know that our science, in the ordinary sense of the term, has derived little from the ancient Romans ; — little, that is, which is original ; and therefore you will not be surprised, if oiu' educa- tion have derived little from the Roman education. If the fact were so, it would still be a negative illus- tration of the doctrine which I am trying to elucidate; ■ — the dependence of the progress of education on the progress of science. But if we take the term science in a somewhat wider acceptation, we shall derive from the Roman history, not a negative, but a positive exemplification of our proposition. For in that wider [ i5 ] DR. WHEWELL sense, there is a science of which Rome was the mother, as Greece was of geometry and mathematics. The term Science may he extended so widely, as to allow us to speak of the Science of Law — meaning the doctrine of Rights and Obligations, in its most definite and yet most comprehensive form; — in short, the Science of Jurisprudence. In this Science, the Romans were really great discoverers : or rather, it was they who made the subject a Science : — who gave it the precision of a Science, the generality of a science, the method of a Science. And how effectually they did this, we may judge, from the fact that the jurisprudence of Rome is still the basis, the model, the guide, the core of the jurisprudence of every civilized country ; — of our own, less than most, but still, in no small degree, of our own. The imitators and pupils of the Greeks in every other department of human speculation, in jurisprudence, the Romans felt themselves their masters. Cicero says, proudly, but not too proudly, that a single page of a Roman jurist contained more solid and exact matter than a whole library of Greek philosophers. The labours of jurists deserving this character, which thus began before Cicero, continued through the empire, to its fall . — continued even beyond its fall. As Horace tells us that captive Greece captived the conqueror and taught him arts; so Rome subdued, subdued the [ «6 ] OX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. victor hordes, and taught them law. The laws of Rome gave method to the codes of the northern nations, and are the origin of much that is most scientific in the more recent systems of legislation. That general law is a science, we owe to the Romans ; and we in England may be reminded of this, by our inability to translate the Roman word by which this science is described : for though the term, Jus, is the root of jurist, and jurisprudence, and the like, it is, as yet, hardly naturalized in its technical sense, as designating the general Doctrine of Rights and Obli- gations : nor have we any word which has that mean- ing, as Droit has in French, and Recht in German. Here is a great science, then, of which the dis- coverers were the Romans : can we trace, as accord- ing to our view we ought to be able to trace, any corresponding great step in intellectual discipline ? Was jus a prominent part of Roman education ? Is Roman jurisprudence a prominent part in the liberal education in modern times ? To both these questions we must answer most emphatically, Yes. The law of Rome was the main part of the education of the Roman youth. Cicero reminds his brother Quintius, that they had learnt the old laws, and the formula; of legal proceedings, by heart, as a sort of domestic cate- chism or nursery rhyme. Every Roman of eminence spent the early part of his morning in giving legal [ *7 ] C DR. WHEWELL opinions to his clients : — not like onr Justices of the Peace, when appealed to as a magistrate, but as an adviser and protector : and every young member of the aristocracy had to fit himself for this office. Every young Roman of condition was a Roman jurist. And the study of the law, thus made a leading branch of a liberal education, continued so through the middle ages — continues so still. It occupied the great Italian universities — Bologna, Pisa, Padua, and the like — in the darkest parts of the dark ages. It occupies most of the universities of Europe to this day. The Roman law is still the main element of the liberal education of Italy, of Germany, of Greece, and, in some degree, even of France and Spain. In Germany its prevalence has been such, that in recent times all the great moral controversies have been de- bated in the most strenuous and searching manner in terms of the Civil Law ; as the Roman law is still called all over Europe. And we shall hardly doubt, if we look into the matter, that these legal studies have given to the well-educated men of those countries a precision of thought, and an exactness of logic on moral subjects, which, without such a study, would not have been likely to prevail. To define a Right or Obligation, to use proper terms in framing a law, in delivering a judicial sentence, in giving a legal opinion, is precisely the merit of an accomplished [ 18 ] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. jurist; as is emphatically asserted by Cicero. And even our own law, fragmentary and unscientific as it is, is not "without a value of the same kind, as an instrument of a liberal education. It may be a means of giving exactness to the thoughts, method and clearness to the reasoning, precision to the expres- sions of men, on the general interests of man and of society; and is so recommended, and often so em- ployed, by those who are preparing for active life. Of the moral sciences, without spme study of which no education can be complete, the science of juris- prudence is most truly a science, and most effectually a means of intellectual discipline. And, as you see, the use of such discipline in education, dates from the period of that great advance in speculation on moral subjects and social relations, by which jurisprudence became a science. And thus two of the great elements of a thorough intellectual culture, Mathematics and Jurisprudence, are an inheritance which we derive from ages long gone by ; from two great nations ; from the two great nations of antiquity. They are the results of ancient triumphs of man's spirit over the confusion and obscurity of the aspects of the external world ; and even over the waywardness and unregulated impulses of his own nature, and the entanglements and con- flicts of human society. And being true sciences, [.19] C2 DR. WHEWELL they were well fitted to become, as they became, and were fitted to continue, as they have hitherto con- tinued, to be main elements in that discipline by which man is to raise himself above himself; is to raise, — since that is especially what we have now to consider, — his intellect into an habitual condition, superior to the rudeness, dimness, confusion, laxity, insecurity, to which the undisciplined impulses of human thought in all ages and nations commonly lead. And before we proceed any further, let us consider, for an instant, that such an education, consisting of the elements which I have mentioned, might be, and would be, in well conducted cases, an education of no common excellence, even according to our present standard of a good intellectual education. A mind well disciplined in elementary geometry and in general jurisprudence, would be as well prepared as mere discipline can make a mind, for most trains of human speculation and reasoning. The mathematical portion of such an education would give clear habits of logical deduction, and a perception of the delight of demonstration ; while the moral portion of the education, as we may call jurisprudence, would guard the mind from the defect, sometimes ascribed to mere mathematicians, of seeing none but mathematical proofs, and applying to all cases mathematical pro- cesses. A young man well imbued with these, the [ *° 1 ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. leading elements of Athenian and Roman culture, would, we need not fear to say, be superior in intel- lectual discipline to three-fourths of the young men of our own day, on whom all the ordinary appliances of what is called a good education have been bestowed. Geometer and jurist, the pupil formed by this culture of the old world, might make no bad figure among the men of letters or of science, the lawyers and the politicians, of our own times. But there is another remark which I must make, tending to show the defect of this education of anti- quity, as compared with the intellectual, education of our own times ; or rather, as compared with what the education of our own times ought to be. The sub- jects which I have mentioned, geometry and juris- prudence, are both deductive sciences; — sciences in which, from certain first principles, by chains of proof, conclusions are deduced which constitute the doctrines of the science. In the one case, geometry, these first principles are given by intuition; in the other, jurisprudence, they are either rules instituted by authority and consent, or general principles of humau nature and human society, obtained from ex- perience interpreted by our own human conscious- ness. We deduce properties of diagrams from geometrical axioms; we deduce decisions of cases from legal maxims. Jurisprudence, no less than [ » 1 DR. WHEWELL geometry, is a deductive science ; and has been com- pared with geometry, by its admirers, for the exact- ness of its deductive processes. They have said (Leibnitz and others) that jural demonstrations are as fine examples of logic as mathematical; and that pure reason alone determines every expression of a good jurist, no less than of a good mathematician ; so that there is no room for that play of individual character, which shows itself in the difference of style of different authors. But however perfectly the habits of deduction may be taught by these studies, such teaching cannot, according to the enlarged views of modern times, compose a complete intellectual cul- ture. Induction, rather than deduction, is the source of the great scientific truths which form the glory, and fasten on them the admiration of modern times ; and a modern education cannot be regarded as giving to the intellect that culture, which the fulness of time, and the treasures of knowledge now accumulated, render suitable and necessary, except it convey to the mind an adequate appreciation of and familiarity with the inductive process, by which those treasures of knowledge have been obtained. As the best sciences which the ancient world framed supplied the best elements of intellectual education up to modern times ; so the grand step by which, in modern times, science has sprung up into a magnitude and majesty [ " 1 ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. far superior to her ancient dimensions, should exercise its influence upon modern education, and contribute its proper result to modern intellectual culture. Who is to be taken as the representative of the great epoch of the progress of science in modern times ; that is, beginning from the sixteenth century? In different ways, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Newton, may seem best suited to occupy that position. But Galileo's immediate influence was limited, both as to subjects and as to the number of admirers. It was when Descartes summed up into a system the dis- coveries of Galileo and his disciples, and added to them inventions of his own, some true, many capti- vating, that the new physical philosophy acquired a large and vigorous hold upon Europe north of the Alps. In France especially, always eager in its admiration of intellectual greatness, Descartes was unhesitatingly regarded as the great man who brought in a new and more enlightened age of philosophy. Indeed, for a large portion of philosophy, he is still so regarded by French philosophers ; and though his influence in metaphysics is to be distin- guished from his authority in physics, still the ascendancy of his more abstract and general philoso- phical opinions was closely connected with his recog- nised eminence as a physical philosopher, and with the admiration which his system of the universe [ *3 ] DR. WHEWELL obtained. The Cartesian philosophy was the pro- claimed and acknowledged antagonist of the Aris- totelian philosophy ; it was the new truth of which the standard was raised against the old falsehood. Any one accmainted with the French literature of the seventeenth century, will recollect innumerable illus- trations of this view of the matter. You remember, perhaps (as an example), the noted passage in Fonte- nelle's lively dialogues on The Plurality of Worlds. There, the sages of antiquity, the Pythagorases, Platos, Aristotles, are represented as looking at the spectacle of the universe, like so many spectators in the pit of the Opera House looking at the ballet. The subject of the ballet is supposed to be, Phaeton carried away by the winds : and to represent this, the dancer who enacts the part of Phaeton, is made to fly away through the upper part of the scene, to the great admiration of the gazers. The more specu- lative of these attempt to explain this extraordinary movement of Phaeton. One says, ' Phaeton has an occult quality, which carries him away/ This is the Aristotelian. Another says, ' Phaeton is composed of certain numbers, which make him move upwards/ This is the Pythagorean. Another says, ' Phaeton has a longing for the top of the theatre. He is not easy till he gets there/ This is the philosophy which explains the universe by Love and Hate. [ *4 ] OX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. Another says, ( Phaeton has not naturally a tendency to fly; but he prefers flying to leaving the top of the scene empty.' This is the doctrine of the fuga vacui, nature's horror of a vacuum. And after all this, says the speaker, comes Descartes, and some other moderns; and they say, Phaeton goes up, because he is drawn by certain cords, and a weight, heavier than he is, goes down behind the scenes. And in truth, the physical philosophy of Descartes did contain the greater part of the true explanation of the phenomena of the universe, which was known up to this time. It contained the principles of Mechanics, with few errors : the principles of Optics, and the beautiful explanation of the rainbow, in the discovery of which Descartes had so large a share ; and a true system of Astronomy, so far as the mere motions are concerned. And Descartes's peculiar invention, the hypothesis of tourbillons, — vortices or whirlpools of celestial fluid, by which these motions are produced — though false, was not only separable from the other parts of the system, but was capable, by modifications, of expressing many mechanical truths, as the Bernoullis, and other mathematicians who retained it for a century, often showed. In England, as in France, the Cartesian philosophy meant the [Mechanical Philosophy, as opposed to the philosophy of sympathies and antipathies, occult [~5 ] DR. WHEWELL qualities, arbitrary notions of Nature, and the like. The Cartesian philosophy, in this sense, was intro- duced into England ; but I doubt whether the doctrine of vortices was ever accepted here to any considerable extent. It has been made, I may be allowed to say, ignorantly and absurdly made, an accusation against the University of Cambridge, that the Cartesian system found acceptance there. Such an event showed a promptitude in accepting new scientific views, which has repeatedly been exempli- fied there. But I much doubt whether the Cartesian system was ever presented to Cambridge students, without a refutation of the vortices being put in the notes on the same page. Assuredly it was not taught for more than a few years in any other form : but I believe, not at all. And in like manner, in other places, the new mechanical philo- sophy, Cartesian in France, Newtonian in England, rapidly superseded the verbal dogmatism of the middle ages. And with this triumph of the new opinions, as a revolution in science, came the introduction of the new doctrines as a revolution, or extension, in education. The Cartesian philosophy, — in- stantly, in England transformed into the New- tonian philosophy, on the publication of Newton's mighty discoveries, — was eagerly received, from its [ 26 ] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. very first appearance, and incorporated with the ele- ments of a liberal education, both in Newton's own university, and elsewhere. And not only were the new theories of the solar system rapidly diffused, by means of lectures, books, and in other ways; but the principles by which such theories are collected from observation, — the principles of that induction, on which this great fabric of science rests, — became objects of attention, respect, and praise. Bacon, with his majestic voice. — the trumpeter who stirred up the battle, as he himself calls himself, — had already prepared men's minds for this feeling of respect and admiration for inductive discovery, even while the movement was only beginning : and in this country at least, many persons, Gilbert, Cowley, and others, had reechoed the sentiment which he expressed. He had declared that knowledge, far more ample and complete than had yet been obtained by man, was to be gained by the use of new methods of investigation : and the succeeding time, having produced noble examples of such know- ledge, had made men see that they had entered upon a new epoch of science. And it was natural and desirable that in this, as in other cases, the possession of a body of new truths, and the admi- ration of the method by which these had been acquired, should operate upon the culture of the [ *7 ] DR. WHEWELL intellect, among those -who sought the best means of such culture ; — should introduce new elements into liberal education ; — should make it a part of the mental discipline of the best taught classes, that they should learn to feel the force and see the beauty of inductive reasoning; as the older elements of a liberal education, mathematics and jurispru- dence, had been employed, among other uses, to make men feel the force, and see the beauty, of deductive reasoning. And thus we are naturally led to ask, Has this been done ? Has education in its most advanced form been thus extended ? Is there, in the habitual culture of the intellect, in the best system of educa- tion, this cultivation of the habit, or at least of the appreciation, of inductive teaching in science ? How is such culture to be effected ? How are Ave to judge whether it has been effected ? These are very large questions, and yet the time admonishes me, if nothing else did, that I must be very brief in any answers that I may give to them. I must content myself with a hint or two bearing upon the subject. And first, of the mode in which this culture of the inductive habit of mind, or at least appreciation of the method and its results, is to be promoted ; if I might presume to give an opinion, I should say that one obvious mode of effect- [ *s ] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. ing this discipline of the mind in induction is, the exact and solid study of some portion of inductive knowledge. I do not mean the . mechanical sciences alone, Physical Astronomy and the like ; though these undoubtedly have a prerogative value as the instru- ments of such a culture ; but the like effect -will be promoted by the exact and solid study of any portion of the circle of natural sciences ; — Botany, Compara- tive xVnatomy, Geology, Chemistry, for instance. But I say, the exact and solid knowledge ; not a mere verbal knowledge, but a knowledge which is real in its character, though it may be elementary and limited in its extent. The knowledge of which I speak must be a knowledge of things, and not merely of names of things ; an acquaintance with the opera- tions and productions of nature, as they appear to the eye, not merely an acquaintance with what has been said about them ; a knowledge of the laws of nature, seen in special experiments and observations, before they are conceived in general terms ; a knowledge of the types of natural forms, gathered from indi- vidual cases already made familiar. By such study of one or more departments of inductive knowledge, the mind may escape from the thraldom and illusion which reigns in the world of mere words. But there is another study which I may venture to mention, of a more general and literary kind, also [ 29 ] DR. WHEWELL eminently fitted to promote an appreciation of the nature and value of the inductive treatment of nature. I mean, the History of the Natural Sciences ; for in such history we see how, in the study of every portion of the universe, the human mind has ascended from particular facts to general laws; and yet in every different class of phenomena, by processes very dif- ferent, at first sight at least. And I mention this study, of the history of science, and especially recom- mend it, the rather, because it supplies, as I con- ceive, a remedy for some of the evils which, along with great advantages, may result from another study which has long been, and at present is, extensively employed as an element of a liberal education — I mean the study of Logic. The study of Logic is of great value, as fixing attention upon the conditions of deductive proof, and giving a systematic and tech- nical view of the forms which such proof may assume. But by doing this for all subjects alike, it produces the impression that there is a close likeness in the process of investigation of truth in different subjects ; — closer than there really is. The examples of reasoning given in books of Logic are generally so trifling as to seem a mockery of truth-seeking, and so monotonous as to seem idle variations of the same theme. But in the History of Science, we see the infinite variety of nature ; of mental, no less than [ 3° ] OX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. bodily nature ; of the intellectual as well as of the sensible world. The modes of generalization of par- ticulars, — of ascent from the most actual things to the most abstract ideas, — how different are they in botany, in chemistry, in geology, in physiology ! yet all most true and real ; all most certain and solid ; all of them genuine and indisputable lines of union and connexion, by which the mind of man and the facts of the universe are bound together; by which the universe becomes a sphere with intellect for its centre ; by which intellect becomes in no small degree able to bend to its purposes the powers of the universe. The history of science, showing us how this takes place in various forms, — ever and ever new, when they seem to have been exhausted, — may do, and carefully studied, must do, much to promote that due appre- hension and appreciation of inductive discovery : and inductive discovery, now that the process has been going on with immense vigour in the nations of Europe for the last three hundred years, ought, we venture to say, to form a distinct and prominent part of the intel- lectual education of the youth of those nations. And having said this, I have given you the ultimate result of the reflections which have occurred to me on this subject of intellectual education, on which I have ventured to address you. And here, therefore, I might [TJITIYBI ** DR. WHEWELL conclude. But if it did not weary you, T should wish to make a remark on the other of the two ques- tions which I asked a little while ago. I then asked how is such a culture to be effected ? and also, how are we to judge whether it has been effected ? With regard to the latter question, the remark which I have to make is briefly this. — In the inductive sciences, every step of generalization is usually marked by some word, which, adopted to mark that step, acquires thenceforth a fixed and definite meaning ; and is always to be used in the sense so given it, not in any other way in which other resem- blances or incidents may suggest. A.nd the definition of technical ivords in inductive science, is contained in the history of the science ; is given by the course of previous research and discovery. ' The history of science is our dictionary ; the steps of scientific in- duction are our definitions.' Now this being so, we may remark that when we hear a man, in the course of an argument, asking for Definitions, as something by which error is to be avoided and truth learned, such a demand is evidence that his intellectual training has been deductive, not inductive — logical, not scientific. In geometry, and in other demon- strative sciences, Definitions are the beginning of the science — the fountains of truth. But it is not so in the inductive sciences. In such sciences, a Definition [32 ] OX INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. and a Proposition commonly enter side by side — the definition giving exactness to the proposition ; the proposition giving reality to the definition. But further : — as technical terms, appropriate to a precise and steady sense, mark every step of inductive ascent in science, the exact and correct use of the tech- nical terms of science is evidence of good inductive culture of the mind ; and a vague and improper use of such terms, is evidence of the absence of such cul- ture. When we hear men speak, as we often do, of impetus and momentum, of gravity and inertia, of centripetal and centrifugal force, and the like, using the terms mostly by guess, — and assuming oppositions and relations among them which do not exist ; — as, for instance, when they oppose the centrifugal and cen- tripetal force, as if they were forces in the same sense; — we cannot help saying that such persons, however ingenious and quick they may be in picking a possible meaning out of current words, by means of their etymology, or any other casual light, have not the habit of gathering the meaning of scientific words from the only true light, the light of induction. And this remark may not be without a special use, if we recollect that there are at present a num- ber of scientific words current among us, which are applied with the most fantastical and wanton vague- [ 33 ] » ness of meaning, or of no meaning. - - all periods of science, probably, scientific terms are liable to this abuse, after scientific discoveries have brought them into notoriety, and before the diffusion of science Las made their true meaning to be gene/afly apprehended. The names, indeed, of attract gravitation, and the like, hare probably now risen, in a great degree, out of this sphere of confusion and obscuritT, in which anv word mar mean anv- thing. But there are words — belonging to sciences which have more recently reached scientific dignity. — which words every one pursuing fancies which are f the sphere of science, seems to think he may use just as he pleases. Magnetism and Elec- tricity, and the terms which belong to these sciences, are especially taken possession of for such purposes, and applied in cases in which we know that the sciences from which the names are ' conveyed 3 have not the smallest application- Is Animal Magnet- ism anything Let those answer who think they can : but we know that it is not Magnetism. When I say &e, I mean those who are in the habit of seeing in this place the admirable esiibitions of what Mag- netism is, with which you have long been familiar . And assuredly, on the same ground, I imv .bat you have been shown, and know, what Electricity >. and what it can do ; and what it cannot do, and what [34] ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. is not Electricity. And having had the opportunity of seeing this, you, at least, have so much of the culture of the intellect which inductive science sup- plies, as not to suppose that your words would have any meaning, if you were to say of any freak of fancy or will, shown in bodily motion or muscular action, that it is a kind of Electricity. NOTE TO p. 13. EXTRACT FKOM THE ' MENO' OF PLATO. S. Tell me, boy, do you know that this figure is a square ? — B. Yes, I know. S. Because all these four lines are equal (its sides) ? — B. Yes. S. And also these other two lines are equal, which are drawn across the middle ? (the diagonals.) — B. Yes. S. May there be a square greater or less than this ? — B. Yes. S. May there be a square twice as great as this ? — B. Yes. S. How long must one side be, that the square may be twice as great ?__ B. Twice as long as the side of the first square. You see, Socrates says, I tell him nothing, I only ask him questions. And now he thinks he has answered right. But I must revive his recollection, that he may see his error. — So you say that the square on a double line will be double of the first square ? You know I mean a square, not a figure that is long one way and narrow the other ; but as broad as it i.s long, like this square, only twice as large. Now let us fit to one end of the first square, a second square which is equal to it. And let us fit two other squares of the same size to the sides of those two squares. Then we have a new square, have we not ? — B. Yes. [ 35 ] DR. WHEWELL ON INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. S. And how many times is it greater than the first square ? — B. Eour times greater. S. Not twice as great, which you said 1 — B. No : four times. S. Well : but how long must the line be that the square upon it may be twice as great as the first square 1 — B. I do not know. Now, says Socrates, mark, that out of this not knowing, he will come to know, by seeking with me, just as he comes to know when I question him without my telling him anything. You will see that I do not give him my opinion, I only get at his. — If we draw a line across this first square, from corner to corner, (the diagonal), it cuts it into two equal parts, does it not ? — B. Yes. 3o] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. tenacity of purpose not to be turned aside by the difficulties which everywhere beset his path. And it is well for the student thus to obtain a timely warning, that such is the general case with genius, not merely when occupied in the walks of science, but also in every other branch of mental exertion — exem- plified equally in a Davy, and a Liebig, as in a Fox, and a Sheridan ; for that, by the same law which is found to prevail over the physical organization of man's nature, although we may digest, assimilate, and combine, with different degrees of facility, the materials placed within our reach, we cannot, in a strict sense create them ; and, accordingly, that no intellect, however vigorous — no imagination, however prolific — can operate to any good purpose, unless it has drawn largely from the intellectual stores of others, as well as from those accumulated by its own experience and observation. It is thus that the majestic Aloe, which pushes forth innumerable blossoms in a single day, has had the materials which enabled it to achieve so astonishing: an effort stored up within its cells by a long-continued process of assimilation, in readiness on the first favourable opportunity to become rapidly developed into an exuberance of flowers and of fruit. The establishment of the doctrine of atoms affords [ i3> ] M DR. DAUBENY another striking instance of a number of minute, trivial, and apparently only technical investigations concurring to bnilcl up a theory which, as Sir John Herschel has truly said, is perhaps, after the laws of mechanics, the most important which the study of human nature has yet disclosed — a truth, indeed, which had occupied the minds of the first philosophers of antiquity, but which it was reserved for the experi- mentalists of the present age fully to substantiate. Depending as it does on questions involving chiefly minute differences in weight and volume, it might seem at first sight to owe more to the skill of the balance-maker, and to the eye and hand of the ope- rator, than to the sagacity which availed itself of the one, and which directed the other; but those who take this low view of the matter should be reminded, that the father of the atomic theory himself was by no means famous for skill in manipulating, but derived most of his success from his penetration in interpreting, and in combining together the facts of others. This association of minute details, with grand generalisations, will serve to show that Chemistry wields a weapon, like the trunk of the elephant, which can pick up a needle and uproot an oak ; or may be compared to the Genie of the Eastern fable, who, although rather a dangerous and unruly servant [ 13* ] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. when directed by rash or ignorant masters, would stoop to the homeliest, and accomplish the most stupendous labours, when brought under the domi- nion of the Lamp. Nor, indeed, is Chemistry without its region of romance, even now that it has emancipated itself from the fictions of the Alchemist, and from the mysticism of the Rosicrusian philosophy. The Philosopher who, by the aid of his crucible and his balance, can thus obtain glimpses of the ulti- mate constitution of matter — who can pronounce Avith so much confidence on the relative weight and volume of corpuscles too minute, not only to be recognised by the senses, but even to be conceived by the ima- gination — who can render it probable that many substances which defy our powers of analysis, are nevertheless compounds, and have been made to reveal their elements to a subtler alchemy than that of actual experiment — invests his subject, I conceive, in some degree, with the same attributes of grandeur and sublimity which we associate with the contemplation of the great works of external nature. Let me remind you, for instance, of the specula- tions which are naturally suggested by considering the mutual convertibility of the several imponderable [ 133 ] M 2 DR. DAUBEXY agents, light, heat, electricity, magnetism ; and by the relation of them all to mechanical force.* Let me bring before you those suggestions of my late friend Dr. Prout, as to the probability of all elementary bodies being exact multiples of hydrogen, to the realisation of which idea we seem to be brought nearer by every year's additional experience. f And let me, by reference to the Table suspended in the roorn,;j; point out to you the still further rela- tion which can be traced between the numbers representing the atomic weights of several of these elements — relations which, as some of you may recol- lect, induced Mons. Dumas, at the Ipswich meeting of the British Association, two years ago, to place certain of them in groups, each consisting of three members, and to conjecture that one of each triad might be a compound of the other two. This, however, as has been pointed out in an in- genious paper by a young American chemist,^ from * See Mr. Grove's Pamphlet on The Correlation of Physical Forces. -j- It has been suggested in the paper of the American chemist re- ferred to just below, that the deviations from this rule, which still appear to exist in certain elements, may not always arise from error in experiment (although this is in most cases a sufficiently plausible expla- nation), but may hereafter be found to be a secondary result of the very caiise which has determined the distribution of the atomic weights ac- cording to a numerical law, just as the perturbations in astronomy are a necessary consequence of the very law they seemed at first to invalidate. + See Table 1. Of the Relations between certain Elementary Bodies. § Mr. Cooke, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard College, in Cambridge, U.S. [ <34] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. whom I have borrowed the Table just referred to, may probably be considered as an imperfect and partial view of the subject ; and, it must be confessed, that in the existing state of our knowledge many hypo- theses might be framed, all quite as plausible as that of the French philosopher.* Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied, after inspect- ing the above Table, that there are really some remarkable relations between the atomic weights of those elements which are most nearly connected with each other by the circumstances of homology and of isomorphism, that is, by the similar proportions in which they respectively combine with other bodies, and by the similar crystallization of the resulting products. These relations, indeed, admit of being expressed algebraically, in the case, at least, of some groups which have been most thoroughly investigated, just as may be done with reference to organic compounds, as may be seen by the Table of the Fatty Acids, f which is placed by the side of the one before re- ferred to. * I cannot, however, admit the soundness of Mr. Cooke's sug- gestion, that the atoms of the nine series are formed of an atom of oxygen as a nucleus, with the addition of one or more groups of atoms, each weighing nine, to which the corresponding element has not yet been discovered ! We know that cyanogen, one of the series, is not so formed, for it is a compound of N 1 C 2, and as such, has been excluded from the list of bodies belonging to the nine series, although its atomic weight is 8 + n =2. + See Table II. [ -35 ] DR. DAUBENY Hence there would seem in this respect to be an analogy between the simple radicals of inorganic bodies and the compound ones which are recognised as existing in Organic Chemistry, each member of the latter group being formed by the addition of C 2 H 2 , or a multiple of the same, to the atoms composing the lowest member in the series, namely, formic acid. We may also detect in both instances a similar increase in density in proportion to the increase of atomic weight. Thus, in the former class of bodies, if we take the series of nines, oxygen is gaseous at all known temperatures and pressures ; chlorine becomes liquid under four atmospheres; bromine is a volatile liquid at common temperatures; iodine, whose atomic weight is highest, exists as an easily volatilizable solid. And in like manner, in the latter class of bodies, we find a transition from formic acid and methylic alcohol, substances of great volatility and low atomic weight, to the fatty acids, and to ethal, which are dense solids. These generalisations, indeed, must not be allowed to warp our experimental conclusions ; but they are eminently suggestive, and may be looked upon as ex- amples of what may be termed the poetry of science, which is not without its use amongst the means of education, if only, like other poetry, it serves to impart a livelier conception of the beauty and har- [ 136 ] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMIST1IY. moiiy of creation, by affording experimental proof of that which the earliest sages of antiquity regarded as intrinsically probable, namely, that God had ' ordered all things in measure, number, and weight.' Trav-a /ttrpw Kai apiO/mo kcii araQfiio ^ierat,ag. The study of Chemistry seems to me also pecu- liarly adapted to initiate the youthful mind in the office of tracing the natural affinities betwixt bodies, and thus to induce methodical and systematic views of that subordination of properties which is the basis of all classification. This is a service not to be rendered by the mathe- matical sciences, which proceed upon exact defini- tions, and habituate the mind to reject whatever does not come within the scope of rigorous deduction. For the relations between natural objects are based, not upon mutual identity, but upon degrees of re- semblance ; and the characters of each of them pass by such imperceptible gradations into the next in the series, that every classification must, to a certain extent, be considered arbitrary, inasmuch as the limits of the divisions recognised can never be strictly defined. Thus the class of metals graduates into that of the simple combustibles through the intervening links of sulphur and selenium ; the acids into the bases [ '37 1 DR. DAUBENY through alumina; the supporters of combustion into the combustibles through sulphur and phosphorus ; the electrics into conductors through the fibre of the nerves and muscles of animals. The study of organic types, introduced by Dumas, and extended by Laurent and Gerhardt, may also initiate the mind in the idea which serves as a key to all the arrangements in the natural sciences — an idea which will be equally serviceable in grouping together the facts concerning our moral nature and the ordinary transactions of life, namely, that of adopting for our classification of bodies some cha- racter of primary importance, whilst we neglect those minor differences which must ever exist between one individual object and another. Chemistry also appears to be calculated to afford useful lessons in the art of nomenclature. In no other of the sciences has so perfect a speci- men of this kind been exhibited as by Guy ton Morveau, in his adaptation of the names of chemical substances to the theory of Lavoisier ; and although the newer views entertained with respect to the nature of the combinations then recognised may have ren- dered some part of this nomenclature inappropriate, yet its original merits may be estimated by the fact, that no modifications in it have been proposed except what were forced upon us by changes in theory, and [ 138] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. that the principal attempts at nomenclature since made, have been rather extensions of the rules laid down in this scheme, than a substitution of any new principle for the one which had served for their basis.* But it is time to hasten on to the second branch of my subject — namely, the propriety of making Chemistry a part of that kind of primary instruction which aims at imparting a certain amount of general information to the youthful mind. The crude notions so currently entertained with respect to what is called General Knowledge have created a prejudice against this Department of Educa- tion, which has induced many to contend that the sole aim of the latter is to train and develop the powers of the understanding. * I would not defend the practice of affixing to simple substances names founded upon theoretical considerations, but conceive that, in the case of compound ones, it was a great gain to science, when Lavoisier substituted for the arbitrary designations then in use, words which at least indicated those ingredients by the union of which the bodies in question were commonly prepared. That oil of vitriol is obtained by combining sulphur with oxygen, and Glauber salt by brineine together sulphuric acid and soda, are facts sufficient to jus- tify the names of sulphuric acid and of sulphate of soda assigned to these bodies ; and their truth remains as before, whether we regard them with Lavoisier, respectively S 3 + H O, and S 3 +Na ; or S0 4+H, and SO-l+Na, as the Binary Theory represents them. Nor would the facts be altered, even if the latter \ iew of the constitution of salts, which is now in favour, were hereafter to be superseded by some other more plausible hypothesis. L *39 ] DE. DAUBEXY Nevertheless, although nothiDg can be more ab- surd than to encumber the youthful mind with a heap of heterogeneous facts, without connexion one with the other, without interest to the pupil, and without any reference to his peculiar genius or future des- tination ; yet it cannot be doubted, that the period set apart for education is the one best fitted for storing up in the mmd materials for thought, as well as those general principles and laws of the moral and physical world which are likely to be called into requisition in the course of his future life. This, indeed, is acknowledged to be the case with reference to what concerns man as an individual and as a member of society; on which accounts the events of history, the laws and constitution of our own country, and the principles of the philosophy of the human mind, hold a prominent part in every system of education. But is it not also important, whatever our pupil's destination may be, that he should not leave us in entire ignorance of the laws and constitution of the objects that surround him — his companions from the cradle to the grave — bodies with which he will be brought into contact, as agents of good or of evil, at every moment of his existence ? And if the vast extent of the field thus opened be pleaded as a reason for limiting the student's range [ r 4° ] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. to particular branches of physical inquiry, those sciences, which lie at the root of all our knowledge of the material world, and without some insight into which our acquaintance with individual facts must be merely empirical, unquestionably deserve the pre- ference. Now, if we classify the different departments of Natural Science, as I have done in the Table sus- pended in the room,* it will be manifest, that the more fundamental ones, occupying the first division in the scheme submitted, will be those which comprise a knowledge of — * NATURAL SCIENCE INCLUDES, AS PRIMARY, OR FUNDAMENTAL BRANCHES, A KNOWLEDGE OP The properties common to all matter — Physics . . • J T 1 • • t 'al The properties distinctive of Bodies in general — ■ j Inorganic. Chemistry . . ( Organic. The properties distinctive of living Bodies in particular ( Vegetable. — Physiology \ Animal. AS SPECIAL OR SUBORDINATE BRANCHES, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF r Of the Atmosphere . . Meteorology. Inorganic bodies, viz. , -J Of the Earth and its con- L. tents Mineralogy. Lithology. Geological Dy- namics. Palasontology. (Of Vegetables. . j Systematic Botan y. rv_ • i_ j- • i / Orffanoffrapny. Organic bodies, viz., < \ v °i I r\e a • 1 Zoology. ( Of Animals . . . < . . °„ v ( Anatomy. [ '41 ] DR. DAUBENY I. the general laws common to all matter what- soever. 2ndly. the special properties and relations of those bodies, which are either most familiar to us, most useful, or most generally diffused throughout nature, so far as they are not influenced by vital forces. 3rdly. the general laws which govern life, both as it exists in the animal and in the vegetable kingdom. Of these, the first named is termed mechanical philosophy, or physics ; the second is included under chemistry; the third under general physiology.* With regard to those other departments of natural science, which often enter, to a certain extent, into a scheme of popular education, it may be remarked, that in so far as they are parts, not of natural history, but of philosophy, they are to be regarded simply as expansions of, or as deductions from, one or other of the primary ones before cited; and therefore cannot be acquired, except as mere aggregates of undigested facts, until a knowledge of some one at least of the above fundamental sciences has been attained. Thus let us take the case of geology, and suppose our pupil, just emancipated from school or college, to * See this explained in a pamphlet of mine, entitled, Brief Re- marks on the Correlation of the Natural Sciences. Oxford : Vincent, 1848. [ i4>] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. find himself at the foot of a volcano, and to witness some of the more striking manifestations of subter- ranean energy there exhibited. Sublime and impres- sive as the spectacle may be, how entirely will lie be in the dark, not only as to the cause of the movement, but even as to the nature of the phenomena which he witnesses, if unaided by chemistry. What will he know of the constitution of the substances ejected, of the gases and vapours evolved, or of the condition of the surface overspread by these volcanic materials, which is sometimes so favourable, at other times so unpropitions to vegetation ? With how much more abiding an interest will he contemplate the phenomena, when he views them in connexion with any chemical hypothesis, which, how- ever conjectural, as every hypothesis must be which relates to processes going on so far beyond the limits of human observation, professes at least to account for the particular events that come before him, as well as for the order of their sequence. Or let him turn his steps to a country where ex- tensive rocks are forming, not by igneous forces, but by slow deposition from water, as in the Travertine of Italy, of which the most celebrated temples of Rome, as well as those of Psestum, are constructed. How much greater interest will he feel in them, when, by the lights of chemistry, he traces the action which [ 143 ] DR. DAUBENY had brought about their deposition, the relation which they bear to stratified rocks of older formation, and the probable source of the carbonic acid which communi- cated its solvent power to the waters of the district. Or suppose him to direct his attention to those branches of natural history which relate to living beings, and to concern himself, not merely in the external forms of animals or plants, but also in then structure and functions. Such inquiries will make him acquainted with the law of Endosmose, which, as the physiologist will in- form him, is seen in operation during every process of secretion and excretion which takes place in the animal or vegetable kingdom, but which the chemist will trace to the still more widely operating law of Diffusion, which is seen alike in gases and in liquids, in organic and in inorganic bodies, as the late researches of Liebig and of Graham have explained to us. Or if the occurrence of one of those epidemics, which have of late years been so frequent, should call his attention to the laws of contagion, even here the most philosophical explanation of the spread of the disease may be afforded him by the suggestions of a chemist, who has traced a very close analogy between the propagation of miasmata in the animal organism, and the transmission of the fermentative process in fluids susceptible of change from one to the other; [ *44 ] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. referring both to a law common alike to living and to dead matter, which renders any motion set up in one compound liable to extend itself to others, whose parti- cles are in a similar condition of unstable equilibrium. It will be seen that I have drawn my examples from subjects which at first sight appear to be as far removed as possible from the jurisdiction of Chemistry, for it seemed to me needless to remind the audience I am addressing, that a Science which embraces under its consideration all those properties which are not either common to all bodies whatsoever, or, on the other hand, attributable to the agency of the vital prijiciple, must be indispensable to the due under- standing — of the processes of the manufactures — of the operations of agriculture — of all the changes, in short, in the material world, which take place through the instrumentality either of art or of nature. I need not, therefore, detain you with discussing a truth so self-evident ; but will proceed to consider how far the study of this science can, without un- duly displacing others, be made to constitute a part of the education of the different classes of society. And first, with respect to that of the lower orders — upon which, however, I should hardly venture to pro- nounce, if I were not backed by the authority of [ '45 ] DE. DAUBEXY others, who have made this subject their particular study, and especially the Dean of Hereford, whose diligence and success in organising schemes of secular education for the people are now fully appreciated. There are many subjects upon which a knowledge of a few elementary facts in Chemistry will not only supply food for the mind, but also convey useful prac- tical hints to the labouring population of our towns and villages. I may mention amongst the rest, economy with regard to the selection of food, and its preparation for human subsistence by the modes of cooking in common use — provisions for the better ventilation of cottages, and for their sanitary condition generally — instruction with respect to handicraft work and various mechanical occupations — information with respect to the different qualities of water, and its relative fitness for washing and drinking purposes. The Dean has pointed out, with how veiy simple and inexpensive an apparatus the village schoolmaster may demonstrate some of the leading truths which illustrate these several heads of information, and thus impress them more vividly upon the minds of his pupils than could be clone by mere oral instruction. If from the lowest class of society we pass on to those higher in the scale, who are designed for various [ 146 ] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. trades and manufactures, for the pursuits of agricul- ture, or for the inferior grades in the professions of law and medicine; we shall see reasons for recommend- ing to them the study of chemistry, both as a disci- pline for the mind, and also as the basis of much useful and practical knowledge. In their case, the necessity of commencing at an early age the active business of life, precludes the pos- sibility of entering deeply into the mathematics, and therefore renders it more important, that the gap should be supplied by the study of a science, which may, to a certain extent, supply its place, by training and developing the mental faculties. The pupil, if agriculture is to be his future calling, will learn from chemistry how to economise his manures; how to bring the land in a condition to impart its latent resources to the crop ; how to supply what is necessary for the growth of the plant he cul- tivates. Without superseding the necessity of experience, or of that vigilant survey of his farming operations, which of all requisites is the one most essential to success, science will be valuable both in suggesting new modes of culture, and in enlightening him as to the causes of failure, when the ordinary system of operations has chanced to disappoint his ex- pectations. [ HZ ] N DR. DAUBENY We have heard, indeed, of cases, where, after the scientific man has corrected the practical, the result has proved the latter to have been in the right ; but in those instances it has generally turned out upon inquiry, that the error was to be attributed to the imperfection of our knowledge, and that the correction must be applied by a more complete scientific inves- tigation of the subject. Thus, the chemist has often reprobated the practice adopted in some of the western counties of adding quick lime to manure-heaps, as tending to dissipate the ammonia disengaged before it could influence the crop. Lately, however, we have been reminded, that nitric acid, as well as ammonia, is produced during the process of animal putrefaction, and that the former, instead of being dissipated, would be only more effectually fixed by the application of an alka- line earth to the substances containing it. The practice, therefore, is not so improper as it had appeared from theory to be ; but the practical man should nevertheless be reminded, that the aid of chemistry is required to enlighten him under what conditions the first or the second of these products is elicited,* so that he may learn when lime may be added with advantage, and when with loss, Probably indeed, in the west-country practice * See Kuhlman's Papers on the production of Nitre. [ 148 ] ON THE STUDY OF CHKMISTHY. alluded to, the addition of an absorbing substance to the manure-heap may serve to counteract the bad effects of the quick lime, even where ammonia is the principal product ; but the farmer, who should imitate this practice without understanding- the conditions upon which its success depends, would be very likely to omit these accessories, and thus to bring about an opposite result. With regard to the applications of Chemistry to the useful arts, the instances of it are so numerous and so familiar to all, that it seems needless to insist upon the advantages of its study to all who are destined for such employments; and it is equally clear, that, for those who intend to make the healing art, in any of its branches, their future profession, a more than superficial knowledge of it is all but indispensable. I proceed, then, to consider, how far Chemistry deserves a place in that more complete system of education which is designed for the learned Professions, as well as for the higher Orders of Society in general. My recommending it as a fit study for the middling and the lower Classes, would alone render it impera- tive upon me to impose it upon the upper — for under the circumstances of the present age, and in this country more especially, the maintenance of a superior [ 149 ] N 2 DR. DAUBENY position, and of superior moral influence, involves the necessity of superior mental culture. The idea of imparting a special direction to the primary education of youth, in accordance with their respective rank or future destination, is not only in itself unphilosophical, but also in manifest contra- diction* to the principle which has always guided us in our schools and colleges — namely, that of exacting from all for whom a liberal education is designed, the same basis of classical and mathematical learning. And the adoption of an opposite principle, by the exclusion from the curriculum of any study which is admitted as an integral part of the training given to the people at large, must tend to the isolation of the class to which it is applied, and consequently weaken its connexion with those below it. In a Protestant community, for example, the legi- timate influence of the priest over the laity can only be duly maintained, by the ascendancy of his charac- ter, and by the extent of his information with re- spect to subjects on which the people with whom he mixes are able to estimate his superiority. By enlightening them on common matters, in which a little knowledge of Chemistry will afford them such material assistance, and thereby becoming * See Davison's Remarks on this subject, and Father Newman's Discourses on University Education, p. 241, et seq. OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. the instrument of enabling them to better their own condition, and to economise their means of living, he paves his way to their confidence on subjects more strictly appertaining to his sacred profession. There seems to me also to be a peculiar propriety in thus intercalating a somewhat fluctuating, though advancing science, like Chemistry, in a course of education, the principal elements of which, such as the mathematics or the literature of past ages, are little susceptible of change. A study of this description familiarizes the pupil with the idea of progress ; it exercises a distinct set of faculties, just as a new gymnastic exercise calls into play a new set of muscles ; and it guards against that stagnation which is apt to supervene, when the mind is chiefly made the passive recipient of truths which rest upon authority. To those, indeed, who regard a knowledge of what other men have said and done the sole aim of education, the example of the Chinese may serve as an instructive warning. We here see a nation which has retrograded in the scale of civilisation, in consequence of having reposed entirely upon the wisdom of its ancestors; of following implicitly those principles in the arts which had been handed down to it from an early period; [ <5> J DE. DAUBENY and of occupying its learned leisure chiefly in pon- dering over the intricacies of a language which it would seem to require the labour of a life fully to master. It must indeed be confessed, in justice to this people, that they had a better excuse for their tenacity in adhering to their ancient paths, than other nations would be able to plead. Long before Europe had emerged from barbarism, China was in possession of the art of printing, of gun- powder, and of the mariner's compass — her popu- lation was clad in silks, a royal luxury even in the days of Queen Elizabeth — had perfected the manu- facture of porcelain — and had brought agriculture and many of the industrial arts to a high pitch of perfec- tion. Her vast empire eujoyed a patriarchal govern- ment ; an aristocracy founded only upon the en- lightened principle of intellectual superiority, tested by public competition ; a complete system of internal communication by roads and canals; and a code of laws, which, viewed even by the lights of the present day, is considered by good judges to savour through- out of practical sagacity and European good sense. Is it to be wondered at, that surrounded as she was with hordes of mere savages, and receiving no favourable report, if any, of nations more distant, China should have over-estimated both her material [ '5- ] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. and her intellectual superiority, and should have imagined that in her palmy condition change was the only danger against which she had to guard ? And vet, after ten centuries of stagnation, what is the spectacle this nation presents to us ? a population at once effeminate and degraded, inferior to ourselves even in those industrial arts, on which they chiefly plume themselves, and incapable of adopting to any extent the inventions of other nations — a monied class sordid and sensual — and a body of Literati in- different to all abstract science, and curious only on points of information which promise some palpable and immediate end of utility. It is of course foreign from my intention to compare the philosophy of Confucius with that of Aristotle, or the literary productions of a Mongolian nation with those which emanated from the highest type of intellect which the human race probably has ever developed j but the evil consequences I have pointed out seem to me to have arisen, not so much from the inferior character of the models held out for them to copy, as from their senile adherence to them. 'Truth/ says Milton, 'is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain ; if her waters flow not in a per- petual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition ;' and all experience will serve to show, that wherever due provision has not [ '53 ] DR. DAUBENY been made for advancement, the seeds of decay are sure to find admittance. Hence, if on the one hand it be useful to impress upon the mind a reverence for the great lights that have illumined the walks of learning in former periods of the world; it is not less desirable on the other that some of the studies pursued in early youth should have a tendency to encourage an independent search after Truth, and to induce the habit of interrogating nature as well as of leaning upon the traditions of men. With these sentiments, it may be supposed that I am not prepared to defend the system pursued in my own university till within the last two years, which consisted in merely securing the delivery of lectures on Chemistry for the sake of those who might desire, of their own accord, to improve themselves in that science, without holding out any encouragement to its prosecution, or treating the subject as though it were considered in any sense an integral part of our scheme of education. In these respects, however, Chemistry was at least in no worse position than other branches of physical science, or even than the history and philosophy of modern times, no one of which studies was insisted upon, or even promoted amongst us by academical distinctions or emoluments. The defenders of this exclusive system might, in- [ <54] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. deed, appeal to the long train of distinguished men whom the university had sent forth, as a practical proof of its efficacy in refining and expanding the mental powers; and I am far from disputing the posi- tion, that, supposing the attention of youth required to he limited to one description of literature, the great writers of antiquity deserve in many respects a preference over those of later times. There is a simple grandeur, an absence of all affectation and straining after effect, a native vigour and freshness about the early Greek writers in particular, which seem better calculated to win the sympathies of youth, and to induce habits of just thinking and correct taste, than the more elaborate and recondite productions of men of modem days. The faults, as well as the beauties of these authors, are those of precocious youth ; and if we were to suppose a Being of a superior order to man to appear upon our globe, although his matured intellect might strike out deeper truths, and teem with loftier imagi- nations, his earlier thoughts might be imagined to find their most appropriate expression in the lan- guage of Homer or of Herodotus. Nevertheless, the advocates of a purely classical education appear to have overlooked certain consi- derations which are not without weight in arriving at a right conclusion on such a subject. [ 155 ] DR. DAUBEXY In the first place, as I have already remarked, it is desirable to train and develop the faculty, of minutely observing, of clearly apprehending, and of correctly classifying the objects that present them- selves ; talents which can be best fostered at an early period of life, and can in no "way be more fully unfolded than by a course of chemical study. Secondly, the many urgent motives, of one kind or another, which force the student to plunge into active life immediately upon escaping from the tram- mels of the school or university, will often prevent his possessing any sound knowledge of physical science, if it be not made a part of his early education. Lastly, a very large proportion of mankind want the ability to obtain that proficiency in any of the branches of learning cultivated at our universities, which is requisite to enable them to reap from their study the advantages anticipated. In an Institution intended to educate the youths of the country generally, however high the qualifi- cation for distinction may be raised, a low standard of attainments can alone be insisted upon ; and yet it is notorious, that a large proportion of the youths who resort to a university, although they are capable of reaching the prescribed point with little mental exertion, never aspire to go beyond it. Nor is this indifference on their part to be ascribed, [ «56] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. primarily at least, to indolence of disposition, or to de- ficiency in ordinary intelligence; for these very persons in after life will often evince much power of applica- tion, and soundness of judgment, in the capacity of magistrates, of parochial clergymen, or even of mem- bers of the legislature. Their previous intellectual torpor, so far as all academical studies were concerned, arose, I am convinced, in a great degree, from their incapacity to grapple with the deeper philosophy of the ancient world, or to imbibe any keen relish for its orators, its poets, or its historians. If to this inaptitude for literary pursuits be con- joined an equal disinclination for abstract studies or for the higher branches of the mathematics, one can readily understand, that such youths should make but little progress beyond the point to which they had already advanced at school, and that the time spent at the university should have been chiefly wasted in field sports, or even more frivolous occupations. Now it is for men of this character of mind that the study of the experimental sciences is particularly valuable, because the very practical tendency of their minds, which, to a certain extent, prevents them from profiting so largely from the favourite studies of a uni- versity, is the very quality most likely to befit them for the observation of external nature, and is, more- over, most commonlv accompanied with that tact [*57] DK. DAUBEXY and sagacity which are most serviceable in its inter- pretation. Thus the recognition of Chemistry in a university like the one to which I belong, is little likely to detract unduly from the attention paid to the classical studies of the place; whilst its pursuit is only so much clear gain to the general stock of knowledge, as it would be chiefly confined, either to youths who are not likely to apply themselves with any vigour and success to lite- rary subjects; to those who have a peculiar genius and aptitude for physical investigations; or, lastly, to the few who have energy and capacity enough to embrace both literature and science within the circle of their studies. It was not, therefore, without good reason, that the University of Oxford, in the year 1849, determined that henceforward the physical sciences should be made the subjects of examination, and be held out to its students as reckoning amongst the qualifications, not only for a simple degree, but also for certain aca- demical distinctions. But something more than this will be required, if we would secure to these branches of study their proper place in such a body as our own. In order to afford effectual encouragement to any department of learning, substantial rewards are necessary, and fortunately the liberality of our founders and benefac- [ i58 ] ON' THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. tors has supplied us with means ample enough, if judiciously applied, to spread their fertilising influ- ence over every field of intellectual culture, instead of being limited, as at present, to a few. At any rate, as I have observed in another place,* no one can have a right to pronounce the atmosphere of Oxford uncongenial to the investigation of physical truth, until it has been ascertained what would be the result, supposing a certain proportion of our Fellowships were awarded as prizes for scientific ac- quirements ; and supposing, as would be the natural consequence, that the student who distinguished himself in this line were placed, in the estimation of his cotemporaries, on the same level as if he had bestowed a similar amount of mental exertion upon pursuits of a literary character. If this rule were adopted, there seems to me no reason why Oxford should not rank as high in phy- sical science as she has long done in other departments of human knowledge; for I, for one, cannot understand why the contemplation and study of nature should not be carried on at least as well within the retire- ment of an university, as amidst the noise and bustle of a crowded metropolis. * See a Pamphlet entitled, Cam Physical Science find a Home in an English University? Oxford: Vincent, 1S54. [ '59 ] DR. DAUBENY It would rather seem, that for the prosecution of experiments requiring often considerable abstraction of mind, as well as long continued exertion; and pro- mising no immediate result, beyond the pleasure of arriving at a new truth, the pecuniary resources of our collegiate establishments, and the exemption they afford from the cares and distractions of ordinary life, supply the most ample facilities ; and that whilst the prospect of attaining a fellowship might attract students into this path of research, the possession of one would afterwards enable them to dedicate their lives to its prosecution. And this application of our academical funds is, I contend, entirely in harmony with an enlightened view of the objects for which they were designed ; for although the older universities of the realm were, doubtless, primarily intended, as those of later crea- tion are, for the purposes of education, they, from the very first, aimed at something beyond it. The entire tendency of the collegiate system — the foundation of fellowships — their tenure extending far beyond the period to which the education of their holders could be supposed to be prolonged, and in most cases, indeed, without any limitation as to the period of their retention — are circumstances, all of which imply, that the views of our Founders con- templated the creation of a permanent body of men [ 160 ] OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. devoted to the prosecution of literary and scientific objects, under the presiding influence of religion.* * Although the Bill now before Parliament for furthering the good government of the University and of the Colleges has in general my hearty concurrence, there are, nevertheless, two provisions in it which I cannot but consider as detrimental to the interests of Oxford, whether regarded in the light of a focus of literature, or as a nursery of education. I allude to the clause fixing a limit to the tenure of Fellowships, and to that rendering residence, except in a few particular cases, compulsory upon those who enjoy them. The former of these appears to be calculated to check the growth of a class of men, at present perhaps not very numerous, but which it is highly important to foster — those I mean who devote them- selves to literary and scientific occupations without any ulterior object in life ; nor can it fail to damp the exertions even of others who come to us for education, since it will deprive the academical emolu- ments, which are held out to them as the rewards of success, of a con- siderable portion of their value. It oucht not to be overlooked, that a Fellowship is coveted less on account of its pecuniary amount, than for the security it affords, that its possessor may hold it on for any length of time, if his neces- sities or ill success in life should render it of importance for him to retain it. It thus serves as a guarantee to the disinterested and unambitious student, that he will be free to prosecute his favourite pursuits so long as he pleases, in comparative indifference as to their bearing upon the practical concerns of life, or on his own future advancement in it. And with respect to the abuses complained of at present in the tenure of Fellowships, I have sufficient faith in the working of the Bill to conceive, that when Colleges have the power of selecting candidates from the whole University, the cases will be few, where a Fellow shall linger on, as a burden to his Society, beyond the period which the interests of learning would justify : and if this were to happen now and then, the evil would be small, compared to that of spreading abroad the feeling, that inasmuch as the provision made for study is henceforward to cease at the period of life when it may be most wanted, the application of any portion of the means supplied [ *i ] DE. DAUBENY There is, indeed, no other possible explanation of their motives, unless we were to adopt the monastic to obtain other than personal objects would be an act of impru- dence. On the other hand, the clause compelling residence strikes me as either unnecessary or injurious ; unnecessary when the Fellowships are properly bestowed, and of an injurious tendency when they are not. Supposing, for instance, the successful candidate to possess literary tastes and attainments, why seek to compel him to do that, to which his own inclinations would naturally prompt him, and from which he would only be drawn aside, when, as in the case of a lawyer or physician, his studies could be more advantageously prosecuted elsewhere ? On the other hand, supposing the Fellowship to be filled up with- out due reference to the claims of merit, the enforcement of residence would have the effect of fixing at the University men of uncongenial habits, whose presence must be equally detrimental to themselves and to others. It would indeed be a singular act of inconsistency in the members of the Legislature, if, when they felt themselves authorized by consi- derations of public utility to overrule the injunctions of founders with respect to matters in which the most earnest reformers within our walls have felt themselves precluded, from conscientious motives, from proposing changes ; they should at the same time compel us to return to our statutes on a point, wherein the altered condition of Society reconciles the most scrupulous of our members to that de- parture from their strict letter which has long taken place. The enforcement of residence upon Fellows, beyond the amount necessary for the purposes of instruction, and of carrying on the concerns of the College, could only have reference, in the minds of Founders, either to the advancement of learning, or to the observance of monastic discipline. So far as the former was their object, it would at present be suffi- ciently consulted by the many inducements to residence which the University holds out to the real student ; if the latter made any part of their intentions, Parliament, in the nineteenth century, can hardly desire to go outot its way to further them, by inculcating, or rendering more inveterate, those conventual habits and feelings, which cause [ 162 ] ON THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. view of these Institutions, which the perverse inge- nuity of a few persons of late years has ventured to uphold ; but which was disavowed by their own Members at the time of the Reformation, as a plea of exemption from the common fate which then awaited the Religious Houses; and which seems to have been repudiated by the earliest and most catholic-minded of our Founders, in the distinct prohibition which their statutes contain against any member of a conventual establishment holding a position within our colleges. I should apologise, Gentlemen, for detaining you so long on these topics, if I did not feel, that the English universities not only are, but will be reco- gnised by you all, as national establishments — national, not only because there is perhaps no one in an assembly like the present whose nearest relatives may not at some time or other be assisted in their education by the scholarships, or rewarded for their religious observances to be regarded, not as the proper preparation for the duties of life, but as its sole business ; this latter being the only assignable ground for enforcing residence in Colleges, on persons not fitted or disposed to avail themselves to any extent of the means and appliances for literary occupation which Oxford so abundantly affords. P.S. June 10th. The above clauses are, I am happy to see, ex- cluded from the Bill " as amended in Committee and on re-com- mitment," but provisions of a similar tendency seem still to be left within the powers with which the Commissioners are to be invested. [ 163 J O DR DAUBENY exertions by the fellowships, of which we have the disposal ; but also because the existence of a high standard of education anywhere within our common country is a national benefit even to those who do not directly partake of it. It would seem a happy circumstance, that in a country of great proprietors like our own, some portion of the land should have been removed from the grasp of individuals, by being held, as it were, in mortmain for the benefit of the community at large ; and not less so, that amongst a nation so absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, and holding out to all classes such strong temptations to plunge into active ife at as early a period as possible, establishments should exist, by the aid of which the educated classes may be induced to linger a little over those studies, which exert a generous and ennobling influence upon the character of a people, and tend to counteract the too practical and utilitarian tendencies of the age in which we live. The genius of Oxford, indeed, has, I believe, on many occasions operated beneficially upon the general surface of English society. May we not also hope that, in return, those without her walls may react with advan- tage upon the university itself, by putting forth so strong an expression of public opinion, as may induce our Members to hold for the future in equal esteem, [ '6 4 1 OX THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. and to foster with an equal degree of encouragement, each one of the liberal branches of intellectual culture. Should such hereafter be the case, and should the application of a portion of our endowments to the advancement of physical science be admitted as a natural consequence of such a view, great indeed would be the stimulus thus afforded to this class of pursuits, and great the advancement in the sciences which might be expected to accrue. The English universities might then again become, as they were of old, the principal seats of physical research, as well as the main repositories of existing knowledge in the country ; and as at the present time the amateurs of science at Oxford wend their way to the Royal Institution to obtain the first announcement of the researches of a Faradav, so it may happen that at some future day the inhabitants of the metropolis may be induced to crowd to our University, in order to become acquainted with the discoveries worked out by some new Roger Bacon, within the cloisters of his Academic Home. [ 165 ] la* O CO co CM CO o ■ffl Oi to o ■"* I -«* a a •E-2 O CO CO CO II II II 8 8 8 8 8 8 i— i •■* i— i © co r-l CS) CO 8 8 8 8 8 © -* O SO 8 8 8 8 ■*0(D 8 8 g •a is a o a •c H pq © lO © 05 co »b © io CO CO (M © eo ^-i . O CO CO 3.9.9 «, a?o a.s oo«h5 oo to © ^h rH -* CO "■*< CM •>* CO CO rH CO *— CM © rH CM HMOOl rH -* 1^ h a | 3 3.3 rH! ccecH OJ CO X! XI J2 PhPhPh x r- ^ S o 5 S o OS D ph'3 a 1 CO CO oo to ^o CO CO OOOO + + oo CO [ '66 ] SP | a -I OOO 1 r ^ H 02 © -«*■ CO W cc a H W H O M H o rH i— 1 CO rH M w w i—i -* 1-1 u o oh«m^«om»» h n n II II II II II o o o o o MMMMM + + + + + CO CO CO CO CO O O O O O + + + + + >-< CO "5 ^ OS II II II II II s s si a e II II II II II O O O O O MBWBM + + + + + CO CO CO CO CO o o o o o + + + + + h m io n a II e o Z Z MWK + 4- CO CO CO O O O + + + CO m ^ 04 CM (M O^lOooOlN^OCOO r- 1 T— I r- 1 r-l I— I gi .2 d m d hj ;3 u a a fv a a .g X CO O rH w o ii ii 8 s ii ii o o + + CO CO O O + + i— i co CO CO W WaWMWMSKWK W W K MK CO CO a oooooooooo ooo o o o .3 Ah S [ 167 ] ON THE DIPOBTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSICS AS A BBAffCH OF EDUCATION FOB ALL CLASSES: A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. BY PROFESSOR TYNDALL, F.R.S. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSICS AS A BKANCH OF EDUCATION. rpHERE is a word in the title of this Lecture which does not clearly convey the idea by which I shall be guided in its delivery. I hold in my hand a soiled proof of the syllabus of the present course, and the title of the present lecture is there stated to be ' On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Means of Education.' The corrected proof, however, contains the following title : — 'On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Branch of Education.' Small as the alteration may seem from means to branch, the two words appear to me to suggest two radically distinct modes of viewing the subject before us. The term Education is sometimes applied to a single faculty or organ, and if we know wherein the education of a single organ or faculty consists, this knowledge will enable us to form a clearer notion rc- [ 171 ] P 2 PROFESSOR TYXDALL garding the education of the sum of all the faculties, or of the mind. When, for example, we speak of the education of the voice, what do we mean ? There are certain membranes at the top of the windpipe which are capable of being thrown into vibration by the air forced between them from the lungs, and thus caused to produce sound. These membranes are, to some extent, under the control of the will : it is found that they can be so modified by exercise as to produce notes of a clearer and more melodious cha- racter, and this exercise we call the education of the voice. We may choose for our exercise a new song or an old song, a festive song or a solemn chant ; and, the education of the voice being the object we have in view, the songs may be regarded as the means by which this education is accomplished. I think this expresses the state of the case more clearly than if Ave were to call the songs a branch of educa- tion. Regarding also the education of the human mind as the improvement and development of the mental faculties, I consider the study of Physics to be a means towards the attainment of these objects. Of course, from this point of view, I degrade Physics into an implement of culture, and I mean to do so, to a great extent; for the general expansion of the intellectual powers implies both the acquisition of specific knowledge and the ability to render it [ «7«] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. productive. There is this great difference between those who pursue a thing as a branch and those who use it as a means : in the latter case the knowledge imparted is truly power; whereas, in the former case, it may be the reverse. Viewing, then, the develop- ment of the mental faculties as the end of mental educatiou, it will be my endeavour to state to you some of the claims of Physical Science as a means towards the attainment of this end. I do not think that it is the mission of this age, or of any other particular age, to lay down a system of education which shall hold good for all ages. The basis of human nature is, perhaps, permanent, but not so the forms under which the spirit of humanity manifests itself. It is sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike, sometimes religious, sometimes sceptical, and history is simply the record of its mutations. ' The eternal Pan Who layeth the world's incessant plan Halteth never in one shape, But for ever doth escape Into new forms.' This appears to be the law of things throughout the universe, and it is therefore no proof of fickleness or destructivcness, properly so called, if the imple- ments of human culture change with the times, and the requirements of the present age be found different [ m ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL from those of the preceding. Unless you can say to me that the past world, or some portion of it, has been the final expression of human competency; that the wisdom of man has already reached its climax ; that the intellect of to-day possesses feebler powers, or a narrower scope than the intellect of earlier times ; you cannot, with reason, demand from me an unconditional acceptance of the systems of the past, nor are you justified in divorcing me from the world and times in which I live, and confining my conver- sation to the times gone by. Who can blame me if I cherish the belief that the world is still young ; that there are great possibilities in store for it ; that the Englishman of to-day is made of as good stuff, and has as high and independent a vocation to fulfil, as had the ancient Greek or Roman. While thankfully accepting what antiquity has to offer, let us never forget that the present century has just as good a right to its own forms of thought and methods of culture as any former centimes had to theirs, and that the same sources of power are open to us to-day as were ever open to man in any age of the world. In the earliest religious writings, we find man described as a mixture of the earthy and the divine. The existence of the latter implies, in his case, that of the former : and hence the holiest and most self- denying saint must, to a certain extent, protect him- [ m] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. self against hunger and cold. But every attempt to restrict man to the dominion of the senses has failed, and will continue to fail. He is the repository of forces which push him beyond the world of sense. He has an intellect as well as a palate, and the demands of the latter being satisfied, the former inevitably puts in its claim. We cannot quench these desires of the intellect. They are stimulated by the phenomena which surround us in our present state of existence as the body is by oxygen ; and in the presence of these phenomena man thirsts for knowledge as an Arab longs for water when he smells the Nile. The Chaldean shepherds could not rest contented with their bread and milk, but made the discovery that man had other wants to satisfy. The stars shed their light upon the shepherd and his flock, but in both cases with very different results. The quadruped cropped the green herbage and slept contented ; but that power which had already made man the lord of the quadruped was appealed to night after night, and thus the intellectual germ which lay in the nature of these Chaldeans was stimulated and developed. Surely, if man be not made, and stars scattered, by guess-work, there is strong reason for assuming that it was intended that mental power should be developed in this way. As the nurse holds her glittering toy before the infant that she [ '75 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL would encourage to take its first step, so it would appear as if one of the ends of the Creator, in setting those shining things in heaven, was to woo the attention and excite the intellectual activity of his earthborn child. But if this be granted, then it must be admitted that we have the very highest sanction for the prosecution of physical research. Sanction, indeed, is a term too weak to express the inference suggested by a comparison of Man's powers with his position upon earth ; it points to an impe- rative command to search and to examine, rather than to a mere toleration of physical inquiry. The term Physics, as made use of in the present Lecture, refers to that portion of natural science which lies midway between astronomy and chemistry. The former, indeed, is Physics applied to masses of enormous weight, while the latter is Physics applied to atoms and molecules. The subjects of Physics proper are, therefore, those which lie nearest to human perception : — the light and heat of the sun, colour, sound, motion, the loadstone, electrical attractions and repulsions, thunder and lightning, rain, snow, dew, and so forth. The senses of Man stand between these phenomena, between the external world, and the world of thought. He observes the fact, but is not satisfied with the mere act of observ- ation : he must render an account of the fact : he [ 176 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. takes his images from Nature and transfers them to the domain of thought : he looks at them, compares them, observes their mutual relations and connexions, and thus brings them clearer and clearer before his mental eye, until, finally, he alights upon the cause which unites them. This is the last act of the mind, in this centripetal direction, in its progress from the multiplicity of facts to the central cause on which they depend. But, having guessed the cause, he is not yet contented : he now sets out from his centre and travels in the other direction : he sees that if his guess be true, certain consequences must follow from it, and he appeals to the law and testi- mony of experiment whether the thing is so. Thus he completes the circuit of thought, — from without inward, from multiplicity to unity, and from within outward, from unity to multiplicity. He traverses the line between cause and effect both ways, and, in so doing, calls all his reasoning powers into play. For the mental effort involved in these processes may be justly compared to those exercises of the body which invoke the co-operation of every muscle, and thus con- fer upon the whole frame the benefits of healthy action. The first experiment a man makes is a physical experiment : he is a natural philosopher by instinct, and the suction-pump is but an imitation of the first act of every new-born infant. Nor do T think it [ 177] PROFESSOR TYXDALL calculated to lessen that infant's reverence, or to make hini a worse citizen, "when his riper experience shows him that the atmosphere was his helper in extracting the first draught from his mother's breast. The child grows, but is still an experimenter : he grasps at the moon, and his failure teaches him to respect distance. At length his little fingers acquire sufficient mechanical tact to lay hold of a spoon. He thrusts the instrument into his mouth ; hurts his little gums, and thus learns the impenetrability of matter. He lets the spoon fall, and jumps with delight to hear it rattle against the table. The experiment made by accident is repeated with inten- tion, and thus the young Newton receives his first lessons upon sound and gravitation. There are pains and penalties, however, in the path of the young inquirer : he is sure to go wrong, and Nature is just as sure to inform him of the fact. He falls down stairs, burns his fingers, cuts his hand, scalds his tongue, and in this way learns the conditions of his physical well being. This is Nature's way of pro- ceeding, and it is wonderful what progress her pupil makes. His enjoyments for a time are physical, and the confectioner's shop occupies the foreground of human happiness ; but the blossoms of a finer life are ak'eady beginning to unfold themselves, and the relation of cause and effect dawns upon the boy. [ «*] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. He begins to see that the present condition of things is not final, but depends upon one that has gone before, and Avill be succeeded by another. He becomes a puzzle to himself; and to satisfy his newly-awakened curiosity, asks all manner of incon- venient questions. The needs and tendencies of human nature express themselves through these early yearnings of the child. He desires to know the character and causes of the phenomena presented to him ; and unless this desire has been granted for the express purpose of having it repressed, unless the attractions of natural phenomena be like the blush of the forbidden fruit, conferred merely for the piu-- pose of exercising our self-denial by letting them alone; then I claim for the study of Physics the recognition that it answers to an impulse implanted by nature in the human constitution, and he who would oppose such study must be prepared to exhibit the credentials which authorize him to contravene Nature's manifest designs. Such credentials were never given ; and the opposition, where it exists, is in most, if not in all cases due to the fact, that at the time when the opponent of Science was beginning to inquire like the little boy, it was so arranged by human institutions that the train of thought suggested by natural objects should, in his case, be supplanted by another. But is this unavoidable? Is, for ex- [ -79 ] KUHIVBE: PROFESSOR TYNDALL ample, the knowledge of grammatical concord and government so utterly antagonistic to the scientific discernment of the same two principles in Nature, as to render the complete extrusion of the one necessary to the existence of the other ? A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that until he had reached the age of twenty years he had never been taught anything regarding Light, Heat, Magnetism, or Electricity: twelve years of his life previously had been spent among the ancients, all connexion being thus severed between him and natural phenomena. Now, we cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the present from the past. The nineteenth century strikes its roots into the centuries gone by, and draws nutriment from them. The world cannot afford to lose the record of any great deed or utterance ; for such deeds and such utterances are prolific through- out all time. We cannot yield the companionship of our loftier brothers of antiquity, — of our Socrates and Cato, — whose lives provoke us to sympathetic greatness across the interval of two thousand years. As long as the ancient languages are the means of access to the ancient mind, they must ever be of priceless value to humanity; but it is as the avenues of ancient thought, and not as the instruments of [ 'So ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. modern culture, that they are chiefly valuable to Man. Surely these avenues might be kept open without making such sacrifices as that above referred to, universal. We have conquered and possessed ourselves of continents of land, concerning which antiquity knew nothing ; and if new continents of thought reveal themselves to the exploring human spirit, shall we not possess them also? In these latter days, the study of Physics has given us glimpses of the methods of Nature which were quite hidden from the ancients, and it would be treason to the trust committed to us, if we were to sacrifice the hopes and aspirations of the Present out of deference to the Past. I dare say the bias of my own education manifests itself in a desire I always feel to seize upon every possible opportunity of checking my assumptions and conclusions by experience. I might, it is true, appeal directly to your own consciousness in proof of the tendency of the human mind to inquire into the phenomena presented to the senses ; but I trust you will excuse me if, instead of doing this, I take advantage of the facts which have fallen in my own way through life, referring to your judgment to decide whether such facts are truly representative and general, and not merely individual and local. At an agricultural college in Hampshire, with which I was connected for some time, and which is now [ »8« ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL converted into a school for the general education of youth, a Society was formed among the boys, which met weekly for the purpose of reading reports and papers upon various subjects. The Society had its president and treasurer; and abstracts of its pro- ceedings were published in a little monthly periodical issuing from the school press. One of the most remarkable features of these weekly meetings was, that after the general business had been concluded each member of the Society enjoyed the right of asking questions on any subject on which he desired information. The questions were either written out previously in a book devoted to the purpose, or, if a question happened to suggest itself during the meeting, it was written upon a slip of paper and handed in to the Secretary, who afterwards read all the questions aloud. A number of teachers were usually present, and they and the boys made a com- mon stock of their wisdom in furnishing replies. As might be expected from an assemblage of eighty or ninety boys, varying from eighteen to eight years old, many extraordinary questions were proposed. To the eye which loves to detect in the tendencies of the young the instincts of humanity generally, such questions are not without a certain philosophic interest, and I have therefore thought it not deroga- tory to the present course of Lectures to copy a few [ 182 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. of these questions, and to introduce them here. They run as follows : — What are the duties of the Astronomer Royal ? What is frost ? Why are thunder and lightning more frequent in summer than in -winter ? What occasions falling stars ? What is the cause of the sensation called ' pins and needles' ? What is the cause of waterspouts ? What is the cause of hiccup ? If a towel be wetted with water, why does the wet portion become darker than before ? What is meant by Lancashire witches ? Does the dew rise or fall ? What is the principle of the hydraulic press ? Is there more oxygen in the air in summer than in winter ? What are those rings which we see round the gas and sun ? What is thunder ? How is it that a black hat can be moved by forming round it a magnetic circle, while a white hat remains stationary ? What is the cause of perspiration ? Is it true that men were once monkeys ? What is the difference between the soul and the mind? [ *3 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL Is it contrary to the rules of Vegetarianism to eat eggs? In looking over these questions, which were wholly unprompted, and have been copied almost at random from the book already alluded to, we see that many of them are suggested directly by natural objects, and are not such merely as had an interest conferred on them by previous culture. Now the fact is beyond the boy's control, and so certainly is the desire to know its cause. The sole question then is, is this desire to be gratified or not ? Who created the fact ? Who implanted the desire ? Certainly not Man — and will any man undertake to place him- self between the mind and the fact, and proclaim a divorce between them ? Take, for example, the case of the wetted towel, which at first sight appears to be one of the most unpromising questions in the list. Shall we tell the proposer to repress his curiosity, as the subject is improper for him to know, and thus interpose our wisdom to rescue the boy from the consequences of Nature's atrocity in im- planting a desire which acts to his prejudice ? Or, recognising the propriety of the question, how shall we answer it ? It is impossible to answer it with- out reference to the laws of optics — impossible to answer it without making the boy to some extent a natural philosopher. You may say that the effect [ 184 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. is due to the reflection of light at the common sur- face of two media of different refractive indices. But this answer presupposes on the part of the boy a knowledge of what reflection and refraction are, or reduces you to the necessity of explaining them. On looking more closely into the matter, we find that our wet towel belongs to a class of phenomena ex- hibited by tabasheer and hydrophane, which have long excited the interest of philosophers. These bodies are opaque when dry, but when dipped into water or beech-nut oil they become transparent. The towel is white for the same reason that snow is white, that foam is white, that pounded granite or glass is white, and that the salt we use at table is white. On quitting one medium and entering another, a portion of light is always reflected, but with this restriction, the media must possess differ- ent refractive indices. Thus, when we immerse glass in water, light is reflected from the common surface of both, and it is this light which enables us to see the glass. But take a transparent solid and immerse it in a liquid of the same refractive index as itself, it Avill immediately disappear. I remember once dropping the eyeball of an ox into water; it vanished as if by magic, with the exception of the crys- talline lens, and the surprise was so great as to cause a bystander to suppose that the mass had been in- [ 185 ] Q PROFESSOR TYNDALL stantly dissolved. This, however, was not the case, and a comparison of the refractive index of the vitre- ous humour with that of water cleared up the whole matter. The indices were identical, and hence the light pursued its way through both bodies as if they formed one continuous mass. In the case of snow, powdered quartz, or salt, we have a transparent solid body mixed with air ; at every transition from solid to air, or from air to solid, a portion of light is reflected; this takes place so often that the light is wholly intercepted, and thus from the mixture of two transparent bodies we obtain an opaque one. Now the case of the towel is precisely similar. The tissue is composed of semi-transparent vegetable fibres, with the interstices between them filled with air ; repeated reflection takes place at the limiting surfaces of air and fibre, and hence the towel becomes opaque like snow or salt. But if we fill the interstices of the towel with water, we diminish the reflection • a portion of the light enters the mass, and the darkness of the towel is due to its increased trans- parency. Thus the hydrophane, tabasheer, the tracing paper used by engineers, and many other considerations of the highest scientific interest, are involved in the simple enquiry of this unsuspecting little boy. Again, take the question regarding the rising or [ '86 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. falling of the dew — a question long agitated, and finally set at rest bv the beautiful researches of Wells and Melloni. I do not think that any boy of aver- age intelligence will be satisfied with the simple answer that the dew falls. He will wish to learn how you know that it falls, and, if acquainted with the notions of the middle ages, may refer to the opinion of Father Lauras, that, if you fill a goose egg with the morning dew and expose it to the sun, it will rise like a balloon — a swan's egg being better for the experiment than a goose egg. It is impos- sible to give the boy a clear notion of the beautiful phenomenon to which his question refers, without first making him acquainted with the radiation and conduction of heat. Take, for example, a blade of grass, from which one of these orient pearls is depending. During the day the grass, and the earth beneath it, possess a certain amount of warmth im- parted by the sun ; during a serene night, heat is radiated from the surface of the grass into space, and to supply the loss, there is a flow of heat from the interior portions of the blade towards its surface. Thus the surface loses heat by radiation, and gains heat by conduction. Now, in the case before us, the power of radiation is great, whereas the power of conduction is small; the consequence is that the blade loses more than it gains, and hence becomes [ 187 ] Q 2 PROFESSOR TYNDALL more and more refrigerated. The light vapour float- ing around the surface so cooled is precipitated upon it, and there accumulates to form the little pearly globe which we call a dew-drop. Thus the boy finds the simple and homely fact which addressed his senses to be the outcome and flower of the deepest laws. The fact becomes, in a measure, sanctified as an object of thought, and in- vested for him with a beauty for evermore. He thus learns that things which, at first sight, seem to stand isolated and without apparent brotherhood in Nature are united by their causes, and finds the detection of these analogies a source of perpetual delight. To enlist pleasure on the side of intellectual performance is a point of the utmost importance; for the exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished. Every physician knows that some- thing more than mere mechanical motion is compre- hended under the idea of healthful exercise— that, indeed, being most healthful which makes us forget all ulterior ends in the mere enjoyment of it. What, for example, could be substituted for the jubilant shout of the playground, where the boy plays for the mere love of playing, and without reference to physiological laws; while kindly Nature accomplishes her ends unconsciously, and makes his very indifference benefi- [ 188 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. cial to him. You may have more systematic motions, you may devise means for the more perfect traction of each particular muscle, but you cannot create the joy and gladness of the game, and where these are absent, the charm and the health of the exercise are gone. The case is similar with mental education; but the extent to which this has been, and con- tinues to be forgotten, would justify us in doubting whether Nature is so sparing of her gifts as to cause those souls which mark epochs in human history to be separated from each other by centuries, or whether the fact be not attributable to human mismanage- ment, by which the gifts referred to are squandered and misapplied. Why should the mind of youth be so completely warped from its healthful and happy action, so utterly withdrawn from those studies to which its earliest tendencies point, and in the culti- vation of which the concurrence of its ardour would powerfully tend to the augmentation of its strength, as to leave the man in after-life, unless enlightened by his visits to an institution such as that in which we are now assembled, in absolute ignorance as to whether the material world is governed by law or chance, or indeed whether those phenomena which excited his youthful questionings be not really the jugglery of Scandinavian Jotuns, or some similar demonic power? [ 189 ] PROFESSOR TYXDALL The study of Physics, as already intimated, con- sists of two processes, which are complementary to each other — the tracing of facts to their causes, and the logical advance from the cause to the fact. In the former process, called induction, certain moral qualities come into play. It requires patient industry, and an humble and conscientious acceptance of what Nature reveals. The first condition of success is an honest receptivity and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth. Believe me, a self- renunciation which has something noble in it, and of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private experience of the true votary of science. And if a man be not capable of this self-renuncia- tion — tliis loyal surrender of himself to Nature, he lacks, in my opinion, the first mark of a true philo- sopher. Thus the earnest prosecutor of science, who does not work with the idea of producing a sensation in the world, who loves the truth better than the transitory blaze of to-day's fame, who comes to his task with a single eye, finds in that task an indirect means of the highest moral culture. And although the virtue of the act depends upon its privacy, this sacrifice of serf, this upright determina- tion to accept the truth, no matter how it may present itself — even at the hands of a scientific foe, if neces- [ 190 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. sary — carries with it its own reward. When preju- dice is put under foot and the stains of personal bias have been washed away — when a man consents to lay aside his vanity and to become Nature's organ — his elevation is the instant consequence of his humility. I shoidd not wonder if my remarks provoked a smile, for they seem to indicate that I regard the man of science as a heroic, if not indeed an angelic, individual ; and cases may occur to you which seem to indicate the reverse. You may point to the quarrels of scientific men, to their struggles for priority, to that unpleasant egotism which screams around its little property of discovery like a scared plover about its young. I will not deny all this ; but let it be set down to its proper account, to the weakness — or, if you will — to the selfishness of Man, but not to the charge of Physical Science. The second process in physical investigation is deduction, or the advance of the mind from fixed ) principles to the conclusions which flow from them. The rules of logic are the formal statement of this process, which, however, was practised by every healthy mind before ever such rules were written. In the study of Physics, induction and deduction are perpetually married to each other. The man observes, strips facts of their peculiarities of form, and tries to unite them by their essences ; having effected [ '9* ] PROFESSOR TY^ T DALL this, lie at once deduces, and thus checks his in- duction. Here the grand difference between the methods at present followed, and those of the an- cients, becomes manifest. They were one-sided in these matters : they omitted the process of induction, and substituted conjecture for observation. They do not seem to have possessed sufficient patience to watch the slow processes of Nature, and to make themselves acquainted with the conditions under which she operates. They coidd never, therefore, fulfil the mission of Man given at the commence- ment, " Replenish the earth, and subdue it." The subjugation of Nature is only to be accomplished by the penetration of her secrets and the mastery of her laws. This not only enables us to turn her forces against each other, so as to protect ourselves from their hostile action, but makes them our slaves. By the study of Physics we have indeed opened to us treasuries of power of which antiquity never dreamed : we lord it over Matter, and in so doing have become better acquainted with the laws of Mind ; for to the mental philosopher the study of Physics furnishes a screen against which the human spirit projects its own image, and thus becomes capable of self-inspection. Thus, then, as a means of intellectual culture, the study of Physics exercises and sharpens observation : [ *9* ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. it brings the most exhaustive logic into play : it compares, abstracts, and generalizes, and provides a mental scenery admirablv suited to the conducting: of these processes. The strictest precision of thought is everywhere enforced, and prudence, foresight, and sagacity are demanded. By its appeals to experi- ment, it continually checks itself, and thus walks on a foundation of facts. Hence the exercise it invokes does not end in a mere game of intellectual gymnas- tics, such as the ancients delighted in, but tends to the mastery of natural agents. This gradual conquest of the external world, and the consciousness of aug- mented strength which accompanies it, render the study of Physics as delightful as it is important. Its effects upon the imagination I have not observed closely, but certain it is that the cool results of phy- sical induction furnish conceptions which transcend most of those of imagination proper. Take for ex- ample the idea of an all-pervading ether which trans- mits a tingle, so to speak, to the finger ends of the universe every time a street lamp is lighted. The little billows of this ether can be measured with the same ease and certainty as that with which an en- gineer measures a base and two angles, and from these finds the distance across the Thames. Now there is just as much poetry in the measurement of the river as in that of an ethereal undulation; for [ '93 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL the intellect, during the acts of measurement and calculation, destroys those notions of size which appeal to the poetic faculty. It is a mistake to sup- pose, with Dr. Young, that ' An undevout astronomer is mad ;' there heing no necessary connexion between a devout state of mind and the observations and calculations of a practical astronomer. For it is not until the man withdraws from his calculation, as a painter from his work, and thus realizes the great idea at which he has been engaged, that imagination and wonder are excited. Now here, I confess, is a possible danger. If the arithmetical processes of science be too ex- clusively pursued, they may, I think, impair the imagination, and thus the study of Physics is open to the same objection as philological, theological, or political studies, when carried to excess. But even in this case, the injury done is to the investigator himself: it does not reach the mass of mankind. Indeed, the conceptions furnished by his cold unima- ginative reckonings may furnish themes for the poet, and excite in the highest degree that sentiment of wonder which, notwithstanding all its foolish vagaries, table-turning included, I, for my part, should be sorry to see banished from the world. I have thus far dwelt upon the study of Physics as an agent of intellectual culture ; but like other [ '94 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. things in Nature, this study subserves more than a single end. The colours of the clouds delight the eye, and, no doubt, accomplish moral purposes also, but the self-same clouds hold within their fleeces the moisture by which our fields are rendered fruit- fid. The sunbeams excite our interest and invite our investigation; but they also extend their bene- ficent influences to our fruits and corn, and thus accomplish, not only intellectual ends, but minister, at the same time, to our material necessities. And so it is with scientific research. While the love of science is a sufficient incentive to the pursuit of science, and the investigator, in the prosecution of his inquiries, is raised above all material considera- tions, the results of his labours may exercise a potent influence upon the physical condition of Man. This is the arrangement of Nature, and not that of the scientific investigator himself ; for he usually pur- sues his object without regard to its practical appli- cations. And let him who is dazzled by such appli- cations — who sees in the steam-engine and the electric telegraph the highest embodiment of human genius and the only legitimate object of scientific research, beware of prescribing conditions to the investigator. Let him beware of attempting to substitute for that simple love with which the votary of science pursues his task, the calculations of what he is pleased to [ <95 ] PROFESSOR TYXDALL call utility. The professed utilitarian is unfortu- nately, in most cases, the very last man to see the occult sources from which useful results are derived. He admires the flower, but is totally ignorant of the Conditions of its growth. The scientific man must approach Nature in his own way ; for if you invade his freedom by your so-called practical considera- tions, it may be at the expense of those qualities on which his success as a discoverer depends. Let the self-styled practical man look to those from the fecundity of whose thought he, and thousands like him, have sprung into existence. Were they in- spired in their first inquiries by the calculations of utility ? Not one of them. They were often forced to live low and lie hard, and to seek a compensation for their penury in the delight which their favourite pursuits afforded them. In the words of one well qualified to speak upon this subject, ' I say not merely look at the pittance of men like John Dalton, or the voluntary starvation of the late Graff; but compare what is considered as competency or afflu- ence by your Faradays, Liebigs, and Herschels, with the expected results of a life of successful commer- cial enterprise : then compare the amount of mind put forth, the work done for society in either case, and you will be constrained to allow that the former belong to a class of workers who, properly speaking, [ 196 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. are not paid, and cannot be paid for their work, as indeed it is of a sort to which no payment could stimulate.' But while the scientific investigator, who, standing upon the frontiers of human knowledge, and aiming at the conquest of fresh soil from the surrounding region of the unknown, makes the discovery of truth his exclu- sive object for the time, he cannot but feel the deepest interest in the practical application of the truth discovered. There is something ennobling in the the triumph of Mind over Matter : apart even from its uses to society, there is something sublime in the idea of Man having tamed that wild force which rashes through the telegraphic wire, and made it the mini- ster of his will. Our attainments in these directions appear to be commensurate with our needs. "We had already subdued horse and mule, and obtained from them all the service which it was in their power to render : we must either stand still, or find more potent agents to execute our purposes. To stand still, however, was not in the plan of Him who made motion a condition of life, and, as if by His high arrangement, the steam-engine appeared. Remem- ber that these are but new things; that it is not long siuce we struck into the scientific methods which have produced these extraordinary results. We cannot for an instant regard them as the final [ '97] PROFESSOR TYXDALL achievements of Science, but rather as an earnest of what she is yet to do. They mark our first great advances upon the dominion of Nature. Animal strength fails, hut here are the forces which hold the world together, and the instincts and successes of Man assure him that these forces are his when he is wise enough to command them. Is it not an object worthy the contemplation of a philosopher, to see a man experimenting in a corner, pondering in a closet, and gathering, by slow degrees, the mighty agencies of Xature into the sphericity of his little head: to see him come forth, and, in the application of his private thought, realize morally the physical dream of Archimedes, by lifting at an effort the whole world to a higher level. This has been done, and will pro- bably be done again ; but the study of Physics always was, and ever must remain, the forerunner of such achievements. In the title of this Lecture, the study of Physics as a branch of education ' for all classes' is spoken of. I am not quite sme that I understand the mean- ing intended to be conveyed by the words ' all classes •' and I have regarded the question with reference to those mental qualities which God has distributed without reference to class. As an instru- ment of intellectual culture, the study of Physics is profitable to all : as bearing upon special functions, [ '98 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. its value, though not so great, is still more tangible. Why, for example, should Members of Parliament be ignorant of the subjects concerning which they are called upon to legislate? In this land of prac- tical physics, why should they be unable to form an independent opinion upon a physical question? Why should the senator be left at the mercy of interested disputants when a scientific question is discussed, until he deems the nap a blessing which rescues him from the bewilderments of the committee-room? The educa- tion which does not supply the want here referred to, fails in its duty to England. I state nothing visionary, when I say that in a country like ours, whose great- ness depends so much upon the applications of phy- sical science, it would be a wholesome and rational test to make admission to the House of Commons contingent on a knowledge of the principles of Natu- ral Philosophy. With regard to our working people, in the ordinary sense of the term working, the study of Physics would, I imagine, be profitable, not only as a means of mental culture, but also as a moral in- fluence to woo these people from pursuits which now degrade them. A man's reformation oftencr depends upon the indirect, than upon the direct action of the will. The will must be exerted in the choice of employment which shall break the force of tempta- tion by erecting a barrier against it. The drunkard, [ J 99 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL for example, is in a perilous condition if he content himself merely with saying, or swearing, that he will avoid strong drink. His thoughts, if not attracted by another force, will revert to the public-house, and to rescue him permanently from this, you must give him an equivalent. It would certainly be worth experiment to try what the study of Physics would do here. By investing the objects of hourly inter- course with an interest which prompts reflection, new enjoyments would be opened to the working man, and every one of these would be a point of force to protect him against temptation. Besides this, our factories and our foundries present an extensive field of observation, and were those who work in them rendered capable, by previous culture, of appreciating what they see, the results to science would be incal- culable. Who can say what intellectual Samsons are at the present moment toiling with closed eyes in the mills and forges of Manchester and Birming- ham? Grant these Samsons sight, give them some j knowledge of Physics, and you multiply the chances of discovery, and with them the prospects of national advancement. In our multitudinous technical opera- Itions we are constantly playing with forces where our ignorance is often the cause of our destruction. There are agencies at work in a locomotive of which the maker of it probably never dreamed, but which 200 OX THE STUDY OF THYSICS. nevertheless may be sufficient to convert it into an engine of death. Again, when we reflect on the intellectual condition of the people who work in our coal mines, those terrific explosions which occur from 1 time to time need not astonish us. If these men possessed sufficient physical knowledge, I doubt not, from the operatives themselves would emanate a system by which these shocking accidents might be effectually avoided. If they possessed the know- ledge, their personal interests would furnish the necessary stimulus to its practical application, and thus two ends would be served at the same time — the elevation of the men and the diminution of the calamity. Before the present Course of Lectures was pub- licly announced, I had many misgivings as to the propriety of my taking a part in them. I felt that my place might be better filled by an older man, whose experience would be more entitled to re- spect. Small as my experience was, however, I resolved to adhere to it, and in what I have said regarding mental processes, I have described things as they reveal themselves to my own eyes, and have been enacted in my own limited practice. In doing this, I have been supported by the belief that there is one mind common to us all j and that if I be true to the expression of this mind, even in a small parti- 20I ] B PROFESSOR TYNDALL cular, the truth will attest itself by a response in the convictions of my hearers. There may be the same difference between the utterance of two individuals of different ranges of intellectual power and experience on a subject like the present, as between ' The Descent from the Cross/ by Rubens, and the portrait of a spaniel dog. Nevertheless, if the portrait of the spaniel be true to nature, it recom-. mends itself as truth to the human mind, and excites, in some degree, the interest that truth ever inspires. Thus far I have endeavoured to keep all tints and features which really do not belong to the portrait of my spaniel, apart from it, and I ask your permis- sion to proceed a little further in the same manner, and to refer to a fact or two in addition to those already cited, which presented themselves to my notice during my brief career as a teacher in the establishment already alluded to. The facts, though extremely humble, and deviating in some slight degree from the strict subject of the present discourse, may yet serve to illustrate an educational principle. One of the duties which fell to my share, during the period to which I have referred, was the instruc- tion of a class in mathematics, and I usually found that Euclid and the ancient geometry generally, when addressed to the understanding, formed a very attractive study for youth. But it was my habitual [ 202 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. practice to withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to their self-power in the treatment of questions not comprehended in that routine. At first, the change from the beaten track usually excited a little aversion : the youth felt like a child amid strangers; but in no single instance have I found this aversion to continue. When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by that anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and other men, mainly to his own patience ; or of Mirabeau, when he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impossible, never to use that stupid word again. Thus cheered, he has returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolution to try again. I have seen the boy's eye brighten, and, at length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archimedes was but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, ' I have it, sir.' The consciousness of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense value ; and, animated by it, the progress of the class was truly astonishing. It was often my custom to give the boys their choice of pursuing their propositions in the book, or of trying their strength at others not to be found there. Never in a single instance have I known the book to be chosen. I was ever ready to assist when I [ 203 ] II 2 PROFESSOR TTNDALL deemed help needful, but my offers of assistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of their own. I have seen their diagrams scratched on the walls, cut into the beams upon the playground, and numberless other illustrations of the living inte- rest they took in the subject. For my own part, as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a mere fledg- ling : I knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the Germans name it; but I adhered to the spirit indicated at the commencement of this discourse, and endeavoured to make geometry a means and not a branch of education. The experiment was successful, and some of the most delightful hours of my existence have been spent in marking the vigorous and cheerful expansion of mental power, when appealed to in the manner I have described. And then again, the pleasure we all experienced was enhanced when we applied our mathematical knowledge to the solution of physical problems. Many objects of hourly contact had thus a new interest and significance imparted to them. The swing, the see-saw, the tension of the giant-stride ropes, the fall and rebound of the football, the advantage of a small boy over a large one when turning short, particularly in slippery weather; all became subjects of investigation. Supposing a lady [ 204 ] ON THE STUDY OP PHYSICS. to stand before a looking-glass, of the same height as herself, it was required to know how much of the glass was really useful to the lady ? and we learned, with great pleasure, the economic fact that she might dispense with tlid* lower half and see her whole figure notwithstanding. It was also very pleasant to prove the angular velocity of a reflected beam to he twice that of the mirror which reflects it ; we also felt deep interest in ascertaining from the hum of a bee the number of times the little insect flaps its wings in a second. Following up our researches upon the pendu- lum, we were interested to learn how Colonel Sabine had made it the means of determining the figure of the earth ; and we were also startled by the inference which the pendulum enabled us to draw, that if the diurnal velocity of the earth were seventeen times its present amount, the centrifugal force at the equator would be precisely equal to the force of gravitation, and hence an inhabitant of those regions would have the same tendency to fall upwards as downwards. All these things were sources of wonder and delight to us : we could not but admire the perseverance of Man which had accomplished so much j and then when we remembered that we were gifted with the same powers, and had the same great field to work in, our hopes arose that at some future day we might possibly push the subject a little further, [ *>5 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL and add our own victories to the conquests al- ready won. I know I ought to apologize to you for dwelling so long upon this subject. But the days I spent among these youthful philosopher? made a deep im- pression on me. I learned among them something of myself and of human nature, and obtained some notion of a teacher's vocation. If there be one profession in England of paramount importance, I believe it to be that of the schoolmaster ; and if there be a position where selfishness and incompe- tence do most serious mischief, by lowering the moral tone and exciting contempt and cunning where reverence and noble truthfulness ought to be the feelings evoked, it is that of the governor of a school. When a man of enlarged heart and mind comes among boys, — when he allows Ins being to stream through them, and observes the operation of his own character evidenced in the elevation of theirs, — it would be idle to talk of the position of such a man being honourable. It is a blessed posi- tion. The man is a blessing to himself and to all around him. Such men, I believe, are to be found in England, and it behoves those who busy themselves with the mechanics of education at the present day, to seek them out. Eor no matter what means of culture may be chosen, whether physical or philolo- [ 206 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. gical, success must ever mainly depend upon the amount of life, love, and earnestness, which the teacher himself brings with him to his vocation.* * The following extract from a journal is, I think, too good to be omitted here. The writer of it — a pupil of Dirichlet and Steiner — ■ would doubtless have felt himself more at home in dealing with elliptic functions than with the definitions of Euclid. But the man- ner in which he contrived to render the latter mysteries evident to a light-headed little boy, does credit to another faculty than his mere mathematical one, and will, I trust, prove as pleasant to the reader as it has to me. ' K stammers distressingly, and this has im- peded his progress very much. I have often passed him in the class, knowing that I could not get any intelligible answer from him, and had it not been for his eloquent eyes, which said, ' I know it, Sir, if I could but speak,' I might have mistaken him for a dunce, and thus done him great injustice. Through his love of mischief, however, and his inability to cope with his schoolfellows, on account of his defective utterance, it was evident that he was losing interest in his •work, or rather that he had never felt much interest in it, and it became necessary to awaken him. One day, after he had been more noisy and mischievous than usual, I told him rather sternly to put on his cap and follow me. He did so, and I walked forward, while he, in a state of anxious suspense, walked behind me. After some moments' silence, I asked, ' Do you know, K , what I am going to do with you?' ' Ne — ne — ne — no, Sir,' he replied. 'Well,' I said, ' I will tell you. I have spoken to you often enough, to no purpose, and now I intend to make you do better for the future.' We walked forward for some distance, and at length, putting my arm quietly around his neck, I broke silence once more. ' Can you tell me what an angle is, my boy V ' Ye— ye— ye— yes, Sir, an angle is a — a — a — a — ,' he could get no further, and turned his eyes upon me beseechingly. 'Well,' I replied to this silent appeal, ' go and pull two stalks of grass, and show me what an angle is. ' This he did, and with the grass stalks continued to answer my questions on the geometrical definitions. We turned into a stubble field — by this time he had lost all fear, and could speak quite distinctly— ' What is a right angled triangle ?' I asked. ' It has all its angles right angles, Sir.' ' Indeed,' I replied, taking my arm from around his [ ">7 ] PROFESSOR TYNDALL Sucli are some of the thoughts which have floated before me, in a more or less distracted manner, in reference to the present hour; and nobody can be more conscious of their manifold imperfections than I am myself. Apart from other disadvantages, I have had the pressure of various duties interfering with the revival of my consciousness upon these matters, and thus preventing me from making the discourse as true a record of my own experience as I could wish it to be. I have throughout been less anxious to make out a case for Physics than to state the truth ; and I confess that the Lecture of this day week causes me to doubt, whether you are not entitled to expect from me a more emphatic state- ment of the claims of the science which I now repre- sent, than that which I have laid before you. When I saw your Lecturer reduced to the necessity of neck, ' it has three right angles, has it ? will you just kneel down ?' He saw his mistake, stammered 'two,' looked at me piteously and hesitated. 'On your knees, Sir,' I cried, and he knelt down, while I, falling on my knees beside him, said, ' Now pull up some stubble, and make me a triangle having either two or three right angles.' At once he saw his error, and the absurdity of our position, as we knelt together, making geometrical diagrams with stubble. Springing to his feet, he shook with laughter — ' It has only one right angle, Sir — only one, of course!' I responded, 'Of course.' With my arm round his neck, we turned homewards, and continued our lesson successfully. ' This is the punishment I had in store for you,' I said, when we reached home. 'Now go, and transgress no more,' to which his eyes responded, ' I will, Sir.' ' [ 208 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. pleading for science, and meekly claiming for it, from the Institution which we are accustomed to regard as the highest in this land, a recognition eqnal to that accorded to philology, I confess that the effect on me was to excite a certain revolu- tionary tendency in a mind which is nsnally tran- quil almost to apathy in these matters. Science behind Philology ! The knowledge of the laws by i which God's universe is sustained, and the perpetual advancement of humanity seemed, inferior to that of the manner in which ancient and savage tribes put their syllables together, and express the varieties of mood, tense, and case ! As the pole of a magnet acting upon soft iron induces in the latter a con- dition opposed to its own, so the irrationality of those who cast this slight upon Science tends, no doubt, to excite an opposite error on the part of their antagonists, and to cause them, in retaliation, to un- derrate the real merits of Philology. But is there no mind in England large enough to see the value of both, and to secure for each of them fair play ? Oh ! let us not make this a fight of partisans — let the gleaned wealth of antiquity be showered into the open breast ; but while we ' unspherc the spirit of Plato' and listen with delight to the lordly music of the past, let us honour by adequate recognition the genius of our own time. Let me again remind you [ 20 9 ] PROFESSOR TVNDALL that the claims of that science which finds in me to-day its unripened advocate, are the claims of God's workmanship upon the attention of his crea- tures, and that its exercises, as an agent of culture, are based upon the natural relations subsisting between Man and the world in which he dwells. Here, on the one side, we have the apparently lawless shifting of phenomena; on the other side, mind, which requires law for its equilibrium, and in obe- dience to its own indestructible instincts, believes that these phenomena are reducible to law. To chasten this apparent chaos is a problem which man's Creator has set before him. The world was built in order : it is the visual record of the Creator's logic, and to us he has trusted the will and power to follow him through this great argument. By the manifestations of Nature which He has ordained, He appeals to the faculties which He has implanted, and surrounds them from the cradle to the grave with objects which provoke them to inquiry. Descending for a moment from this high plea to considerations which lie closer to us as a nation — as a land of gas and furnaces, of steam and electricity : as a land which science, prac- tically applied, has made great in peace and mighty in war : — I ask you whether this ' land of old and just renown/ which may God keep unimpaired, has not a right to expect from her institutions a culture [ 2I ° ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. more hi accordance with lier present needs than that supplied hy declension and conjugation ? And if the tendency should he to lower the estimate of science, by regarding it exclusively as the instrument of material prosperity, let it he then' high mission to furnish the proper comiterpoise by pointing out its nobler uses, and lifting the national mind to the contemplation of it as the last development of that ' increasing purpose' which runs through the ages and widens the thoughts of men. 1 1 OX THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES : A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OP GREAT BRITAIN. BY JAMES PAGET, F.RS. ASSISTANT-SURGEON AND LECTURER ON PHYSIOLOGY AT ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES. I~T is my office to submit to you the importance -*- of the study of physiology, as a branch of educa- tion for all classes ; to state the grounds on which it seems desirable that every one should learn some- what of the structure of the human body, and of the processes that are carried on within it, and the laws according to which they are governed. The advantages to be expected from the general teaching of physiology may be grouped in two classes : the first, including such as would tend to the pro- motion of the science : the second, such as would belong to the students. By a wider diffusion of the knowledge of physio- logy its progress woidd be accelerated, as that of any other science would, by the increased number of the competent observers of its facts. [ 215 ] s 2 MR. PAGET But a larger advantage, and one which, I think, physiology needs more than any other science does, ■would arise in this ; that the communication would be easier, which is now so difficult, between those who are engaged in it, and those who specially devote themselves to other sciences that might assist it. Almost every process in the living body involves the exercise of mechanical and chemical — perhaps, also, of electrical — forces, whose effects are mingled with those of the more proper vital force ; and although this special force may modify, and in some sort veil, the effects of the others, yet must their influence be reckoned and allowed for in nearly every case we have to study. Therefore, the complete solution of any new physiological problem must require such a master of all these sciences of dead and living matter as cannot now, I believe, be found, or else it must have the co-operation of many workers, each skilled in some single science, and able to communi- cate with all the rest. Such co-operation is, through the present narrowness of teaching, almost impossible. The mere chemist, or mechanical, or electrical philo • sopher, and the mere physiologist (one, I mean, who studies it, chiefly, by anatomy or by direct experi- ment), can scarcely so much as understand each other's language : they work apart at the same sub- ject ; and sometimes even confuse each other, by [ 216 ] ON THE STUDY OP PHYSIOLOGY. showing the same facts in different lights, and ex- plained in different and mutually unintelligible terms. I know well that it requires nearly all the power of a strong mind so to master any of the physical sciences, as to be able to investigate its applications in the living body ; and that, therefore, few could hope to be at once excellent in physiology, and in any science of dead matter; but the co-operation that I speak of would not need more than that the skilled workman in each science should understand the language, and the chief principles, and modes of working, of the rest. I am sure that it is, in great measure, through the want of help, such as it might hence derive, that the onward steps of physiology are so slow, so retarded b} r backslidings, and by the consciousness of insecurity. And in yet another way, I believe that the general teaching of physiology would insure its more rapid progress — namely, by finding out those who are especially fit for its study. If we mark the peculiar fitness of certain men for special callings, who are even below an average ability in the common business of life, one might imagine some natural design of mutual adaptation between things to be done and men to do them ; and certainly, it were to be wished that a wider scheme of education should leave it less to chance [ 2I 7 ] ME. PAGET whether a man will fall, or fail to fall, in the way of that special work for which he seems designed. Really, it has seemed like a chance that has led nearly every one of our best physiologists to his appropriate work : like a chance, the loss of which might have consigned him to a life of failures, or of mediocrity, in some occupation for which he had neither capacity nor love. Such are some of the chief benefits that might result to physiology if it were more generally studied. I might tell of more; but I will not do so, nor enlarge on these; for, it might be argued, that it would be unjust to tax every one with intellectual labour for the advancement of one science, even though that science be the foundation of the healing art, in whose improvement every one is interested. I will rather try to show that, through such labour in the study of physiology, every one would gain for himself some more direct advantage. I believe that even a moderate acquaintance with the principles of physiology, acquired in early life, would benefit a man, with regard to both his body and his mind : and that it would do this by guiding him in the maintenance and improvement of health, by teaching him the true economy of his powers, whether mental or corporeal, by providing worthy r 2i8 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. materials for thought, and by cultivating peculiar modes, and suggesting peculiar ends, of thinking. But before I attempt to illustrate these things, let me meet an objection which is likely to be made against any proposal that physiology should be a subject of general education, — namely, that it cannot be generally taught, because (it is sup- posed) its objects are difficult to show, and it re- quires dissections and painful experiments for its illustration. To such objections, the answer is easy : that the rudiments of physiology are taught already, largely and efficiently, in several schools of both England and Scotland. For such instruction, no general practice of dissection or of experiments is at all necessary. For most of the illustrations, drawings would suffice ; especially such as those which have been constructed with admirable art, and published for the use of schools, under the direction of Mr. Marshall, of University College, for the Board of Trade Department of Science. Other things could be well taught with models.* The organs of animals might, in some instances, be used; and dried speci- mens. Only let there be a demand for the materials of such teaching, and I will venture to promise, that * Specimens were shown of models of the development of the chick, very accurately executed in wax, from nature, by Mr. Tuson. [ 2iQ ] MR. PAGET modern art, such as these examples display, will soon supply them at no great cost, and without offence to the most refined feelings. But while I speak of what modern art would do, I am bound to add that the teaching of physiology, not by representations, but by the very objects of its study, was long ago sanctioned by the highest and most venerated authority in the land. For, in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, there are now several beautiful specimens of the chief organs of the human body, prepared by John Hunter, which formed part of a collection, made at Kew, by his Majesty King George III., for the instruction of the princes, his sons. But if it be admitted that physiology can be gene- rally taught, yet some may say that, so far as the improvement of health and the economy of power are concerned, such teaching is unnecessary ; for that, to these ends, a man need only follow the guidance of nature and of instinct. And, indeed, at first thought, it may seem very strange that we should want instruction for keeping ourselves in health ; strange that man should be left with no natural true guidance to so great a good : that man alone, for whom the earth seems made, should need mental labour to preserve or recover bodily health. Yet so it is : for none of our untaught faculties, neither our 220 OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. senses nor our instincts, are sufficient guides to good or guards from evil, in even the ordinary con- ditions of civilized life. The acuteness of our senses is not at all propor- tionate to the vital importance of the things that we observe with them. They are unable to discern the properties, or even the presence, of some of the most deadly agents. For example, Ave have a far keener sense of the temperature of the atmosphere than of its composition, or fitness for breathing: yet the ordinary changes in its temperature concern little more than our comfort; those in its composition may affect our life. And thus it is that, seeking only the comfort of warmth, which their senses can discern, men will breathe atmospheres laden with noxious gases, which they can scarcely detect till they have accumulated to the peril of their lives. So with food: we have a keener sense of hunger and thirst than of the sufficiency or fitness of our foods. We can at once appreciate their flavour, but not their nutritive value; and those we most affect are not always the most appropriate to our state. Our instincts avail us scarcely more. After child- hood, in civilized life, the instincts are almost in abeyance, and the intellect and instruction have a share in the most ordinary acts of life. The sen- sations of thirst and hunger impel us instinctively to [ 221 ] MR. PAGET seek their satisfaction; and by instinct we know how to do so; but in doing it, Ave drink in adaptation to instruments of intellectual invention; and we eat things intellectually cooked, with apparatus of intel- lectual art: yes, intellectual, for the meanest piece of cookery requires that control and management of fire, which no mind lower than the human intel- lect has ever reached, and the possession of which might alone suffice to prove man's primacy among all the creatures of the earth. But I need not multiply instances (I will not say of the inutility, but) of the insufficiency of our un- taught powers for our guidance, in the commonest things of civilized life, relating to our health. Every one has suffered from following what has seemed some natural guidance, and has learned that we only gradually attain some knowledge of these things by experience or education; i. e., by the exercise of the understanding as well as of the senses. If it be asked whether a state of ignorance regarding his own health be natural to man, I must answer that I suppose Providence has taken ample care for his good, in all those things which are of natural ordinance and independent of his will: but that, for those conditions which he generates or incurs by his own power and free-will, he is left by the same power to provide. T suppose that men 222 ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. may, generally, be, like other creatures, aware, by sense or instinct, of those things which are for their good, when the simplest conditions of their existence are undisturbed. But these are not the conditions in which we live. Men have disturbed, in successive generations, almost every simple and original condi- tion of their existence. In every generation, they have been striving, with intellectual labour, to add to the comforts and luxuries of life, to their control of the forces, and their independence of the ordinary course, of nature. And many of their successes in this strife, being achieved bv the disturbance of some natural and fit condition of mere subsistence, have almost necessarily incurred some consequent evils, which have marred, though they may not have neu- tralized, the good, and have gradually accumulated to our damage. If, indeed, in all the improvements of our means of life, only half the trouble had been taken to pre- vent or remedy the future evil, that was taken to attain the present good, our state might have been far different. If, for examples, men had been as anxious to invent the means of destroying coal-smoke, as to gain the myriad benefits of coal-fires; if they had thought as much and as soon of constructing drains below the ground, as of building above it; as much even of clearing out the refuse of our gas-lights, [ 22 3 ] ME. PAGET as of tempering and diffusing their brilliancy for com- fortable use; — then we might have gained unalloyed benefits from every such disturbance of the natural conditions of life : the vast catalogue of diseases appertaining to our social state might have been unwritten j and that which one age hailed as a national blessing might not have entailed upon the next a national calamity. But this has not been done; and thus, from age to age, the evil residues of good things have accumulated; the good still, happily, preponderating, but the evils such as every man, and every society of men, have now- to guard against, and such as can be averted or counteracted with no other human power than that of the intellect instructed in the science of health. Perhaps, now, the only question is, whether this instruction need be given to all, or whether it had not better be still left, as it is by present custom, to a few, to exercise it in a special profession. I cannot doubt that here, as in other cases, for all ordinary care, for all habitual management, each man should be fit to be his own guardian; while for emergencies, and the more unusual events, he should accept and be able to choose some more instructed guidance. It is not necessary, or likely, that every one who has learnt somewhat of the structure of his own body, and of the processes carried on in it, should seek to [ 224 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. be his own doctor; not more so than that every one who has learnt the construction and principle of a steam-engine, should be restless unless he be his own engineer. We need not fear a misuse, through excessive use, of such physiology as can be generally taught. Certainly, if I may speak as one of the medical profession, we see greater injury sustained through ignorance, than is likely to accrue to imper- fect knowledge, whether it be the most timid or the most rash. And here, when I speak of ignorance, I am obliged to say that I do not mean only the state of those who are wholly uneducated, but include the state of nearly all who have not received some special teach- ing. For, really, in regard to all that concerns our life and health, it seems as if no amount of general education, no clearness of apprehension for science or for the general business of life, were sufficient for security against the grossest errors. I will not speak of the follies (as I believe them to be), that are now regarded as truths, and even useful truths, by gene- rally well-instructed, shrewd, and accomplished per- sons. I will only say that, at all times, such persons have been as ready as the most uneducated to believe and submit themselves to practices, which the phy- siology even of their own times could prove to be gross and mischievous fallacies. In every age, it [ »S ] MR. TAGET has been true that ' the desire of health, like the desire of -wealth, brings all intellects to the same level;' that is, all that have not some special wisdom in the art of health or of wealth. If now it may be received that physiology should be generally studied for the sake of health, it may be asked what parts of it should be chiefly taught, and in what method ? I might leave this to those who are occupied with general education, and with younger students than I have had to teach. But considering that the large majority of those to whom it would be taught are to be engaged, in after life, in pursuits alien from science, and that we therefore could not hope to do much more than leave general impressions such as might abide for general guidance, I feel nearly sure that the mere facts of physiology, and much more those of anatomy, should be taught in subordination to their general principles. If I try to illustrate this by an example, I fear lest to some I seem almost unintelligible; for I have never before lectured except to students or members of my own profession, to whom I could use technical terms, and whom I could suppose to be, in some measure, already acquainted with my subject. But, for an example, — in relation to the economy of power, suppose of muscular power, and thereby [ "6 ] ON THE STUDY OP PHYSIOLOGY. in regard to the maintenance of health, it would have to be taught, that, in the living body, the apparent stability and persistence of its structures is due, not to their being literally indestructible, but to the constant operation of a process in them, by which the particles that decay, or are outworn in the exer- cise of their offices, are constantly removed, and replaced by new ones like themselves. We know that in all the actions of the body, there is waste and impairment of the active parts. But though, day after day, we exert, even in the common acts of life, in walking, feeding, breathing, thinking, talking, great amounts of force, and though) with the nse of force, there is always a proportionate consumption of the material of our bodies, yet, year after year (at least for many years), we appear to be and feel the same: because the consumption, the wear and tear, of material, that occurs in the action of onr several parts, is constantly repaired in the intervals of rest. Then, following out this principle, it might be shown, that an economy of vital power is commonly maintained in the body by the just regulation of alternate periods of action and repose; and this might be taken as a principle for useful illustration. The climax of the exercise of muscular power seems to be attained in the heart. Perhaps there is nothing, of equal weight, that exerts in the same [ "7 ] MR. PAGET time so large an amount of force as a heart does. In every second, or oftener, discharging blood from its cavities with a force equal to the lifting of a weight of from ten to fifteen pounds, it goes on hour after hour, and year after year, untired and almost unchanged. Now, by the similarity between the structure and mode of contraction of the muscular fibres of the heart, and those of the muscles over which we have control, we may be sure that its fibres are subject to the same impairment in their actions as theirs are known to be; and that they must need the same repair in rest, as the voluntary muscles obtain in sleep. But the heart seems never to sleep; and we explain the secret of its apparently unceasing exercise of power, by referring to its exact rhythm of alternating contractions and dilatations; by the fact, that every contraction by which it forces blood into the vessels, i.e., every act which we can feel as a beat or throb, is succeeded by an interval of rest, or inaction, of the same length; and by the probability, that in each period of inaction (brief as it is), the changes that occurred during the contraction are repaired. It is the same with the muscles for breathing, in their ordinary and involuntary exercise. The alternation of their action and repose is constant; and they too, though exerting forces that are truly [ 228 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. enormous, neither waste nor weary themselves; because (we may hold) in every period of inaction they repair the changes wrought in them by their action. Now the principle which is thus illustrated may probably be applied to nearly all muscular exertion. Whatever work is to be done, the largest amount of force may be utilized with the least injury, when rest and action are made to be alternate. And this is to be observed, not only in that long rest which our voluntary muscles have in sleep, but, equally, in more active life ; wherein more force is always obtained by the alternate action of certain groups of muscles, than by the sustained action of any single group. Thus, I think, it can be proved that there are no voluntary actions in which the human body can exercise larger amounts of force than in ordinary progression, as in walking or in running. And it is because of the alternation of the similar acts done by the two halves of the body, and espe- cially by the two lower extremities. For if you watch a man walking, you will sec that each of his limbs is doing exactly the opposite to what the other is doing, and to what itself has just finished doing ; and the corresponding muscles are never in the same action upon both sides at once : and so if one step have been made, say, chiefly, with the muscular effort of the right limb, the next will be 229 ] T ME. PAGET made with a similar effort of the left, while those of the right will have an interval of comparative inaction. In some measure, therefore, the principle of alter- nate action and repose, typified in the case of the heart, is applied here. But it is not so completely observed; for we tire in walking, even while our hearts may be growing more active. This, however, is not only because of the motion, but because many muscles must be in almost constant exercise for the maintenance of the erect posture, and because, pro- bably, in these voluntary exercises the rest of a muscle is never quite perfect, even in its relaxing state. This same principle, of the economy of force in the alternation of action and repose, is doubtless true of the nervous as of the muscular system ; and on it we explain the need of repose, prolonged and deep, in direct proportion to the length and intensity of mental exercise. On the same principle, we explain the refreshment of the mind by change of occupation or of the train of thought : so that, while one part of the brain is occupied, another may be at rest after its work is done. And many like things may be thus explained, which it would be well for all to know, but chiefly for those who have to teach, and who need to regulate their pupils' mental exercises with the best economy they can. There is another class of organs in which the [ 2 3° ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. alternations of action and rest, of waste and repair, appear essential to the full exercise and economy of power. The stomach is one of these ; and a know- ledge of the method of its office of digestion might prevent somewhat of its almost universal misuse. Its chief office in digestion is to produce a peculiar fluid which, mingling with the food, may, by a process similar to fermentation, reduce it to solution or to a state of extremely minute division. This fluid, the gastric or digestive fluid, does not merely ooze from the blood; but is so formed in minute cells, that, for each minutest microscopic drop of it, a cell, of complex structure, must be developed, grow, and burst or be dissolved. A diagram woidd very well show how the lining membrane of the stomach is formed, almost entirely, of minute tubes, set vertically in its thickness, like little flasks or test-tubes, close-packed and upright. The outer walls of these are webbed-over with net- works of most delicate blood-vessels, carrying streams of blood. Within, the same tubes contain cells, and those among them which chiefly secrete the digestive fluid are nearly filled with cells, which have taken materials from the blood, and from those materials have formed themselves and their contents. In what way they have done this, we cannot tell : but we can tell that the process is one of complicate [ 231 ] T 2 MR. PAGET though speedy development and growth ; even such a process as that by which, more slowly, the body grows, or any of its parts, — the hair or the nails, or any other that Ave can best watch. The act of secretion or production of this fluid is, literally, the growth and dissolution of the minute cells which, though they be very short-lived, yet must need a certain time for their complete elaboration. If this be so, it must follow, that we cannot, with impunity, interfere with that which seems a natural rule, of allowing certain intervals between the several times of feeding. Every act of digestion involves the consumption of some of these cells : on every contact of food, some must quickly perfect them- selves, and yield up their contents ; and without doubt, the design of that periodical taking of food, which is natural to our race, is that, in the intervals, there may be time for the production of the cells that are to be consumed in the next succeeding acts of digestion. We can, indeed, state no constant rule as to the time required for such constructions : it probably varies according to age, and the kind of food, and the general activity or indolence of life, and, above all, according to habit; but it may be certainly held, that when the times are set, they cannot, with impunity, be often interfered with ; and, as certainly, that continual or irregular feeding is [ 2 32 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. wholly contrary to the economy of the human stomach. And yet such constant feeding is a fre- quent custom — not infrequent among the adult rich, but most frequent among the infants of the poor, for whom food is the solace of every grief. I would thus try to teach general principles of physiology ; and with such principles there might easily be combined some useful rules for prudence in the ordinary management of personal or social health, and in the habitual exercise of power. I will not venture to say that it is only by teaching physiology that prudence can be taught; for even in the cases I have cited, physiology teaches no other rule than nature and experience had already indi- cated. Still, even in regard to those rules, when it shows their reason and their meaning, it gives them strength, and it enlists the power of the under- standing against the overbearing of inclination and bad habit. And so, though it might be impossible to teach more than a small part of the whole body of physiology, yet one who had learned even this part would have a better apprehension of the rest than one untaught could have. One who had learned the general mode of study, and the labour which is spent in ascertaining physiological truths, and the great probability that what is generally accepted is at least nearly true, would, more than [ *33 ] MR. PAGET an untaught man, act on the advice of those who are instructed. Thus acting, he would, as a citizen, be no hinderer of improvements, no block of utter ignorance in the way of amending the sanitary- condition of his fellows : with belief, if not with knowledge, he would give his help to good. And for his own guidance, such an one, though only partially instructed, would be a far better judge than most men are of the probable value of professed discoveries in medicine ; he would be doubtful of all unreserved assertions ; wisely incredulous of all results supposed to flow from apparently incompetent sources. Even the desire of health would bear fre- quent disappointment, before it would induce him to • commit himself to the daring promises of ignorance. I have said that we might anticipate advan- tages to the mind, as well as to the bodily health, from making physiology a branch of general educa- tion. And some of these advantages must not be widely separated from those of which I have been speaking : for they are, in truth, closely corre- spondent, derived from the same source and by the same method. The health of the mind, so far as it is within om* own control, is subject to the same laws as is the health of the body. For the brain, the organ of the mind, grows and is maintained according [ 2 -54 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. to the same method of nutrition as every other part of the body ; it is supplied by the same blood ; and through the blood, like every other part, may be affected for good or Ul by the various physical influ- ences to which it is exposed. But I will not dwell on this, more than to assert, as safely deducible from physiology, that no scheme of instruction, or of legislation, can avail for the improvement of the human mind, which does not provide with equal care for the well-being of the human body. Deprive men of fresh air, and pure water, of the light of heaven, and of sufficient food and rest, and as surely as their bodies will become dwarfish, and pallid, and diseased, so surely will their minds degenerate in intellectual and moral power. But let me suppose that these needs of the body may be happily within men's reach ; and then I may speak of the advantages that would accrue, from the general study of physiology, in the mental culture it would provide. I again remind myself that the cases to be kept in view are not only those of men who arc to be chiefly occupied with science, but those of persons who are to pursue the various common businesses of life ; and upon whose minds we cannot expect that those studies of their school-time, which would be widely different from the occupations of their later life, will do more [ *35 J ME. PAGET than leave general impressions, and impart an habitual method and tone of thought. To such persons, I believe that the study of physiology would be useful, first, on the general ground, that they who can, with most force, apply themselves to any business in life (be it what it may) are those whose minds are disciplined and informed in all their parts, so as to be not only full and strong, but pliant, liberal, and adaptive. Now, there are some characters in physiology by means of which its study might affect the mind, or certain parts of it, differently from any portions of even that enlarged education which it is the object of this whole course of lectures to recommend. One of these is, that it is occupied with things of admitted incompleteness and uncertainty. In other, and especially in the physical, sciences, I think it is only the master, or the advanced student, who is impressed with their uncertainty. In them, speak- ing generally, that which is taught admits of clear proof; and imperfection is not spoken of, except, as it were, at the distant boundaries of a vast body of truth. But, in physiology, the teacher would need everywhere to mark the imperfections of his know- ledge ; in the very rudiments, he must speak of things as only, in various degrees, probable. Some of my predecessors in this course have shown how much the value of the physical sciences [ 236 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. lies ill the possibility of proving what is held in them, and in the precision of the mental exercises which they thus demand and cultivate ; and no one can be more conscious than I am that, on this account, they are indispensable elements of sound education. But I believe, also, that it would be right to mingle with this study that of a much more incomplete and uncertain science. I think it would be good, at least for some ruinds, to know in early life how much has vet to be done in science : so that some through ambition of discovery, some through love of enterprise, some through mere curiosity, might be excited to work among the stores of un- explored knowledge that would be pointed out to them. It is strange how early, and how strong in early life, these ambitions of discoverv and invention arise ; and I suppose that, in all later life, there are no enjoyments more keen, or more invigorating to the mind, than those felt in boyhood, when such an ambition is gratified ; — whether by the finding of some plant unknown before in the home-district, or by the invention of some new appliance to a toy, imitating what men deal with, or, — it matters not by- how trivial a thing. I would not venture to say how large a part such ambition should be allowed to have among the motives to study, but I think it should not be quite suppressed, or starved, as it is by teach- [ 237 ] MR. PAGET ing only such things as are already proved, or decided bv authority. And, perhaps, yet another advantage -would flow from the teaching of physiology, honestly and ex- pressly, as a very incomplete and uncertain science. It is a great hindrance to the progress of truth, that some men "will hold, with equal tenacity, things that are, and things that are not, proved ; and even things that, from their very nature, do not admit of proof. They seem to think (and ordinary education might be pleaded as justifying the thought) that a plain ( yes' or ' no' can be answered to every question that can be plainly asked; and that everything thus an- swered is a settled thing, and to be maintained as a point of conscience. I need not adduce instances of this error, while its mischiefs are manifest everywhere in the wrongs done by premature and tenacious judgments. I am aware that these are faults of the temper, not less than of the judgment ; but we know how much the temper is influenced by the character of our studies ; and I think if any one were to be free from this over-zeal of opinion, it should be one who is early instructed in an uncertain science, such as physiology. He might receive, with reverent sub- mission, all revealed truth ; he might bend unques- tioning to the declarations of teachers authorized to [ 23S ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. promulgate positive commandments ; but bis babit of thinking how soon all inquiries concerning living things end in uncertainty, his experience of the ex- ceeding difficulty of settling for ever even a small matter, would make him very scrupulous in accepting as completely proved, very slow in making a point of conscience of, anything that may be made a matter of reasonable discussion or of further study. Let me repeat, that I do not hold that it is bene- ficial to study only or chiefly such a science as this, whose principles scarcely admit of full proof. I know too well the danger of resting satisfied with error, Avhen truth cannot be quite attained. But I lecture only as one of many, advocating the import- ance of as many different branches of study; and I think that the early study of uncertainties might well be mingled with that of things which may be proved beyond all doubt. But I have yet to speak of that through which, I believe, the general teaching of physiology would exercise the greatest influence upon the mind ; namely, its being, essentially, a science of designs and final causes. In this (if we regard it in its full meaning, as the science concerning living tilings) it is chiefly in contrast with the physical sciences, and, so far as I know, with nearly all the other studies of even the widest scheme of education. [ 239 ] ME. PAGET I do not say that it is only in living things that we can discern the evidences of design. Doubtless, things that are dead — things that we call inorganic, when we woidd distinguish them from living organ- isms — are yet purposive, and mutually adapted to co-operate in the fulfilment of design. We cannot doubt, for example, that all the parts of this dead earth, and all the members of our planetary system, are adapted to one another with mutual influence; balanced and laid out in appropriate weight and measure; fitted each to do its part, and serve its purpose, in some vast design. And thus the whole universe might be called an organism ; constructed in parts and systems, almost infinite in number and variety, but adjusted with an all-pervading purpose. Still, there is a striking difference between dead and living things, in the degree and manner in which their laws and their designs are manifest to us. In the inor- ganic world, in the studies of the physical sciences, we seem to come nearer to the efficient, than to the final, causes of events : we discern, it may be, both the most general laws, and the most minute details of the events ; but these rarely shadow forth their purpose or design ; or, if they do, it is a design in adaptation to organic life, as where we may trace the fitness of the earth and air for their living occupants. But, in the inorganic world, the reverse is true : purpose, [ -Ho ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. design, and mutual fitness are manifest wherever we can discern the structure or the actions of a part ; utility and mutual dependence are implied in all the language, and sought in all the studies, of physiology. The efficient causes and the general laws of the vital actions may be hidden from the keenest search; but their final causes are often nearly certain. In the sciences of the inorganic world, we can learn how changes are accomplished, but we can rarely tell why they are : in those of the organic world, the question 1 why' can be often answered, the question ' how' is generally an enigma that we cannot solve. Now, were there no other argument for the general teaching of physiology, I would be content with this ; that an education which does not include the teach- ing of some science of natural designs, does not provide for the instruction of one of the best powers and aspirations of the mind. The askings of children seem to indicate a natural desire after the knowledge of the purposes fulfilled in nature. ' "Why?* and ' Of what use V are the ends of half their untutored questions ; and we may be sure they have not the wish for such knowledge without the power of attaining it, if the needful help be given them. And yet, in the usual subjects of education, nothing addresses itself to this desire, and so there is not only a neglect of the teaching of the peculiar modes of [ «4* ] MR. PAGET reasoning required, or admitted, in physiological research ; but the natural love and capacity for studying design are left to spend themselves, un- trained, upon unworthy objects ; and so they fade or degenerate — degenerate, perhaps, into some such baseness as an impertinent curiosity about other men's matters. I would therefore have physiology taught to all, as a study of God's designs and purposes achieved; as a science for which our natural desire after the knowledge of final causes seems to have been destined; a science in which that desire, though it were infi- nite, might be satisfied ; and in which, as with perfect models of beneficence and wisdom, our own faculties of design may be instructed. I would not have its teaching limited to a bare declaration of the use and exact fitness of each part or organ of the body. This, indeed, should not be omitted; for there are noble truths in the simplest demonstrations of the fitness of parts for their simplest purposes, and no study has been made more attractive than this by the in- genuity, the acuteness, and eloquence of its teachers. But I would go beyond this, and striving, as I said before, to teach general truths as well as the details of science, I would try to lead the mind to the con- templation of those general designs, from which it might gather the best lessons for its own guidance. [ 2 42 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. If I may presume to speak as I would to boys or girls, I would say let us learn frugality from some of the designs that Ave can study in the living body ; and surely the lesson maybe the more impressive, if we remember that we arc studying the frugality of One whose power and materials are infinite. Observe, for example, what happens during active exercise; how the heart beats quicker and harder than it did before, and the skin grows warmer and ruddier, and the blood moves faster, and the breathing is quicker. The main design of this seems to be that the active muscles may be the more abundantly supplied with blood. But the beginning in the series of changes is an instance of that designed frugality of which I have been speaking. Veins, carrying blood to the heart, lie, as you see, branching and communicating under the skin ; and there are others like them deeper set among the muscles of both the limbs and the trunk. Now, muscles, when they act, shorten and swell-up : and in so doing (as in active exercise), they compress the veins that lie between them, or upon them underneath the skin. The effect of such compression must be to press the blood in every vein, equally in both directions, — both onwards towards the heart, and backwards from it. All that part of this pressure which is effective in propelling the blood towards the heart is so much added to the [ 2 43 ] MR. PAGET forces of the circulation ; it is so much direct gain of force. But it may seem as if this gain were balanced by an equal loss, through the influence of the same pressure driving other portions of the blood backwards. And so it would be, but for the arrangement of valves in the veins, which are the instruments of this saving of force. Wherever there are muscles that in their action can compress the veins, there, also, the veins have valves ; and a diagram or a model would show that these are little pocket-shaped membranes, which project into the canals of the veins, in such a manner that they will allow the streams of blood to pass onwards to the heart, but will close at once and hinder any stream that would flow backwards. Thus, there- fore, the effect of muscular pressure on the veins is (let us say), with a certain force, to propel some blood towards the heart, and with the same force to press back other blood upon the valves and close them. You will say, then, here is still the same hindrance : if the valves be closed, the stream behind them must m be stopped, and there is as much loss as gain. It would be so, if there were not this other provision ; that wherever there can be muscular pressure upon veins, those veins not only have valves, but have abundant channels of communication with one another. The back-pressure of the blood, and the closure of the valves, is therefore no hindrance to the circulation ; [ 244 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. for the blood, that might be stopped in one vein, makes its way at once into another by some commu- nicating branch. The general result, therefore, is, that all muscular pressure upon veins is an almost unalloyed advantage to the circulation. And now mark the frugality of the design. Veins must lie in or near these places, and the muscles must act (suppose for some design of our own) ; and if they are to be in very active exercise, they will need swifter streams of blood than will suffice in their repose. The streams could be made swifter by a greater force of the heart ; but heart-force is a thing to be econo- mized ; and the muscles themselves may, without harm, contribute to accelerate the blood ; for in the fulfilment of their primary purpose, of moving and sustaining the limbs and trunk, they must swell-up, and compress the veins that are about them ; and this compression can be made effective for the circulation of the blood by the mechanism of valves. So then, in the necessary fulfilment of their primary use, and without the least hindrance or damage to it, the muscles are ^jj^de to serve this secondary purpose; and all that they do herein is so much saved to the forces of the heart. Scarcely a lesson in physiology could be given but it might illustrate some such design as this. Every- where we see examples of parts thus made to [ 245 ] U MR. PAGET serve bye-purposes while fulfilling their primary designs. I will mention hut one more. All know that the air we have once breathed is less fit for breathing than it was before, and that if we breathe the same air often it becomes poisonous, through the mixture of the carbonic acid and other exhalations from the lungs. We must breathe out the air, therefore, as so much refuse ; and ample provision is made that we may do so ; and it might seem design enough fulfilled when we are thus freed from our own poison. But is it not an admirable secondary design, an admirable frugality, a true wisdom by-the-way, that, with this same air, we speak; that this, which we must cast out lest it destroy us, should be used for one of the noblest powers of man? Surely, one might have supposed, for so great a purpose as the communion of human thoughts, and for all that speech and vocal melody can achieve, there would be contrived some matchless instrument, some rare material. But no: the instruments of human speech are scarcely more complex organs than those which dumb creatines have to breathe and feed with; and the material for human speech carries-out the refuse of the blood; the very dross of the body is used for the coinage of the mind. Such .might be some lessons in that Divine frugality [ *46 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. which is ever "gathering up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost/ The moral of such lessons is verjr plain. Not less significant are those which may be studied in the designs of the body during its development. All these are instances of present things having their true purpose in some future state. Let me endeavour to illustrate some of them. I have here models of the changes that the chick undergoes in its development ; and what they show might suffice for teaching the development of higher creatures. Now, nearly all we see here is the work- ing out of a design, which cannot have its full end till some future time. These wings and legs — of what avail are they to the prisoner in the shell ? Their purpose is not yet fulfilled ; they are for the future. But if these be too plain to be impressive, let us look at more particular things. Observe the changes through which the heart passes, from its first appearance as a little pulsating bag, to its being nearly fit for the time when the hatched bird will breathe in the open air. The changes are not merely a growth from a little heart to a big one ; but are a series of acquirements of more complex shapes; so that the heart, which at first is a simple bag, then becomes very curved, and then divides into two, and then into three and four, [ 247 ] U 2 MR. PAGET cavities. Now, doubtless, in each of these conditions, the heart is exactly appropriate to the contemporary state of the other organs, and the circumstances of the time of life ; but each of them is, besides, a necessary stage of transition towards that more per- fect state, that fitness for more complex duties, which the heart attains when the bird is born to breathe with lungs in the open air. But I would descend yet lower, and, magnifying the wonders of these plans for the future, by diminish- ing (as it may seem to some) the importance of the objects in which they are displayed, would trace the development of a single blood-cell in a tadpole — i. e., in the young fish-like embryo of a frog, such as nearly every pool would supply in the spring-time, and such as magnified sketches would fully illustrate. By a blood-cell, I mean one of those microscopic particles by which the blood is coloured red : par- ticles so minute that, in our own blood, about ten millions might lie on a square inch of surface. In the earliest period of active life of these tadpoles, the little black and fish-like body is composed almost wholly of minute cells ; among which you can trace, with even powerful microscopes, scarce any difference. You could not tell the future destiny of any of them by their present characters ; they look all alike. But presently, as they increase in number, a differ- [ 248 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. encing begins among them, and a sorting of them; and some arrange themselves for a spinal column, and some for muscles ; and some are seen to be placed where the first streams of blood are to run ; and some are clustered where the heart will be. At first, those that are to be blood-cells are round, and darkly shaded, and contain yellowish particles, many of which are like four-sided crystals of some fatty substance. But, in a day or two, the cells begin to move and circulate in the channels in which thev were arranged; and then, as we watch them day by day, they gradually change. The particles within them become smaller and less numerous, and collect near to their borders; while their centres, clearing up, show an enclosed smaller body or nucleus. More- over, as these changes proceed, the cells Avhich were before colourless, acquire gradually a deeper and deeper blood-tint, and exchange their round for an oval shape; till, by the time that all the particles they first contained are cleared away, as if by solution, they have become perfect blood-cells, nearly like those which colour the blood of the completely developed frog. The time required for these changes depends much on the temperature and degree of light to which the creature is exposed. It may vary from one to three or more weeks ; and we can thus deliberately watch the development of a blood-cell, day by day, until it r =49 ] ME. PAGET readies that which we may call its perfection. In this state the cells abide for a time, unclianjnn£r ; and then decline and give place to another set of blood-cells, each of which is developed through a series of changes different, indeed, from those that I have described, but not less numerous or complex. Now, such is the life, up to the period of per- fection, of every blood-cell in this trivial creature. And so it is in ourselves. Of the millions of those cells that colour our blood, not one reaches its per- fection but through changes as numerous and great as these. Perhaps the wonder is augmented if we think that, in the embryo, the changes proceed, with equal steps, in all the cells at once : there is exact concert anions; them ; if I may so speak, they all keep time. Nor is the harmony limited to them: for their develop- ment is exactly adjusted to that of every other part; successive changes are exactly concurrent in every part at once ; so that, though all are continually changing, they never lose their mutual fitness. I might cite more instances of these plans for futurity ; but they are nearly infinite ; for in truth (and what a moral there is in such a truth !) in the living world, nothing is made at once fit for the highest purposes of which it may be capable. In all the countless crowds of living beings, — in all the [ 2 5° ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. countless particles of each, — there is not one but in the history of its life we may read a gradual attain- ment of its highest destiny : not one hut has a time in which its true purpose is yet future, its true de- sign yet unfulfilled ; and, although, even in its rudi- ment, it is not useless, yet there will he a time when, with higher powers, it will take part in the designs of some more perfect state. So wide is that law, which has its highest instance in the history and future destiny of man himself. But the evidence of the design of living bodies for conditions that are yet future, seems to culminate in the proofs of their capacity to repair injuries, and to recover from diseases. It is surely only because it is so familiar, that we think lightly, if at all, of the fact that living bodies are capable of repairing most of the injuries they may sustain ; and that, in this capacity, they show that provision has been made in them, for events of which it is not certain whether they will ever occur to them or not. When we contemplate the perfect living body, — the exact fitness of every part for its office, not as an independent agent, but as one whose work must be done in due proportion with that of many others, is a very marvellous thing; but it seems much more marvellous that, in the cm.br; [ *5* ] /SO> 0* THE fmsriVERSITYj MR. PAGET each of these parts was made fit for offices and relations that were then future; but surely more marvellous than all it is, that each of these, when perfect, should still have capacity for right action in events that are not only future, but unlikely ; that are indeed possible, but are in only so low a degree probable, that if ever they happen they will be called accidents — as things not to be expected or provided for. Let me describe a process of repair, and describe it so simply, as it might be to school-boys. All know, or can feel, their Achilles -tendons behind their ancles, and that these, strong as they are, are sometimes broken by a violent contraction of their muscles. I know not how small — how almost infinitely small — the chance is that any given man, or quadruped, would ever break this or any other part ; but small as the chance may be, ample provision is made for its repair. How this is accom- plished may be again illustrated by diagrams. When the tendon in such an animal as a rabbit is divided, its pieces separate to nearly an inch apart, the upper piece being drawn up by the unrestricted action of its muscles. The muscles, no longer fast- ened by the tendon to the heel-bone, are thus ren- dered useless ; and the object of the reparative process must be to form a bond of connexion between the separated pieces of the tendon. [ 2 52 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. In the two days following such an injury, all the structures between and around the ends of the divided tendon appear soaked with a half-liquid substance, the product of inflammation. And thus far we see no plan for uniting the separated pieces; there is no more of this new substance in the line between them than there is around them ; and all the new substance appears alike. But in the course of two days more, we find that fresh material is deposited between the separated pieces of the tendons, and that it is firmer than that around, and has firm hold on the ends of the separated pieces, and connects them, though as yet (if I may so say), only clumsily. After this, however, each day finds the connecting substance becoming firmer, tougher, and more like the texture of the tendon itself. Each day, too, it becomes more defined from the surrounding parts ; and this it does, not only because itself becomes more exactly shaped, but because they regain their natural texture. And observe the distinct design which is shown in this contrast. At first, all the parts at and about the seat of injury were soaked with a similar material ; but now, that portion of this material, which lay in the place for the formation of the connecting bond, has re- mained and contributed to the repair; but that portion of it which was more remote, and could serve no useful purpose, has been cleared away. [ >53 ] ME. PAGET At the end of a week, in the rabbit, a complete cord-like bond of union is formed, and the muscles can act again. By this time, too, the bond has gained nearly the perfect texture and the toughness of the original tendon. I once tried the strength of such a bond of connexion, which had been form- ing for ten days after the division of the Achilles- tendon of a young rabbit. Having removed it from the dead body, I suspended weights upon it, and, after bearing weights of twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty pounds, it was at length broken by a weight of fifty-six pounds. But surely the strength it showed was very wonderful, if we remember that it was not more than the sixth of an inch in its greatest thick- ness, and that it was wholly formed in ten days, in the leg of a rabbit scarcely more than a pound in weight. I might illustrate the process of repair by in- stances as perfect as these, observed after injuries of many, almost of any, parts. And I might, as in the instance of development, magnify its excellence by showing it in what we are apt to call trivial creatures, or even by showing that, in general, those lower species of animals, that have least means of escape or defence from mutilation, appear to be endowed with the most ample powers of repair. But time will not permit this, nor yet that I should show how many lessons of practical utility might be engrafted on the [ 254 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. teaching of a process such as this, or how the main principles of the surgery of injuries are based on the recognition of the natural power of recovery. Nearly its whole practice consists in the prevention of any interference with that to which there is, in the very nature of the body, as great a tendency, as there is for the embryo to be developed into the perfect creature. Using the facts of the reparative process only for the present purpose of showing how physi- ology might be taught as the chief science of designs, I would say that the arguments of design, which are here displayed, are such as cannot be impugned by the suspicion, that the events among which each living thing is cast have determined its adaptation to them; because the adaptations here noted prove capacities for things that are future, and only not impossible. I will mention but one more instance of general design, which I think should not be omitted in the teaching of physiology to whatever class of students : — that, namely, of the adaptation of animals in their decay ; how, as they do not live, so neither do they decay or die, for themselves alone, but ministering to others' good. The chief evidence of this is in the provision that the decaying parts of animals yield the materials from which the vegetable kingdom derives its chief [ '55 ] MR. PAGET supply of food. In the ordinary decomposition of the dead body, many of the products are the very materials from which, as they are mingled with the earth and atmosphere, each plant takes its food. But it is not alone through this decay in death, that animals restore to the vegetable world the materials which they have, for their own food, derived from it. The same rule is fulfilled in the decay of life ; i. e., in those changes which occur when the particles of the animal body, having served their purpose, or lived their full time in it, are then to be cast out as refuse. For in all these changes, which are a part of that constant mutation of particles through which the body remains, through all the time of vigorous life, the same, though continually changing, — in all these, the material which is passing out, as refuse, gradually approximates, in its transition, to the in- organic state of matter. It is so with the carbonic acid and other exhalations from the lungs and skin, and with all the class of substances excreted. And thus, every form of degeneration or decay, whether in life or after death, may be described as a series of changes, through which the elements of organic bodies, instead of being on a sudden and with violence dispersed, are gradually collected into those lower combinations in which they may best rejoin the inorganic world; they are such changes, that [ *56 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. every creature may be said to decay and die and cast out its refuse in the form which may best fit it to discharge its share in the economy of the world, — either by supplying nutriment to other organisms, or bv taking its right part in the adjustment of the balance held between the organic and inorganic masses. I have thus endeavoured to fulfil mv office, and to show how the general teaching of physiology might do good among its students. I think its advantages are such as might be apprehended by students of all classes in society. I suppose, too, that, for all that part of it which can be applied in the maintenance of health the merit of utility would be admitted; and that, in general terms, it would be allowed that the study of designs and final causes should be mingled with other studies in any scheme of education by which it is proposed that the whole mind should be disciplined, and all modes of reasoning should be taught. But still, the question may be asked, is it possible that knowledge such as this, of the methods of design, will rest, with any influence, in a mind that must be engrossed in urgent business, or in house- hold cares; harassed, perhaps, in struggles against poverty, or dissipated in the luxuries of wealth ? It [ 257 ] MR. PAGET may be very "well (some will say) to teach these things to the young, but men and women have other works and other pleasures to pursue. I know all this ; and I have overshot my mark if I have urged any teaching of which the effects would interfere with devotion to the necessary works of ater life. But I suppose that, if any one will watch his thoughts for a few days, or even a few hours, he will find that, however engrossing may be his cares or his pleasures, however earnest his attention to what seems his most urgent need, there are yet intermingling trains of thought quite alien from these : — trains into which the mind falls, it knows not how, but in which it will wander as if resolute to refresh itself. Now these must be provided for; and so it must be an object of all education to supply, in early life, those studies from which, in later years, may arise reflections that may mingle happily with the business-thoughts of common days ; that may suggest to the reason, or even to the imagination, some hidden meaning, some future purpose, some noble end, in the things about us. Reflections such as these, being interwoven with our common thoughts, may often bring to our life a tone of joy, which its general aspect would not wear; like brilliant threads shot through the texture of some sombre fabric, giving lustre to its darkness. [ 2 S 8 ] OX THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. But besides this happy influence of the general impressions that might remain in the mind from the early teaching of physiology, I claim for it the hope that its principles might read to some minds lessons of the truest wisdom. The student of Nature's purposes should surely be averse from leading a purposeless existence. Watching design in everything around him, he could not fail, one would think, to reflect often on the purpose of his own existence. And doing so, if his mind were imbued with the knowledge of the mutual fitness in which all the members of his body, and all the parts of the whole organic world, sub- sist and minister to each other's good, he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake alone, or that happiness would be found separate from the offices of mutual help and of universal good-will. One who is conversant with things that have a pur- pose in the future, higher than that which they have yet fulfilled, would never think that his own highest destiny is yet achieved. Though his place among men might be only like that of a single par- ticle — like that of a single blood-cell of the body — yet would he strive to concur, and take his share, in all progressive good. Nor would he count that, with this life ended, his purpose would be attained ; but by teaching, or by record, or by some other [ 2 59 ] ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. of those means, through which, in the history of our race, things that in their rudiments seemed trivial have been developed into great results, he would strive to ' achieve at least some useful work, the fruit whereof might abide/ Conscious of an immortal nature, and of desires and capacities for knowledge, which cannot be satisfied in this world, he would be sure that the great law of progress, from a lower to a higher state, would not be abrogated in the Divine government of that part of him which cannot perish, and is not yet perfect. In him, even the under- standing would be assured that, ( as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly/ for that is the true lesson of development. And because it abounds in lessons such as these, I claim for physiology the pre-eminence among all sciences, for the clear and full analogies which it displays between truths natural and revealed : and I would teach it everywhere; looking to its help, by these analogies, to prove the concord between know- ledge and belief, and to mediate in the ever-pending conflict of intellect and faith. [ 260 ] ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES : A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. BY W. B. HODGSON, LL.D. ' Ignorance does not simply deprive us of advantages ; it leads us to work our own misery ; it is not merely a vacuum, void of know- ledge, but a plenum of positive errors, continually productive of unhappiness. This remark was never more apposite than in the case of Political Economy. '— Sainuel Bailey's Discourses, &c, p. 121. 1852. ' If a man begins to forget that he is a social being, a member of a body, and that the only truths which can avail him anything, the only truths which are worthy objects of his philosophical search, are those which are equally true for every man, which will equally avail every man, which he must proclaim, as far as he can, to every man, from the proudest sage to the meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, into a lie, and helps forward the dissolution of that society of which he is a member.' — Rev. C. Kingsley's Alexandria and her Schools. L. ii. p. 66. 1854. ' A man will never be just to others who is not just to himself, and the first requisite of that justice, is that he should look every obligation, every engagement, every duty in the face. This applies as much to money as to more serious affairs, and as much to nations as to men.' — Times, June 6, 1854. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION FOR ALL CLASSES. TT was truly said in this room, some weeks ago, -■- by one whose departure from London we must all regret — Professor Edward Forbes — that ' It is the nature of the human mind to desire and seek a law.' The higher desires of man, have not been left, any more than his lower, without their object and their fulfilment, and just as the bodily appetite desires food, while the earth yields stores of nourishment, — as the imagination craves for beauty, and beauty is on every side, so, responding to man's desire for law, does all Nature bear the impress of law. Not to the ignorant or careless eye, however, does law anywhere reveal itself. The discovery of its traces is the student's rich and ever fresh reward. To men in general, the outward sense reports only a number of detached phenomena; their relations become gradually ap- parent to him only whose mental vision is acute [ 263 ] X % DR. HODGSON enough, and whose gaze is steady enough, to behold them. Science, therefore, consists not in the accu- mulation of heterogeneous facts, — any more than the random up-piling of stones is architecture, — but in the detection of the principles which co-relate facts even the most dissimilar and anomalous, and of the order which binds the parts into a whole. Science is, in brief, the pursuit of law j and the history of science is the record of the steps by which man in this pur- suit rises through classifications, of which the last is ever more comprehensive than its predecessors, from the complexity of countless individuals to the sim- plicity of the groupe, and from the diversity of the manv, at least towards the oneness of the universal. The discoveries, however, which it needed a Newton or a Cuvier to make, may be rendered intelligible in their results, if not always in their processes, to ordi- nary understandings ; and whether our knowledge be superficial or profound, the belief in the omnipresence of law, in at least the physical world, has long ago taken its place in the convictions of the least instructed man. Let any one, then, who can realize mentally the difference between the aspect which the starry heavens bear to the quite ignorant beholder, and that which those same heavens present to the man most slightly acquainted with the discoveries of astronomy, or between the appearances of the vegetable world [ 264 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. before and after some acquaintance with A egetable Physiology; but who has never thoughtfully consi- dered the phenomena of industrial life — let such a one station himself, say on London Bridge, at high tide, and in the busy hour of day; let him watch the ever-flowing streams of human beings, each bound on his several errand, — the seemingly endless succession of vehicles, with their freight, animate and inanimate ; let him look down the river, and observe the number and variety of shipping, coming and departing from and to all parts of the world, remote or near ; let him observe, as he strolls onwards, the shops, and ware- houses, and wharfs, and arsenals, and docks, with their overflowing stores, the almost interminable lines of streets with houses of every size and kind, each tenanted by its respective occupants; the railway stations from which and to which go and come, hourly, thousands of human beings, and the produce of the industry of millions of human beings; the electric telegraph, transmitting from town to town — nay, from land to land — the outward symbols of thought, with almost the proverbial speed of the inward thought itself; let him consider that within the range of a few miles of ground that produces, directly, none of the necessaries of life,* are gathered together more * 'Moyhanger, a New-Zealander, who was brought to England, was struck with especial wonder, in his visit to London, at the aiys- [ 265 ] DE. HODGSON than 2,oco,ooo of men, "women, and children, at the rate, in some parts, of 186,000 to the square mile ; let him ponder how it is that all these people are daily fed, and clothed, and lodged, — how it is that all these things have been produced and are maintained; let him further consider that this stupendous spectacle is but a sample of what is going on, with great varieties, in so many other regions of the world ; that people separated by thousands of miles of land and sea, who never saw each other, who, it may be, scarcely know of each other's existence, are busily providing for each other's wants, and each procuring his own sustenance bv ministering to others' neces- sities or desires ; — and then let him, without at all losing sight of the too obvious evil mixed up with all this, seriously ask himself, is this vast field of con- templation the theatre also of law, which binds the several parts together; or is it a mere giddy and fortuitous dance of discordant and jostling atoms — in a word, a huge weltering chaos, waiting the fiat of some Monsieur Cabet or Baboeuf to reduce it to order, and convert it into a cosmos, by persuading or com- tery, as it appeared to him, how such an immense population could be fed ; as he saw neither cattle nor crops. Many of the Londoners, who would perhaps have laughed at the savage's admiration, would probably have been found never to have even thought of the mechanism which is here at work.* — Archbishop "NVhately: Introd. Lect. toPolit. Econ. L. iv. p. 97. Second Edition. 1832. [ 266 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. polling the several atoms to adopt some cunningly devised principle of so-called ' organization of labour V To this question Economic Science professes, at least, to supply the answer; and if science be the pursuit of law, and deserve the title in proportion to its success in that pursuit, the claims of Economic Science must be tested by the nature of the reply it gives. It may occur to some who hear me that the term law is not applicable in the same sense or way to the various classes of phenomena which I have casually indicated. In the first, — the region of astronomy, — law suggests the idea of some mighty force which irresistibly compels motions on the grandest scale ; in the second, — the vegetable world, — it suggests rather a mere principle of arraugement, according to which certain unresisting bodies are distributed; while in the third, — the Economic World of Man, — a vast difference appears between it and the other two, inasmuch as we have here a multitude of independent intelligences and wills, acting consciously and volun- tarily from within, in every variety of direction, and often in seeming opposition to each other. This difficulty merits a consideration, serious if brief. Be- tween the first and second the difference is not real, but only apparent. The growth of a plant is as wonderful, — as grand an exercise of power as the revo- [ *> ] DR. HODGSON lution of a planet ; and gravitation, as we call it, no more than growth, is in itself a power j both are alike expressions and results of that will which is in the universe the only real power — the only true cause. Our very word order has a double sense — arrange- ment and command : so natural is it for us to identify the one with the other, and to believe that arrange- ment or system exists oidy by command or law. And, in truth, throughout all things, however diverse the special phenomena, whether it be the sweep of a comet, or the budding of a flower, we can recognise still only a principle or method of arrangement as the result of will ; and it is because these are so closely and invariably connected in our minds that we are so apt to use the word law sometimes for the one, and sometimes for the other, personifying Law, just as we do Providence in ordinary speech. The real difficulty, however, lies in the third case, that is, the subject immediately before us. Having seen the prima facie and analogical improbability of the notion that the economic world is lawless, the question arises — in what way does law operate amid so many seemingly independent and conflicting individualities? I have no desire, and there is happily no need, for long or subtle disquisition. I would merely submit a consideration in itself quite simple, but fraught, if I mistake not, with the most [ *68 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. important practical results. In the purely inorganic world, law operates irresistibly, and command and obedience are strictly coincident, co-extensive, and identical. In the motions of the heavenly bodies, for example, there is no eccentricity in the popular sense of the term ; even the orbit of a comet, between whose successive reappearances many decades of years and whole generations of men pass away, is absolutely known — eclipses with the longest intervals are certainly foretold. The same fact holds in the organized but inanimate world, as in the world both inanimate and unorganized. As we ascend in the scale, and enter on the animate creation, we find a like fixity and uniformity provided for to a very large extent by that most marvellous faculty — Instinct, which guides almost infallibly the lower orders of animals, which maintains an almost precise sameness among the most distant generations, and conducts all surely and unconsciously to the end of their being. But Man is a being vastly more complex in Iris nature ; he, too, has instincts, but these form a much smaller proportion of his whole faculty j* with all that the lower orders of being have, he has much * ' It would seem that it is in the proportion which their instincts and intelligence bear to each other that the difference between the mind of man and that of other animals chiefly consists. Reasoning is not peculiar to the former, nor is instinct peculiar to the latter. ' — Psychological Inquiries. By B. C. B. London. 1854. P. 186. [ 269 ] DR. HODGSOX more besides — moral faculties, reason, and will, both the latter differing vastly in degree, if not in kind, from those of any other creature. The part which he has to play in creation is proportionally complex ; and here it is that perplexity, and discord, and con- fusion begin to appear, or at least chiefly manifest themselves. It is this surface confusion which hides from us the central and pervading Law, and makes it difficult to trace its operation. The laws or con- ditions, however, which determine human well-being, are really as fixed and absolute as are the laws of planetary motion ; but man, though so constituted as to desire and seek his well-being, has not an in- fallible perception of that in which it consists, or of the means by which this end is to be attained. We find throughout, this distinction between man and the lower animals. Thus other animals are gifted by nature with the clothing suitable to their con- dition, and it even varies in colour and thickness according to the seasons. Man alone has with effort to construct what clothing he requires ; so, more or less, is it with food ; so is it with shelter. Is this an inferiority on the part of man? Surely not; for it is by this very discipline that his higher faculties are called into play, and enlarged, and strengthened. "What appears a penalty is, in reality, a blessing. Nature's very provision for the comfort of bird or [ 2 7° 1 ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. beast seems, at the same time, the sentence of inca- pacity for improvement. Man, however (I speak now of the individual), is progressive, being capable of improvement; and he is stimulated to improve- ment because his wants are not supplied for him, but he is compelled to supply them for himself, and his desires ever grow with the means of their gratifi- cation. The whole universe is thus, in truth, a great educational organization — a great school, — for the calling out and the direction, of what powers are in man latent. But his progress is not a smooth advance from good to better ; his way lies through evils of many kinds — evils attendant inseparably on defective knowledge, and ill-regulated desires. Law, which in the physical universe operates vsi-formly, here operates, so to speak, m-formly ; the law wears, Janus -like, two faces • but it is one law nevertheless. It assumes, however, a twofold sanction, reward for obedience, punishment for disobedience, each being but the complement and corollary of the other. Thus the pallid face and irritable nerves of the sedentary student, the ruddy cheek and iron muscles of the ploughman, — the trembling hand and blood- shot eyes of the drunkard, the steady pulse and clear open countenance of the temperate man, — are the results not of two antagonistic laws, but of one law, vindicating its majestic universality in the one [ "7« J DR. HODGSON case not less than in the other. So is it with the stagnant and pestilential swamp as contrasted with the cultivated plain; the ruined village with the thriving town ; the land of inhabitants few but poor, with the land of inhabitants many and rich. It is this difference, accordingly, which in the human sphere translates LiAW r into Duty, and the Must of the Physical World into the Ought of the Moral. Wordsworth, the most philosophical of poets, has not failed to detect their kinship, however, when, in his noble l Ode to Duty/ he says : — Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads : Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the mast ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong. Good, then, being the great end of all the estab- lished conditions of our life, evil is, and must ever be, the result of their violation. As Paley has said that no nerve has ever been discovered whose func- tion lies in the giving of pain, so, in all things, pain or evil follows the breach, not the observance, of a law. But this very pain or evil is not in its end vindictive, or simply punitive ; its aim is reforma- tion for the future, not merely punishment for the past. The child burns its finger in the candle flame, cuts its hand with a knife, makes a false step and falls, and profits all its life through by the lessons it has gained. And so the exhaustion of mind or [■»7»-] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. body from over-exertion, the headache from intem- perance, are Nature's solemn warnings, tending powerfully to prevent future transgression. Man's successes and his failures are both, in different ways, instructive ; both help him in his career. But Man is progressive not only as an individual, but as a race. Here, still more, is his superiority to all other animals apparent. He is, in some mea- sure, the heir of the discoveries, the inventions, the thoughts, and the labours, of all foregoing time ; and each man has, in some measure, for his helper, the results of the accumulated knowledge of the world. But the transmission of experience and knowledge from generation to generation is the fundamental condition of progress throughout the successive ages of the life of mankind. To a large extent, of course, we cannot but profit from the labour of our predecessors ; all those products, and instru- ments, and agencies, which we style ' civilisation/ our roads, our railways, our canals, our courts of law, our houses of legislature, and a thousand other embodiments of the combined and successive efforts of many generations, are our inheritance by birth ; but the very guidance and employment of these for their improvement, or even for their mainte- nance, require ever increased knowledge and intelli- gence. The higher the civilisation that a comrnu- [ '73 ] Dfi. HODGSON nity has attained, the more, not the less, necessary is it that its members, as one race succeeds another, should be enlightened and informed. No inheri- tance of industrial progress can dispense with indi- vidual intelligence and judgment, any more than the accumulation of books can save from the need of learning to read and write. But thousands of human beings, born ignorant, are left to repeat unguided the same experiments, and to incur the same failures and penalties as their parents, — as their ancestors. Where these stumbled, or slipped, and fell, they too stumble, or slip, and fall, rising again perhaps, but not uninjured by the fall. Nature teaches, it is true, by penalty as well as by reward; but it is surely wise, as far as may be, to anticipate in each case this rough teaching, to aid it by rational explanation, and to confine it within safe bounds. The world, doubtless, advances in spite of all. * That industrial progress is what it is, proves that the amount of observance of law is, on the whole, largely in excess of its violation ; were it otherwise, society would retrograde, and humanity would perish. This predominance of good -results from the very consti- tution of human nature and of the world, by which * ' There is this difference between the body politic and the phy- sical frame. Life is ' a harp of thousand strings, that dies if one be gone ;' but the life of society is still living and tuneful, though many strings be broken.' — Times, June 8, 1854. [ 2 74 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the individual, working even unconsciously and for Lis own ends, and learning even by failure, achieves a good wider than that he contemplates, and by which progress, in spite of delay and fluctuation, is main- tained alike in the individual and the race. But how shall the evil which yet mars and deforms our civilisation be abated, if not removed, while progress is made more rapid, and sure, and equable ? Both depend alike on increased observance of law ; and it is by diffusing knowledge of its existence and opera- tion that observance of law is rendered more general and less precarious. If, then, we would convert not only disobedience into obedience, but obedience blind, unconscious, and precarious, into obedience conscious, intelligent, and habitual, we must teach all to understand the nature of the laws on which the universal wellbeing depends, and train all in those habits which facilitate and secure the observance of those laws.* Assuming, then, that in the industrial or economic sphere the laws of human wellbeing are as fixed as in any other, and that what measure of wellbeiiiff we anywhere behold is the result of obedience, con- scious or imconscious, to those laws, we ought next to inquire what those laws are. As a preliminary, let us take a hasty survey of the steps by which * Vide Appendix. [ m ] DR. HODGSON any people ascends from barbarism to civilisation, from destitution to comfort, from poverty to wealth. From the review alike of good and of evil, we shall be able to extract the principles which run through- out, and which both good and- evil concur to attest. In barbarous countries we find men scattered in small numbers over wide extent of territory, living by hunting or fishing, or both combined ; every man supplies his own wants directly; he makes his own bow and arrows ; he kills a buffalo for himself ; with hides stripped and dressed by himself, he constructs his own robe or tent ; he lives from hand to mouth, feasting voraciously to-day, then starving till another supply of food can be obtained ; ever on the verge of famine, and eking out a precarious subsistence by robbery and murder, which he calls war. All but the strong perish in early years, and the average duration of life is low. If we contemplate the pastoral life instead of that of hunting and fishing, still we find that large tracts of country are needed for the maintenance of few people. If the earth be at all cultivated, it is with the rudest implements, and the produce is proportionally scanty. So long as each man is entirely occupied in providing for his own wants, progress is impossible. So soon, how- ever, as by the gradual and slow introduction of better implements, and the acquirement of greater [ 276 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. skill, agriculture becomes more productive, and the labour of one man becomes sufficient for the support of more than one, of some, of many ; the first condi- tion of progress is realised, and the labour of some or many is now set free for other occupations. Food and clothing, fuel and shelter, are the first neces- saries of life. But instead of every man preparing all these for himself directly, instead of every man making for himself all that he requires, gradually one man begins to construct one article, or set of articles only, while another devotes himself to another, with a consequent great increase of productiveness in each case, from increased skill and economy of time ; in other words, the division of labour is begun. But so soon as the industry of the community is thus divided, and that of each thus restricted, as each still requires all the articles which before he constructed for himself, he can obtain them only from those who employ themselves in their produc- tion ; and this he can do only by giving some of his own product as an equivalent, in other words, by ex- change. This transaction gives meaning to the term value, which denotes simply the amount of commodi- ties that can be procured in exchange for any other commodity. Division of labour and exchange are thus simultaneous in their origin. From the intro- duction of exchange, industrial progress gains a fresh [ m ] i DR. HODGSON life. Industry having been thus rendered more productive than before, subsistence is now provided for a larger number of persons than before. The reward of industry increasing with its productive- ness, ingenuity is stimulated to the invention of im- proved methods, and of improved instruments called tools, or, as they become more complicated and powerful, machines, though a machine is in principle only a tool ; and the very argument which is good, if good at all, against a steam-plough, is good against the common plough, or a hoe, or a spade, or a stake hardened in the fire. Population having meantime increased, the land available for production becomes more and more fully appropriated; and as one portion is more fertile, or more advantageously situated than another, it becomes more advantageous to pay a portion of the produce for the right to cultivate a more productive soil, than to cultivate an inferior soil even for nothing; e.g., to pay ten measures of grain for a soil which produces fifty measures, than nothing for a soil which produces, say thirty or thirty-five; and hence arises what we call rent. But, meantime also, the productiveness of industry having become ever greater in proportion to the consumption of its produce, the process of accumulation goes on, and the unconsumed results of previous labour, which, [ 278 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. however various their kinds, we term wealth, swell to larger proportions. But this wealth is not equally possessed by all ; one man, from superior skill, or intelligence, or economy, or other causes, coming to possess more than others, while some, it may be, possess none at all. Mere labour, however, without the results of foregone labour, embodied in some form, can accomplish little; while the results of foregone labour, in whatever form embodied, need fresh labour in order to become still more productive. Thus, e.g., a spade is a result of past labour; without it the labourer could accomplish little ; and, on the other hand, the spade, without a labourer to wield it, would be unproductive. Now, the spade here repre- sents that portion of wealth which is devoted to further production, and which is called capital. Capital and labour are thus indispensable to each other. They may exist in different hands, or in the same; but they must co-exist, and co-operate. Thus — if we suppose them to be in different hands — the owner of the spade, whom we may call the capitalist, may undertake to give the labourer a fixed compen- sation for his labour aided by the spade (an amount which will more or less exceed, and can in no case fall below, what the labourer without the spade can earn), reserving for himself any surplus that may arise after that labour is paid. In this case, the [ 2 79 ] y 2 DR. HODGSON labourer's reward is called wages; the capitalist's reward is called profit. Or the capitalist may lend the spade to the labourer for a fixed return (which will be somewhat less than, and which cannot exceed, the difference in the labourer's productiveness, caused by the spade), the labourer claiming as his own all that he can realise over and above what he pays. In this case, the labourer's return, whatever it may be called, is partly wages and partly profit, while the capitalist's return is termed interest, or much better, usance, an obsolete English word, for it is really what is paid for the use of capital in any form. If the capital and labour be in the same hands, e.g., if the labourer own the spade he uses, the joint return ever consists of the two items here discriminated. As industry extends and wealth increases, it is early found necessary to provide for the security of property; for the suppression of violence and fraud; and for the settlement of disputes that will here and there arise, even without evil intention on either side. Hence all the machinery of courts of justice, and of government, from its highest to its lowest functionary. As these, though not in themselves directly producers, are indispensable to production, and exist for the welfare of all, they must be main- tained at the expense of all; hence comes taxation [ ^so J ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. of various kinds, which it is the business of the legislature to impose justly, and in the way least likely to fetter industry, and prevent increase of wealth. So far as we have hitherto seen, exchanges have as yet been effected by direct giving and taking of commodity for commodity, or, as it is termed, barter; but great and serious difficulties attend this system, difficulties ever more deeply felt as exchanges multiply, and become more various ; the baker may not want the shoemaker's shoes, if the latter want his bread; but the latter mav not want as much bread as equals the value of a pair of shoes; and payment by a half or a third of a pair of shoes is impossible. A medium of exchange, accordingly, is introduced; usually the precious metals, as they are called, the very word implying one of their fitnesses for the task — viz., that in a small bulk they contain great value. The non-liability to decay; capability of division without loss; comparative exemption from fluctuations of supply; and facility of recognition, are among their other claims. Exchange, thus facilitated by the adoption of a medium which all are ready to receive, and by which most minute proportions of value may be easily represented, proceeds with vastly increased rapidity; and value being thus measured habitually in money, we have the new [ 281 ] DR. HODGSON element of price. Though money in itself is but a very small portion of the capital, and still less of the total wealth, of a nation, it so habitually repre- sents every kind of capital and wealth, that it conveniently becomes a synonyme for both, not, however, without some risk of mental confusion and error as the result. Exchanges becoming thus continually more fre- quent and complicated, it is found convenient and advantageous, on the principle of the division of labour, that a class of men should devote themselves to conduct the business of exchange solely, the work of production being left to others. By the intro- duction of merchants, who do not themselves produce, a greater amount of production is attained, on the whole, than would be possible if all both produced and exchanged without their intervention. But, for facility and frequency of exchange, even at home, rapidity, and ease, and safety of communication are indispensable ; good roads, swift conveyances, canals, and ultimately railways arise, with their ad- juncts of carriers and couriers, and post-establish- ments, and telegraphs of ever greater ingenuity and efficiency. Exchange, which was at first confined within the limits of one country, soon extends to other countries, with an immense advantage to all, for all are thus [ 282 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. made partakers in the productions of each, which are more and more diverse according to their diversity of climate. Foreign commerce, with all that it involves of ships, and docks, and warehouses, is the most powerful stimulus to home industry. But ex- change, whether at home or abroad, is, in all cases, when analyzed, simply each man's giving something that he wants less, for something else that he wants more. As geographical knowledge and means of transit are increased, numbers pass from one country to another ; from countries densely to those less densely peopled ; from countries where land is all appropriated, to those where it is still unclaimed; from countries where capital and labour are comparatively unpro- ductive, to those where both are more amply re- warded; new fields being thus perpetually opened up for human industry, and increased enjoyment provided by fresh and ever augmented interchange, both for those who go and for those who stay. But long ere this, as yet the highest, stage of pro- gress has been reached, the precious metals them- selves have been found incompetent to discharge the full duty of exchange; and paper money, or duly vouched promises to pay money, is introduced with an ever more complicated machinery of bank-notes and bills of exchange, for the management of which [ *3 ] DR. HODGSON class of transactions a still further division of labour is introduced by means of bankers, bill-brokers, and the other agents by whom what we call compre- hensively credit is carried on. But life and property are subject to contingencies which involve serious loss, and which it is impossible always to prevent. It is discovered that the evil results to individuals, which would be ruinous to one, may, by combination, be distributed over many. Hence insurances against fire, against death, against disaster at sea, against hail-storms and diseases among cattle, against railway accidents, and even against fraud on the part of clerks or other assistants, all of which are based on calculation of averages, this again being based on the conviction that a certain regularity prevails among events even the most anomalous and irregular. And thus, step by step, by a strictly natural course, does the work of industrial progress go on, till we witness its gigantic results in our own time and our own land — results of which the great Crystal Palace (the opening of which was not in- aptly coincident with the day fixed for this exposi- tion of the principles whose triumph it exemplifies) may be justly regarded as the crowning and most various illustration — raised, as it has been, by volun- tary combination, on strictly economic grounds, and [ 3 8 4 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. embracing within itself, in one vast space, ex- amples of the productions of the labour, the inge- nuity, the fancy, the skill, the science of all ages and of every land. In this inevitably brief and incomplete sketch of the industrial progress of the world, not only has much been omitted, but it is to be observed that the steps do not always follow each other in precisely the same order, and that mnch that is here recorded, perforce, successively, takes place simultaneously. It is not possible here or now to extract from even this most hasty sketch the merely theoretic principles which it involves. This is the business of a long course of lectures, and it is not, besides, my purpose to expound Economic Science itself, any further than may be indispensable to show its importance as a branch of general instruction. Let us rather look at some of the great practical lessons that may be deduced from it for the guidance of individual conduct. Everything, then, that we or others possess, is more or less the result of human, that is, of indi-j vidual, industry. It is observable that not where nature itself is most prolific is human labour the most productive ; so true is it that necessity is the mother of invention and of industry as well. Truly has Rousseau remarked, ' In the south, men consume [ 285 ] DE. HODGSON little' (lie might have said produce little) ' on a grateful soil j in the north, men consume much/ (and of course produce much) ' on a soil ungrateful.'* Where man has most done for him, he often does least for himself; and though his labours must be seconded by the productiveness of Nature, the latter is really more dependent on the former than the former on the latter. Now this law holds true of the future as well as of the present or the past. Every human being must subsist on the produce of his own industry, or on that of some one else. Industry, then, is the first duty of him who would be honourably independent. But it is not by present labour, any more than by future, that any man is really sustained. While the crop is growing, for example, the labourer is fed by the grain of former harvests. Now, if the produce of labour were consumed as fast as it is produced, not only would progress be impossible, but life itself would be endangered, and would ere long cease. Hence the duty of what is called, in its narrower sense, economy, or the frugal and prudent consumption of what has been produced. Disasters, too, will arise, which no human wisdom can prevent, but against whose conse- quences it may provide. The very progress of industry involves displacement of labour, though it is not true * Emile. Liv. I. [ 286 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. that labour is so superseded, as the phrase is. The invention of printing threw amanuenses out of their old employment, though it soon employed a thou- sand men instead of one. During all such transi- tions, it is only by previous savings that those thus affected can be maintained till they can adapt them- selves to the change. Again, the early years of every human being are incapable of industrial effort, and the child must be maintained by the previous labour of others. Upon whom this duty fairly falls, whether on some abstraction that we call the State, or society, or on the parents of the child to whom his being is due, is a question which needs less to be asked than merely to be suggested here. Again, the years of labour are limited ; the evening of that night approaches in which no man can work, and here is another call on the proceeds of past industry. The very old, as well as the very young, must be supported alike by foregone labour; in the case of the young, it must be by the labour of others ; in the case of the old, it must be either by their own previous labour, or by that of their children now grown up, or by that of society at large — which way is best is surely not doubtful. During the years of active life itself, sickness will sometimes invade, throwing men often for long periods on the resources of the past. Hence the necessity of forethought as [ *?] DR. HODGSON regards equally the future of others whom affectiou and duty alike commend to our care, and our own, when the days of decay and weakness shall arrive. Now, forethought involves judgment, and diligence, and self-denial, i. As to judgment. Earnings may be saved, but if injudiciously invested, they may be lost. To take a simple case, — hoarded potatoes are a more precarious economy than hoarded grain ; and so throughout where savings are invested through banks, or building societies, or railway shares, or in any other way. The division of labour itself calls for ever fresh exercise of judgment. So long as each man produces all that he wants for himself, he knows precisely what he wants, and how much ; but so soon as labour is divided, each man produces not what he wants himself, but what others want, or are supposed to want. If, then, any one produce by mistake articles which others do not want, or of a quality, or to an extent at variance with the demand, he suffers serious loss, it may be ruin. 2. As to diligence. Without this, labour is little different from idleness. But mere labour, however diligent, can accomplish little unless guided by intelligence, for which, as the demands of society increase, there is an ever louder call. Knowledge, then, is indis- pensable to the attainment of any beyond the lowest results of industry. The more we know of the [ 288 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. nature of that on which, and by which, and in which, and for which, we work, the more likely, nay cer- tain, is our work to turn to good account. This knowledge, when embodied in practice and confirmed by it, becomes skill. The very tools and machines which some fancy supersede human labour and skill, are the results of both, and they render the former infinitely more productive, and call for ever more of the latter for their improvement, if not for their actual guidance. 3. As regards self-denial. One of its most important forms is temperance, without which labour, especially of the higher kinds, is precarious, it may be impossible. As society advances, the re- lations of man to his fellows become more and more numerous and complex. Credit, as it is well called, holds a larger and larger place, and reliance on each other's faith becomes more and more important. Honesty, accordingly, whether in its lower forms, such as punctuality, or in its higher, to which we give the name integrity, is thus an indispensable con- dition of human progress. Were the exceptions to this condition to become much more frequent, the bonds of human society would be proportionally loosened, and civilisation would go backward. In scarcely a subordinate degree are civility, courtesy, mutual forbearance, and willingness to oblige, neces- sary to oil the wheels of the social machine, which, [ * 9 ] DR. HODGSON without these, would move but slowly and creakingly along. These things we all need in our own case ; and to be received, they must be given. It is only in so far as all these qualities of dili- gence, and economy, and skill, and forethought, and intelligence, and temperance, and integrity, and courtesy, have been manifested, that wealth has been created, and that society in any age or country has advanced. It is just in so far as these have been neglected that poverty, and misery, and evil, of every kind, abound. Such are some of the chief practical lessons of Economic Science when rightly studied. And will any one ask, ' Are these mere truisms the boasted results of economic teaching V In reply, much may be said. What is a truism to one mind, say to all here, may be really unknown to thousands beyond these walls. In such subjects, again, the profoundest truth is ever the simplest. It is its very simplicity that blinds us to its value and com- prehensiveness. Further, we are so easily familiarized with the mere names of duties, and so accustomed to assent with the lips to their obligation, that we neglect to consider either their basis or their prac- tical working. We go on daily assenting to truths we daily violate ; it is not uncommon to lecture on ventilation in rooms whose atmosphere is stifling ; to eulogize economy in the midst of reckless expendi- [ 2 9° ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. ture ; and health is sometimes injured by very dili- gence in the study of its laws. What men all want is not merely the discovery and promulgation of new truth, however useful, but the freshening up of old truths long ago admitted. The coins which we carry about with us, and which pass continually from hand to hand, have had the sharpness of their edges worn off, their legend all but effaced. We need to have them cast anew into the mint of thought, and re-stamped with their original ' image and super- scription/ Rote-teaching is pernicious in morals not less than in merely intellectual matters. The explanation of a law, its demonstration, should ever go hand in hand with its inculcation. For the sake of those who may say, or at least think, ' All this we knew long ago/ let me use an illustration from the quite parallel case of Physioloyy. In my younger days I was accustomed to hear much vague talk about air and exercise; on all hands I heard that nothing Avas so good as exercise and fresh air. Well, so long as the restless activity of boyhood lasted, there Avas less need for instruction on this head ; bovs take fresh air and exercise in blind obedience to a blessed law of their nature. But when youth came on, and intellect became more mature, and books began to push cricket from its throne, all the rumour about air and exercise was quite inoperative [ *> ] DR. HODGSON to prevent long days and late nights of sedentary- position, of confinement in close rooms, of hard work of the brain, while the circulation of the blood was impeded, the lungs laboured, the muscles lost their energy, and the skin its freedom of transpiration and its vigour to resist agencies from without. When, like most of you, I listened in delight to the beautiful expositions of my immediate predecessor, perhaps I was not alone in thinking that, had we all been taught in early life the economy of the lungs, and heart, and blood-vessels, and brain, — had we been shown that the blood which nourishes the body must be purified by frequent contact with the outer air ; that for this purpose it passes frequently through the lungs, receiving from the air fresh life, while its impurities are thrown off; that in the process of breathing, the air is rapidly deteriorated and ren- dered unfit to sustain life, constant renovation being thus required; that by muscular compression consequent on exercise, the circulation is quickened, as well as the breathing, so that the blood is thus more rapidly purified, the effete particles of matter are more quickly removed, and our bodies in truth more frequently and healthfully renewed, — we should many of us have been spared much suffering and much loss of power arising necessarily from violation of the vital laws. And so with Economic Science. [ 292 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. It is of no avail to repeat by rote phrases about industry, and temperance, and frugality, &c. The results of the observance and of the violation of those duties, as exemplified in the actual working of social life, must be clearly shown, and so enforced that the knowledge shall be Avrought into the very tissue and substance of the mind, never to perish while life lasts, so that all things shall be brought to the test of the principles thus incorporated with the intellect itself. Further, in the case of both sciences alike, mere teaching, or addressing of the intellect, even if that be convinced, is not all, or enough. Training must accompany teaching ; the formation of habits must go on with the clearing of the intellectual vision. I speak not of scbools alone, or of homes alone : in both must the embrvo man be accustomed, as well as told, to do what is right. He who has once learned by habit the delight and the advantage of daily ablution of the whole body, or of daily exercise in all weathers, in the open air, will not easily abandon or interrupt either of these habits. And so with industry and the rest. Every fresh act of obedience is no longer, as it were, the effort of a distinct volition, but an almost automatic repetition of an act first commanded by reason. This conversion of the voluntary into the spontaneous is the true guarantee for perseverance in [ 293 ] z DR. HODGSON any line of conduct, the excellence of which has been already recognised by the understanding. The analogy between the Physiological and the Economic Sciences, both in their nature and in their present position, seems to me to hold throughout. Thus ignorance does not in either confer any exemp- tion from the evils attending the breach of any law, however it may be admitted in extenuation at the bar of human justice. The child who takes arsenic for sugar, dies as surely as the wilful suicide. The youth launched on this busy world without any of the knowledge here indicated, finds Greek iambics, and even conic sections, of no guidance in its indus- trial relations, and he suffers and fails accordingly. What is the inference ? That ignorance should be removed, and evil prevented, by early teaching, rather than left to the bitter regimen of experience. Coleridge has finely compared experience to the stem lights of a vessel, which illuminate only the track over which it has passed. It is for us rather to fix the light of knowledge on the prow, to illu- mine the course which the ship has yet to take. It would surely be a great gain were all offences against economic law reduced to the category of wilful dis- obedience, in spite of knowledge; for such, I firmly believe, are, especially at the outset, vastly the minority. [ 2 94 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Again : Health, much as it depends on individual observance of its laws, is greatly dependent on their ( observance by others also. The profligate parent transmits a feeble and sickly organization to his child ; just as opposite conduct tends to the opposite result. The pestilence which foulness in one part of a city has bred, extends to other parts ; and the con- sequences of the offence spread far beyond the original offender. So, economically, does each man suffer for others' transgressions besides his own. The idleness, and wastefulness, and intemperance of parents entail hunger, and raggedness, and every form of misery, on the unhappy children. The indus- trious, and provident, and honest members of the community are stinted in their means for the sup- port of the idle, and improvident, and dishonest, and for their own protection against the depredations of those who seek to live by others' labour rather than their own. Xo law of our existence is more sure than this. It is idle to cavil or complain. Let us rather see how the recognition of this law should affect us. What is the practical inference? It is that the interests of humanity are one ; that through- out mankind there is, in French phrase, a solidarity, which renders each responsible, in some measure, for the rest. The policy of selfish isolation is, therefore, vain, as well as sinful. We suffer from our neglect [ 295 ] Z 2 DR. HODGSON of the well-being of our fellow-men. The gaol fever, which the gross negligence of prison authorities pro- duced in former days, slew the juryman in the box, and even the judge upon the bench. And it is not in purse alone, or even chiefly, that we suffer from the existence of the destitute, or the depraved. The great mountain of human evil throws its dark, cold shadow on every one of us ; in such an atmosphere our own moral nature droops and pines ; and just proportioned to the mental elasticity which attends every successful effort to spread good around us, is the numbing and hardening pressure of that great mass of vice and misery which we feel ourselves im- potent to relieve. One more analogy I would briefly note. We know how common quack medicines are. Why is this ? Because, through ignorance of physiological laws, people are silly enough to believe that any nostrum can exist potent to repair, as by a magic spell or incantation, the evil results of their own neglect of health and its conditions. To such people, talk about air and exercise, and washing, and regular diet, and early hours, and temperance, and alterna- tion of labour and rest, is very uninteresting and commonplace. To a similar class of persons, dis- course on diligence and economy, and forethought and integrity, is very dull. ' What is the use of all [ 2 9 6 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. your chemistry/ said the old lady, ' if you cannot take the stain out of my silk gown V And by tests not less narrow and erroneous are the teachings of science, whether economical or physiological, often tried. But a change is coming over the public estimate of the latter, at least in this respect. Pre- vention is being ever more thought of than cure ; or, in technical phrase, the prophyl 'actio claims, and now receives, more attention than the therapeutic portion of the physician's art. Pure water, and fresh air and light are now, almost for the first time, really recognized as the fundamental and indispen- sable conditions of health j and baths, and drains, and ventilators, and wash-houses, are fast encroach- ing on the domain of the blister and the lancet, the pill and the black draught. Now, what systems of the treatment of disease are to Sanitary Phy- siology, Poor-laws and Charitable Institutions and Criminal Legislation are to Economic Science. It aims at preventing the evils which those seek to deal with as they arise. The attempt may never quite succeed ; but its success will be exactly pro- portioned to the vigour and unanimity with which it is made. It seeks to treat the source of the disease, rather than the mere symptoms. It is only as the former is removed that the latter will disappear. Bv all means let no palliative be ne- [ >97 ] DE. HODGSON glected in the meantime, but let no cure be expected therefrom. Efforts to perfect systems of poor-laws, or criminal laws, however excellent or useful, must be abortive, because the very existence of the evils which these address is abnormal ; and it is for the removal of these wens and blotches on the social system that we must strive, not for their mere abate- ment by topical applications, or the rendering of them symmetrical and trim. Wisdom and Benevolence here meet, and are at one.* Yet persons are not wanting who meet our desire that Economic Science shordd be taught to all, and especially to the young, by the cry that ' it tends to make men selfish/ In reply, I will not content myself with saying, in the words of Shakspere, ( Self- love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting/ I go much further, and assert that this teaching, if pro- perly conducted, has precisely the opposite tendency. Its great purpose is, to show how the community is enriched by the industry of the individual, and how the value of individual industry is measured by its result in enriching the community. It wholly dis- owns and condemns every mode of enriching the individual at the general expense, or even without * In the text I have merely pointed out analogy. Here let me hint at dependence. Is not the economic difficulty the main ob- stacle to sanitary arrangements ? [ 298 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the general advantage. Thus, the merchant who brings a commodity, say tea, from a country where it is cheap to one where it is dear, and gains a profit by the transaction, fulfils the conditions of Economic Science. He serves at once the community in which he lives by bringing an article from a place where it is less, to a place where it is more, wanted ; and the community with which he trades by giving them in exchange for the article they sell something that they value more. But the man who enriches himself at the gaming-table, or by other means more or less resembling the picking of pockets, docs injury, not service, to the community. He is wholly out of the pale of Economic Science ; he may be a chevalier d'industrie, in the French sense, but Economic Science disowns his industry, and condemns him as a wastefid consumer of what others have produced. It teaches every man to look on himself as a portion of society, and widens, not narrows, his views of his own calling. And here I cannot but express my deep regret that one to whom we all owe, and to whom we all pay, so much gratitude, and affection, and admiration, for all he has written and done in the cause of good — I mean Mr. Charles Dickens — should have lent his great genius and name to the discrediting of the subject whose claims I now advocate. Much as I am grieved, however, I am not much surprised, for men [ 2 99 ] DR. HODGSON of purely literary culture, with keen and kindly sym- pathies which range them on what seems the side of the poor and weak against the rich and strong, and, on the other hand, with refined tastes, which are shocked by the insolence of success and the ostenta- tion incident to newly-acquired Avealth, are ever most apt to fall into the mistaken estimate of this subject which marks most that has yet appeared of his new tale, Hard Times. Of wilful misrepresentation wc know him to be incapable ; not the less is the mis- representation to be deplored. We have heard of a young lady who compromised between her desire to have a portrait of her lover, and her fear lest her parents should discover her attachment, by having the portrait painted very unlike. "What love did in the case of this young lady, aversion has done in the case of Mr. Dickens, who has made the portrait so unlike, that the best friends of the original cannot detect the resemblance. His descriptions are just as like to real Economic Science as ' statistics' are to ' stutterings/ two words which he makes one of his characters not very naturally confound. He who misrepresents what he ridicules, does, in truth, not ridicule what he misrepresents. Of the lad Bitzer, he savs, in No. 2 1 8 of Household Words : — Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young econo- [ 300 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. mist had asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the work- house ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him : first, because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperize the recipient ; and, secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and to sell it for as much as he could possibly get ; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man — not a part of man's duty, but the whole. — (p. 33;-.) Here Economic Science, which so strongly enforces parental duty, is given out as discouraging its moral if not economic correlative—; filial duty. But where do economists represent this maxim as the whole duty of man ? Their business is to treat of man in his industrial capacity and relations; they do not presume to deal with his other capacities and rela- tions, except by showing what must he done in their sphere to enable any duties whatever to be dis- charged. Thus it shows simply that without the exercise of qualities that need not be here named again, man cannot support those dependent on him, or even himself. If it do not establish the obligation, it shows how only the obligation can be fulfilled. Let me once more recur to physiology for an illus- tration. The duty of preserving one's own life and health will not be gainsaid. Physiology enforces this dutv bv showing how it must be fulfilled. But, if one's mother were to fall into the sea, arc we to be told that phvsiologv forbids the son to leap into the [301 ] DB. HODGSON waves, and even peril bis own health and life in the effort to save her who gave him birth ? Physiology does not command this, it is true ; this is not its sphere ; but this, at least, it does, — it teaches and trains to the fullest development of strength and activity, that so they may be equal for every exigency — even one so terrible as this; and so pre- cisely with Economic Science. Again, we are told it discourages marriage : — ' Look at me, ma'am,' says Mr. Bitzer. ' I don't want a wife and family. Why should they V ' Because they are improvident,' said Mrs. Sparsit. ' Yes, ma'am, that's where it is. If they were more provident, and less perverse, ma'am, what would they do ? They would say, 'While my hat covers my family,' or ' while my bonnet covers my family,' as the case might be, ma'am, 'I have only one to feed, and that's the person I most like to feed.' — (p. 336.) Does this mean that men or women ought to rush blindly into the position of parents, without thinking or caring whether their children can be supported by their industry, or must be a burden on that of society at large ? If not, on what ground is prudent hesitation, in assuming the most solemn of all human responsibilities, a subject for ridicule and censure ? Is the condition of the people to be improved by greater or by less laxity in this respect ? But not merely are Ave told that this teaching (which, by the way, scarcely exists in any but a very few schools), tends to selfishness, and the merging of [ 302 ] OX ECONOMIC SCIENCE. the community in the individual; it lias, it seems, also, a quite opposite tendency to merge the indi- vidual in the community, by accustoming the mind to dwell wholly on averages. Thus, if in a city of a million of inhabitants, twenty-five are starved to death annually in the streets, or if of 1 00,000 persons who go to sea, 500 are drowned, or burned to death, we are led to believe that Economic Science disregards these miseries, because they are exceptional, and because the average is so greatly the other way ! Now, though in comparison of two countries, or two periods, such averages are indispensable, Economic Science practically teaches everywhere to analyze the collective result into its constituent elements, — in a word, to individualize. It teaches, for example, that every brick, and stone, and beam of this build- ing, of this street, of this city, has been laid by some individual pair of hands ; and it urges every man to work for himself, and to render his own industry ever more productive, surely not to rest in idle contemplation of the average of industry throughout the land. It is his duty to swell, not to reduce that average. So with prosperity. I am quite unable to see what tendency the knowledge of that average can have to discourage the effort to increase it. Besides, it is a fundamental error to confound mere statistics with economic science, which deals with [ 303 ] DR. HODGSON facts only to establish their connections by way of cause and effect, and to interpret them by law. But were it otherwise, with what justice can eco- nomic instruction be charged with destroying imagi- nation, by the utilitarian teaching of ' stubborn facts/ Why should either exclude the other ? I can see no incompatibility between the two.* By all means let us have poetry, but first let us have our daily bread, even though man is not fed by that alone. It is the Poet Rogers who says, in a note to his poem on Italy, * To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw Our eves on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, and the fields well culti- vated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed/ Destitution must be removed for the very sake of the higher culture. If we would have the tree fling its branches widely and freely into the upper air, its roots must be fixed deeply and firmly in the earth. But enough of this subject, on which I have entered with pain, and only from a strong sense of duty. The public mind alas ! is not enlightened enough to render such writing harmless. * On this score, I have personally no misgivings. Seventeen years ago, I delivered and published a lecture, in which I urged the exer- cise of the imagination, or esthetic culture, in the youthful training of all classes. My convictions are at least as strong now as they were then. [ 304 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Hitherto, I have spoken only of those great prin- ciples, and the duties flowing therefrom, which per- vade the whole suhject. But if these principles are the most comprehensive, there are very many others which, in the practical affairs of life, it is most important thoroughly to understand, and which it is the peculiar business of Economic Science to ex- pound. It is an error to suppose that in matters touching men's ' business and bosoms/ even though of daily and hourly recurrence, instruction is not needed, and that ' common sense ' is a sufficient guide. Alas ! common sense is widely different from proper sense. It is precisely in these subjects that error most extensively prevails, and that it is most pernicious where it does prevail. In matters far removed from ordinary life and experience, pure ignorance is possible, perhaps; and, in comparison, little mischievous. But in those which concern us all and at all times, it is alike impossible to be purely ignorant and to be ignorant with impunity. If the mind have not right notions developed at first, it will certainly have wrong ones. Hence we may say of knowledge what Sheridan Knowles says of virtue : ' Plant virtue early ! Give the flower the chance you suffer to the iveed !' The minds of most men are a congeries of maxims, and notions, and opinions, and rules, and theories [ 305 ] DR. HODGSON picked up here and there, now and then, some sound, others unsound, each often quite inconsistent with the rest, but which are to them identified with the whole body of truth, and which are the standard by which they try all things. This fact explains a remark in a recent school report, that it is far easier to make this science intelligible to children than to their parents ; — no doubt, just as it is easier to build on an unoccupied ground, than on one overspread by ruins. And so, not only is it possible to teach this subject to the young ; but it is to the young that we must teach it, if we would have this teaching most effective for good. For further evidence of the general need for this kind of instruction, it suffices to look around us, and test some of the opinions prevalent lately or even now. And here there is much of interest that might be said, did time permit, of still prevail- ing errors regarding strikes, and machineiy, and wages, and population, and protection, and taxation, and expenditure, and competition, and much more besides. But into this field my limits forbid me even to enter. Let me, however, refer you to a most admirable series of lessons on The Phenomena of Industrial Life, and the Conditions of Industrial Success* which has recently appeared under the editorship of that zealous educationist, the Dean of * Price 2s. Groonibridge, Paternoster Row. [ 3o6 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Hereford. The appearance of this book, and the recognition of this subject in the last Report of the National School Society, are cheering signs that the omissions of past ages in our school systems on this head are not destined much longer to continue. The programme of this lecture speaks of the importance of Economic Science to all classes. It would be a serious error to suppose that its advantage is confined wholly, or even chiefly, to those who depend on daily labour for daily bread. Even were it so, in the midst of frequent and rapid changes of position, the rich man becoming poor, as well as the poor man becoming rich, this kind of teaching would still be important for all classes. But the capitalist not less, it may be said even more, than the labourer, needs instruction. He has been styled the captain of industry ; it is for him to marshal, and equip, and organise, and pay its forces, and to guide their march. Any mistake on his part must be widely injurious. The wise employment of capital is a most momentous question ; for it determines the direction of the industry of millions, and affects the prosperity of all coming time. From the class of the rich, too, are our legislators chiefly chosen. To them this kind of knowledge is important just in proportion as, in their case, ignorance or error is most pernicious. Of the aristocracy of our dav, -were old Burton living [307] DE. HODGSON now, lie would scarcely say what he said of those of his own time : ' They are like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour.'* The contagion of industry has spread to them ; and idleness is less than ever confounded with nobility. But there is ample room for further progress. If ■wealth, even economicallv considered, involve in- creased responsibility, it calls the more loudly for enlightenment and guidance. Again, on the side of expenditure, or consumption, does this subject especially concern the rich. As supply ever follows demand, it is by this that pro- duction is mainly guided. Shall it run in the direction of sensuality and self-indulgence, or shall it flow in better and more useful channels? Me- morable are the words of Lord Byron in his later days in Greece : — The mechanics and working classes who can maintain their families are, in my opinion, the happiest body of men. Poverty is wretchedness ; but it is perhaps to be preferred to the heartless, unmeaning dissipation of the higher orders. I am thankful I am now entirely clear of this, and my resolution to remain clear of it for the rest of my life is immutable. + At this most suggestive topic I can barely hint. * Anatomy of Melancholy. t Last Days of Lord Byron. By W. Parry, 1825. p. 205. [ 308 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Much beside I am forced wholly to omit. But I must not pass in total silence the claims of this subject on the attention of the other sex. For- tunately, little needs be said within this Institu- tion, of whose audience at lectures on every subject ladies form perhaps not the smallest, and certainly not the least attentive portion. Surely I shall not be told that a superficial sketch, such as mine, is for them unobjectionable, but that the serious study of the science is, in their case, to be discountenanced. If any kind of knowledge can do harm to any living being, it is just this very superficial knowledge. It is like the twilight which, holding of day on the one hand, and of night on the other, mocks the senses with distorted appearances which thicker darkness would hide, but which a broader daylight would dispel. In truth, women have a special interest in this subject. The part they play in industrial pursuits depends much on conventional circumstances, and varies in various countries ; but in all, their influence in the region of expenditure is vastly great. Who shall say how deeply the welfare of families and of society at large is involved in this ? Again, the domain of charity is peculiarly feminine; and the benevolent impulse, ever so ready to spring up, needs to be guided to the prevention, rather than to the relief, or what is too often, in fitter phrase, the 309 A A DR. HODGSON indirect increase of misery. Well does Thomas Carlyle (no friend of the dismal science, as he loves to call it), in his quaint, odd way, exclaim : — What a reflection it is that we cannot bestow on an unworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our patronage, or whatever resource is ours, — without withdrawing it, and all that will grow of it, from one worthy, to whom it of right belongs ! We cannot, I say ; impossible ; it is the eternal law of things. Incompetent Duncan M'Pastehorn, the hapless incompetent mortal to whom I give the cobbling of my boots, — and cannot find in my heart to refuse it, the poor drunken wretch having a wife and ten children ; he withdraws the job from sober, plainly competent and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally short of work, too ; discourages Sparrow- bill ; teaches him that he, too, may as well drink and loiter and bungle ; that this is not a scene for merit and demerit at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and incompetent cobbling of every description, — clearly tending to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill ! What harm had Sparrowbill done me that I should so help to ruin him ? And I couldn't save the insalvable Mr. Pastehorn : I merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here and there a half-crown, which he oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill also is drinking !* Between the Lady Bountiful of olden times, with her periodical distributions of coals and blankets, and simples and cowslip wine, who regarded the poor as her pets, her peculiar luxury, of which, did they cease to be mendicants, she would be cruelly deprived, — and the Mrs. Jellyby, whose long-ranged benevolence shoots in a parabolic curve far over what is near, to descend on what is remote, hurrying past and above St. Giles or Whitechapel, and * Model Prisons, p. 24 ; Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. 2. [ 3- ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. exploding on ' Borrioboola Gha; 5 between these widely- distinct forms of what is called in both alike Charity, there is room and there is need for women of judgment as clear as their sympathy is earnest, who can think for themselves, as well as feel for others ; who shall not so do good that evil may come, but rather help the feeble to self-help, and, while they raise the fallen, look mainly to ' forestalling' others ' ere they come to fall. 5 Up to this point I have spoken solely of one class of advantages attending the teaching of Economic Science. But, as you have been told oftener than once during this course, the teaching of every branch of knowledge has, in different degrees, two sorts of advantage; ist, in increasing man's outward resources; 2nd, as a means of mental discipline and inward culture. Of the second of these advantages I can now say but little. It is wholly unimportant to discuss the comparative claims of different subjects in this respect. The difference among them is, perhaps, rather of kind than of degree. Mathe- matics discipline one set of powers, metaphysics another; or in so far as both exercise the same powers, it is in different ways. I claim no monopoly, I arrogate no superiority. I simply assert the educational value of this subject, with- out prejudice to any other, and all the more [ 3» ] DK. HODGSON strongly, because it has been and is so sadly neglected. Surely, those subjects which have the most direct and powerful bearing on human well- being, and which treat of some of the most import- ant relations between man and man, cannot be edu- cationally less efficient than other studies which concern man less closely and directly. And I leave it to you who have heard even this most imperfect and hurried exposition, to judge whether it can fail to be a most improving mental exercise to sift such questions as the relations and laws of price, of capital and labour, and wages and profits, and interest and rent, and to trace to their origin, and follow to their results, the fluctuations affecting all these in our own and other countries, in our own and other times. As regards the other sex, on this ground, at least, there can be no doubt, even if the former admitted of hesitation. To women and to men, this discipline is alike valuable : for women it is even more necessary; for men are inevitably brought more into contact with the world and its affairs, and so have the defects of their early teaching in part corrected. It is well, at the same time that the understanding is exercised, to foster an interest in human welfare by an enlarged comprehension of its conditions. We hear little now of the policy or propriety of confining woman's studies to super- r 3- i ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. ficial accomplishment. It were an error, scarcely less serious, to confine tliem to inquiries which leave the individual isolated from the race. Let me not, in conclusion, be supposed to ignore, because I would not invade, other, and (by com- mon consent) the most sacred grounds on which the moral aspects of this subject may be viewed. Let the duties on which human welfare, even indus- trially considered, is dependent, be enforced else- where, by reasons too high for discussion here. But surely this ground, at least, is in common to religious sects of every variety of creed and name. Surely it is a solemn and cogent consideration that the very fabric of our social being is held together by moral laws, and that the man who violates them, outlaws himself, as it were, from the social domain, and rouses into armed hostility a thousand agencies which might and would otherwise fight upon his side. Not only the profligate, the gambler, the swindler, and the drunkard, but the idle, the reck- less, the unpunctual, the procrastinating, find here a bitter but wholesome condemnation ; and the very science which is ignorantly charged with fostering selfishness, teaches every man to estimate his labours by their tendency to promote the general good. Nor is it unimpressive, a3 regards even what Words- worth so finely calls [ 3.3 J DR. HODGSON The unreasoning progress of the world,* to watch how the social plan is carried on by the composition of so many volitional forces, each bent on its own aims. ' The first party of painted savages/ it has been well said, c who raised a few huts upon the Thames, did not dream of the London they were creating, or know that in lighting the fire on their hearth they were kindling one of the great foci of Time.' . . . 'All the grand agencies which the progress of mankind evolves are formed in the same un- conscious way. They are the aggregate result of countless single wills, each of which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps fully gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in the secret service of the world/f If l aw be indeed the expres- sion of an intelligent and benevolent will, reverence and obedience towards the great Lawgiver must surely be fostered (mark, I do not say created) by the study of his laws, and the contrasted results of their observ- ance and their violation. And, finally, as regards that practical religion whose testing fruit is effort for the good of man, — a study which shows so clearly that human welfare is involved in obedience to fixed laws, and that obedience, to be reliable, must be based on * ' In the unreasoning progress of the world A wiser spirit is at work for us, A better eye than ours.' — Wordsworth. + James Martineau. [ 3*4 ] ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. knowledge of their existence and authority, mnst surely stimulate the extension of this needful know- ledge among all classes of the people. In this light, it is abundantly apparent that, sacred as is the duty of acquiring knowledge, the duty of diffusing it is not less sacred ; and that knowledge is no exception to the divine precept — ' It is more blessed to give than to receive.' Appendix, p. 275. Political Economists, with but slight exception, have neglected to urge universal Teaching and Training in the Economic laws as the condition indispensable for the most beneficial working of those laws themselves. Misled by physical analogies, e.g., between the relation of supply and demand, and the rising and falling of water as it seeks its level, they have failed practically to recognise that human motives and human will are ever the key-stone in the arch which bridges over the interval between economic cause and effect. To Mr. Samuel Bailey belongs (so far as I know,) the credit of having first clearly established this truth — simple as it is — in his Essay on The Uniformity of Causation, published in 1829. The same writer in his Discourse on Political Economy, (1852, p. 109), thus writes : ' The object of Political Economy is not to ascertain all the laws by which wealth is produced and distributed, but only one class of them, namely, the moral or mental laws, or in other words, those laws of human nature, on which the economical condition of nations depends.' It may be doubted, however, whether even Mr. Bailey has sufficiently insisted on the great practical inference from his own doctrine — the necessity, for all men — of instruction in the nature of those laws. Yet here lies the answer to those who point to the manifold misery co-incident with our civilization, whether they con- tent themselves (like Mr. Carlyle) with angry protests against ' Laissez faire, laissez aller,' or go on, with the French and othi 1 [ sis ] DR. HODGSON ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Socialists to build up schemes for the entire re-construction of the Economic World — schemes which would substitute centralized com- pulsion for individual agency, separate or combined, with a tendency more or less direct, more or less avowed, to Communism, (or the abolition of property and of family,) as their ultimate result. The ignorant abuse of human freedom, however, is a reason why men should be instructed, not why they should be enslaved. Let but enlightenment keep pace with liberty, and it will be found that intelligence within will succeed where compulsion from without must fail ; and that the free action of the instructed individual is the true guarantee for the well-being of the community. To reduce this conviction to practice no one has yet done so much as Mr. William Ellis — the munificent patron of the Birkbeck Schools.* No one has laboured so zealously as he — ■ To render with these precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind.f * See Education as a Means of Preventing Destitution, &c. By William Ellis, Author of Outlines of Social Economy, &c. London : Smith and Elder. 1851. t Byron's Prometheus. ' £§»**& a THIS BOOK IS E STAJ AN INITIAL WILL BE ASSESSE THIS BOOK ON TH WILL INCREASE TC DAY AND TO $1. OVERDUE. UE ON THE LAST DATE IPED BELOW FINE OF 25 CENTS D FOR FAILURE TO RETURN E DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 5 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY MAY 3 1934 DEC 2 1942 I3$ep51»i' iOK'60RT ■ JANg6 361 ,#