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Title: An Introduction to the History of Science

Author: Walter Libby

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Introduction to the History of Science, by
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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
HISTORY OF SCIENCE
BY
WALTER LIBBY, M.A., Ph.D.
PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN THE CARNEGIE
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY WALTER LIBBY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U. S. A

TO MY STUDENTS OF THE LAST TWELVE YEARS IN THE
CHICAGO AND PITTSBURGH DISTRICTS THIS BOOK IS
INSCRIBED IN FURTHERANCE OF THE ENDEAVOR TO
INCULCATE A DEMOCRATIC CULTURE, EVER MINDFUL OF
THE DAILY TASK, NOT ALTOGETHER IGNORANT OF THE
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE PAST

PREFACE
The history of science has something to offer to the humblest intelligence. It
is a means of imparting a knowledge of scientific facts and principles to
unschooled minds. At the same time it affords a simple method of school
instruction. Those who understand a business or an institution best, as a
contemporary writer on finance remarks, are those who have made it or
grown up with it, and the next best thing is to know how it has grown up,
and then watch or take part in its actual working. Generally speaking, we
know best what we know in its origins.
The history of science is an aid in scientific research. It places the student in
the current of scientific thought, and gives him a clue to the purpose and
necessity of the theories he is required to master. It presents science as the
constant pursuit of truth rather than the formulation of truth long since
revealed; it shows science as progressive rather than fixed, dynamic rather
than static, a growth to which each may contribute. It does not paralyze the
self-activity of youth by the record of an infallible past.
It is only by teaching the sciences in their historical development that the
schools can be true to the two principles of modern education, that the
sciences should occupy the foremost place in the curriculum and that the
individual mind in its evolution should rehearse the history of civilization.
The history of science should be given a larger place than at present in
general history; for, as Bacon said, the history of the world without a
history of learning is like a statue of Polyphemus with the eye out. The
history of science studies the past for the sake of the future. It is a story of
continuous progress. It is rich in biographical material. It shows the
sciences in their interrelations, and saves the student from narrowness and
premature specialization. It affords a unique approach to the study of
philosophy. It gives new motive to the study of foreign languages. It gives
an interest in the applications of knowledge, offers a clue to the complex
civilization of the present, and renders the mind hospitable to new
discoveries and inventions.

The history of science is hostile to the spirit of caste. It shows the sciences
rising from daily needs and occupations, formulated by philosophy,
enriching philosophy, giving rise to new industries, which react in turn upon
the sciences. The history of science reveals men of all grades of intelligence
and of all social ranks coöperating in the cause of human progress. It is a
basis of intellectual and social homogeneity.
Science is international, English, Germans, French, Italians, Russians—all
nations—contributing to advance the general interests. Accordingly, a
survey of the sciences tends to increase mutual respect, and to heighten the
humanitarian sentiment. The history of science can be taught to people of
all creeds and colors, and cannot fail to enhance in the breast of every
young man, or woman, faith in human progress and good-will to all
mankind.
This book is intended as a simple introduction, taking advantage of the
interests of youth of from seventeen to twenty-two years of age (and their
intellectual compeers) in order to direct their attention to the story of the
development of the sciences. It makes no claim to be in any sense complete
or comprehensive. It is, therefore, a psychological introduction, having the
mental capacity of a certain class of readers always in view, rather than a
logical introduction, which would presuppose in all readers both full
maturity of intellect and considerable initial interest in the history of
science.
I cannot conclude this preface without thanking those who have assisted me
in the preparation of this book—Sir William Osler, who read the first draft
of the manuscript, and aided me with his counsel; Dr. Charles Singer, who
read all the chapters in manuscript, and to whom I am indebted for advice in
reference to the illustrations and for many other valuable suggestions; the
officers of the Bodleian Library, whose courtesy was unfailing during the
year I worked there; Professor Henry Crew, who helped in the revision of
two of the chapters by his judicious criticism; Professor J. E. Rush, whose
knowledge of bacteriology improved the chapter on Pasteur; Professor L.
O. Grondahl, who read one of the chapters relating to the history of physics
and suggested important emendations; and Dr. John A. Brashear, who
contributed valuable information in reference to the activities of Samuel

Pierpont Langley. I wish to express my gratitude also to Miss Florence
Bonnet for aid in the correction of the manuscript.
W. Libby.
February 2, 1917.

CONTENTS
I. Science and Practical Needs—Egypt and Babylonia 1
II. The Influence of Abstract Thought—Greece: Aristotle 15
Scientific Theory Subordinated to Application—Rome:
III. 30
Vitruvius
The Continuity of Science—The Medieval Church and the
IV. 43
Arabs
V. The Classification of the Sciences—Francis Bacon 57
VI. Scientific Method—Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey, Descartes 72
VII. Science as Measurement—Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Boyle 86
VIII. Coöperation in Science—The Royal Society 99
IX. Science and the Struggle for Liberty—Benjamin Franklin 114
The Interaction of the Sciences—Werner, Hutton, Black,
X. 129
Hall, William Smith
Science and Religion—Kant, Lambert, Laplace, Sir William
XI. 142
Herschel
XII. The Reign of Law—Dalton, Joule 155
XIII. The Scientist—Sir Humphry Davy 170
XIV. Scientific Prediction—The Discovery of Neptune 184
XV. Science and Travel—The Voyage of the Beagle 197
XVI. Science and War—Pasteur, Lister 213
XVII. Science and Invention—Langley's Aeroplane 231
XVIII. Scientific Hypothesis—Radioactive Substances 245
XIX. The Scientific Imagination 258
XX. Science and Democratic Culture 270
Index 283

ILLUSTRATIONS
Earliest Picture known of a Surgical Operation. Egypt, 2500 b.c. 6
St. Thomas Aquinas overcoming Averroës 54
Dr. Gilbert showing his Electrical Experiments to Queen Elizabeth
72
and her Court
The Tichonic Quadrant 88
Wadham College, Oxford 104
Sir Isaac Newton 112
John Dalton collecting Marsh Gas 162
The First Successful Heavier-than-air Flying Machine 236

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF
SCIENCE

CHAPTER I
SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL NEEDS—EGYPT AND
BABYLONIA

If you consult encyclopedias and special works in reference to the early
history of any one of the sciences,—astronomy, geology, geometry,
physiology, logic, or political science, for example,—you will find strongly
emphasized the part played by the Greeks in the development of organized
knowledge. Great, indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, are the
contributions to the growth of science of this highly rational and speculative
people. It must be conceded, also, that the influence on Western science of
civilizations earlier than theirs has come to us, to a considerable extent at
least, through the channels of Greek literature.
Nevertheless, if you seek the very origins of the sciences, you will
inevitably be drawn to the banks of the Nile, and to the valleys of the Tigris
and the Euphrates. Here, in Egypt, in Assyria and Babylonia, dwelt from
very remote times nations whose genius was practical and religious rather
than intellectual and theoretical, and whose mental life, therefore, was more
akin to our own than was the highly evolved culture of the Greeks. Though
more remote in time, the wisdom and practical knowledge of Thebes and
Memphis, Nineveh and Babylon, are more readily comprehended by our
minds than the difficult speculations of Athenian philosophy.
Much that we have inherited from the earliest civilizations is so familiar, so
homely, that we simply accept it, much as we may light, or air, or water,
without analysis, without inquiry as to its origin, and without full
recognition of how indispensable it is. Why are there seven days in the
week, and not eight? Why are there sixty minutes in the hour, and why are
there not sixty hours in the day? These artificial divisions of time are
accepted so unquestioningly that to ask a reason for them may, to an
indolent mind, seem almost absurd. This acceptance of a week of seven
days and of an hour of sixty minutes (almost as if they were natural
divisions of time like day and night) is owing to a tradition that is

Babylonian in its origin. From the Old Testament (which is one of the
greatest factors in preserving the continuity of human culture, and the only
ancient book which speaks with authority concerning Babylonian history)
we learn that Abraham, the progenitor of the Hebrews, migrated to the west
from southern Babylonia about twenty-three hundred years before Christ.
Even in that remote age, however, the Babylonians had established those
divisions of time which are familiar to us. The seven days of the week were
closely associated in men's thinking with the heavenly bodies. In our
modern languages they are named after the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury,
Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, which from the remotest times were personified
and worshiped. Thus we see that the usage of making seven days a unit of
time depends on the religious belief and astronomical science of a very
remote civilization. The usage is so completely established that by the
majority it is simply taken for granted.
Another piece of commonplace knowledge—the cardinal points of the
compass—may be accepted, likewise, without inquiry or without
recognition of its importance. Unless thrown on your own resources in an
unsettled country or on unknown waters, you may long fail to realize how
indispensable to the practical conduct of life is the knowledge of east and
west and north and south. In this matter, again, the records of ancient
civilizations show the pains that were taken to fix these essentials of
science. Modern excavations have demonstrated that the sides or the
corners of the temples and palaces of Assyria and Babylonia were directed
to the four cardinal points of the compass. In Egypt the pyramids, erected
before 3000 b.c., were laid out with such strict regard to direction that the
conjecture has been put forward that their main purpose was to establish, in
a land of shifting sands, east and west and north and south. That conjecture
seems extravagant; but the fact that the Phɶnicians studied astronomy
merely because of its practical value in navigation, the early invention of
the compass in China, the influence on discovery of the later improvements
of the compass, make us realize the importance of the alleged purpose of
the pyramids. Without fixed points, without something to go by, men,
before they had acquired the elements of astronomy, were altogether at sea.
As they advanced in knowledge they looked to the stars for guidance,
especially to the pole star and the imperishable star-group of the northern
heavens. The Egyptians even developed an apparatus for telling the time by

reference to the stars—a star-clock similar in its purpose to the sundial. By
the Egyptians, also, was carefully observed the season of the year at which
certain stars and constellations were visible at dawn. This was of special
importance in the case of Sirius, for its heliacal rising, that is, the period
when it rose in conjunction with the sun, marked the coming of the Nile
flood (so important in the lives of the inhabitants) and the beginning of a
new year. Not unnaturally Sirius was an object of worship. One temple is
said to have been so constructed as to face that part of the eastern horizon at
which this star arose at the critical season of inundation. Of another temple
we are told that only at sunset at the time of the summer solstice did the sun
throw its rays throughout the edifice. The fact that astronomy in Egypt as in
Babylonia, where the temples were observatories, was closely associated
with religion confirms the view that this science was first cultivated because
of its bearing on the practical needs of the people. The priests were the
preservers of such wisdom as had been accumulated in the course of man's
immemorial struggle with the forces of nature.
It is well known that geometry had its origin in the valley of the Nile, that it
arose to meet a practical need, and that it was in the first place, as its name
implies, a measurement of the earth—a crude surveying, employed in the
restoration of boundaries obliterated by the annual inundations of the river.
Egyptian geometry cared little for theory. It addressed itself to actual
problems, such as determining the area of a square or triangular field from
the length of the sides. To find the area of a circular field, or floor, or vessel,
from the length of the diameter was rather beyond the science of 2000 b.c.
This was, however, a practical problem which had to be solved, even if the
solution were not perfect. The practice was to square the diameter reduced
by one ninth.
In all the Egyptian mathematics of which we have record there is to be
observed a similar practical bent. In the construction of a temple or a
pyramid not merely was it necessary to have regard to the points of the
compass, but care must be taken to have the sides at right angles. This
required the intervention of specialists, expert "rope-fasteners," who laid off
a triangle by means of a rope divided into three parts, of three, four, and
five units. The Babylonians followed much the same practice in fixing a
right angle. In addition they learned how to bisect and trisect the angle.
Hence we see in their designs and ornaments the division of the circle into

twelve parts, a division which does not appear in Egyptian ornamentation
till after the incursion of Babylonian influence.
There is no need, however, to multiply examples; the tendency of all
Egyptian mathematics was, as already stated, concerned with the practical
solution of concrete problems—mensuration, the cubical contents of barns
and granaries, the distribution of bread, the amounts of food required by
men and animals in given numbers and for given periods of time, the
proportions and the angle of elevation (about 52°) of a pyramid, etc.
Moreover, they worked simple equations involving one unknown, and had a
hieroglyph for a million (the drawing of a man overcome with wonder), and
another for ten million.
The Rhind mathematical papyrus in the British Museum is the main source
of our present knowledge of early Egyptian arithmetic, geometry, and of
what might be called their trigonometry and algebra. It describes itself as
"Instructions for arriving at the knowledge of all things, and of things
obscure, and of all mysteries." It was copied by a priest about 1600 b.c.—
the classical period of Egyptian culture—from a document seven hundred
years older.

EARLIEST PICTURE KNOWN OF A SURGICAL OPERATION.
EGYPT, 2500 B.C.
Medicine, which is almost certain to develop in the early history of a people
in response to their urgent needs, has been justly called the foster-mother of
many sciences. In the records of Egyptian medical practice can be traced
the origin of chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and botany. Our most definite
information concerning Egyptian medicine belongs to the same general
period as the mathematical document to which we have just referred. It is
true something is known of remoter times. The first physician of whom
history has preserved the name, I-em-hetep (He-who-cometh-in-peace),
lived about 4500 b.c. Recent researches have also brought to light, near
Memphis, pictures, not later than 2500 b.c., of surgical operations. They
were found sculptured on the doorposts at the entrance to the tomb of a high
official of one of the Pharaohs. The patients, as shown in the accompanying
illustration, are suffering pain, and, according to the inscription, one cries
out, "Do this [and] let me go," and the other, "Don't hurt me so!" Our most
satisfactory data in reference to Egyptian medicine are derived, however,
from the Ebers papyrus. This document displays some little knowledge of

the pulse in different parts of the body, of a relation between the heart and
the other organs, and of the passage of the breath to the lungs (and heart). It
contains a list of diseases. In the main it is a collection of prescriptions for
the eyes, ears, stomach, to reduce tumors, effect purgation, etc. There is no
evidence of a tendency to homeopathy, but mental healing seems to have
been called into play by the use of numerous spells and incantations. Each
prescription, as in medical practice to-day, contains as a rule several
ingredients. Among the seven hundred recognized remedies are to be noted
poppy, castor-oil, gentian, colchicum, squills, and many other familiar
medicinal plants, as well as bicarbonate of soda, antimony, and salts of lead
and copper. The fat of the lion, hippopotamus, crocodile, goose, serpent,
and wild goat, in equal parts, served as a prescription for baldness. In the
interests of his art the medical practitioner ransacked the resources of
organic and inorganic nature. The Ebers papyrus shows that the Egyptians
knew of the development of the beetle from the egg, of the blow-fly from
the larva, and of the frog from the tadpole. Moreover, for precision in the
use of medicaments weights of very small denominations were employed.
The Egyptian embalmers relied on the preservative properties of common
salt, wine, aromatics, myrrh, cassia, etc. By the use of linen smeared with
gum they excluded all putrefactive agencies. They understood the virtue of
extreme dryness in the exercise of their antiseptic art. Some knowledge of
anatomy was involved in the removal of the viscera, and much more in a
particular method they followed in removing the brain.
In their various industries the Egyptians made use of gold, silver, bronze
(which on analysis is found to consist of copper, tin, and a trace of lead,
etc.), metallic iron and copper and their oxides, manganese, cobalt, alum,
cinnabar, indigo, madder, brass, white lead, lampblack. There is clear
evidence that they smelted iron ore as early as 3400 b.c. maintaining a blast
by means of leather tread-bellows. They also contrived to temper the metal,
and to make helmets, swords, lance-points, ploughs, tools, and other
implements of iron. Besides metallurgy they practiced the arts of weaving,
dyeing, distillation. They produced soap (from soda and oil), transparent
and colored glass, enamel, and ceramics. They were skilled in the
preparation of leather. They showed aptitude for painting, and for the other
fine arts. They were expert builders, and possessed the engineering skill to
erect obelisks weighing hundreds of tons. They cultivated numerous

vegetables, grains, fruits, and flowers. They had many domestic animals. In
seeking the satisfaction of their practical needs they laid the foundation of
geometry, botany, chemistry (named, as some think, from the Egyptian
Khem, the god of medicinal herbs), and other sciences. But their practical
achievements far transcended their theoretical formulations. To all time they
will be known as an artistic, noble, and religious people, who cherished
their dead and would not allow that the good and beautiful and great should
altogether pass away.
Excavations in Assyria and Babylonia, especially since 1843, have brought
to our knowledge an ancient culture stretching back four or five thousand
years before the beginning of the Christian era. The records of Assyria and
Babylonia, like those of Egypt, are fragmentary and still in need of
interpretation. Here again, however, it is the fundamental, the indispensable,
the practical forms of knowledge that stand revealed rather than the
theoretical, speculative, and purely intellectual.
By the Babylonian priests the heavens were made the object of expert
observation as early as 3800 b.c. The length of the year, the length of the
month, the coming of the seasons, the course of the sun in the heavens, the
movements of the planets, the recurrence of eclipses, comets, and meteors,
were studied with particular care. One motive was the need of a
measurement of time, the same motive as underlies the common interest in
the calendar and almanac. It was found that the year contained more than
365 days, the month (synodic) more than 29 days, 12 hours, and 44
minutes. The sun's apparent diameter was contained 720 times in the
ecliptic, that is, in the apparent path of the sun through the heavens. Like
the Egyptians, the Babylonians took special note of the stars and star-groups
that were to be seen at dawn at different times of the year. These
constellations, lying in the imaginary belt encircling the heavens on either
side of the ecliptic, bore names corresponding to those we have adopted for
the signs of the zodiac,—Balance, Ram, Bull, Twins, Scorpion, Archer, etc.
The Babylonian astronomers also observed that the successive vernal (or
autumnal) equinoxes follow each other at intervals of a few seconds less
than a year.
A second motive that influenced the Babylonian priests in studying the
movements of the heavenly bodies was the hope of foretelling events. The

planets, seen to shift their positions with reference to the other heavenly
bodies, were called messengers, or angels. The appearance of Mars, perhaps
on account of its reddish color, was associated in their imaginations with
war. Comets, meteors, and eclipses were considered as omens portending
pestilence, national disaster, or the fate of kings. The fortunes of individuals
could be predicted from a knowledge of the aspect of the heavens at the
hour of their birth. This interest in astrology, or divination by means of the
stars, no doubt stimulated the priests to make careful observations and to
preserve religiously the record of astronomical phenomena. It was even
established that there is a cycle in which eclipses, solar and lunar, repeat
themselves, a period (saros) somewhat more than eighteen years and eleven
months. Moreover, from the Babylonians we derive some of our most
sublime religious and scientific conceptions. They held that strict law
governs the apparently erratic movements of the heavenly bodies. Their
creation myth proclaims: "Merodach next arranged the stars in order, along
with the sun and moon, and gave them laws which they were never to
transgress."
The mathematical knowledge of the Babylonians is related on the one hand
to their astronomy and on the other to their commercial pursuits. They
possessed highly developed systems of measuring, weighing, and counting
—processes, which, as we shall see in the sequel, are essential to scientific
thought. About 2300 b.c. they had multiplication tables running from 1 to
1350, which were probably used in connection with astronomical
calculations. Unlike the Egyptians they had no symbol for a million, though
the "ten thousand times ten thousand" of the Bible (Daniel vii: 10) may
indicate that the conception of even larger numbers was not altogether
foreign to them. They counted in sixties as well as in tens. Their hours and
minutes had each sixty subdivisions. They divided the circle into six parts
and into six-times-sixty subdivisions. Tables of squares and cubes
discovered in southern Babylonia were interpreted correctly only on a
sexagesimal basis, the statement that 1 plus 4 is the square of 8 implying
that the first unit is 60. As we have already seen, considerable knowledge of
geometry is apparent in Babylonian designs and constructions.
According to a Greek historian of the fifth century b.c., there were no
physicians at Babylon, while a later Greek historian (of the first century
b.c.) speaks of a Babylonian university which had attained celebrity, and

which is now believed to have been a school of medicine. Modern research
has made known letters by a physician addressed to an Assyrian king in the
seventh century b.c. referring to the king's chief physician, giving directions
for the treatment of a bleeding from the nose from which a friend of the
prince was suffering, and reporting the probable recovery of a poor fellow
whose eyes were diseased. Other letters from the same general period
mention the presence of physicians at court. We have even recovered the
name (Ilu-bani) of a physician who lived in southern Babylonia about 2700
b.c. The most interesting information, however, in reference to Babylonian
medicine dates from the time of Hammurabi, a contemporary of the
patriarch Abraham. It appears from the code drawn up in the reign of that
monarch that the Babylonian surgeons operated in case of cataract; that they
were entitled to twenty silver shekels (half the sum for which Joseph was
sold into slavery, and equivalent to seven or eight dollars) for a successful
operation; and that in case the patient lost his life or his sight as the result of
an unsuccessful operation, the surgeon was condemned to have his hands
amputated.
The Babylonian records of medicine like those of astronomy reveal the
prevalence of many superstitious beliefs. The spirits of evil bring maladies
upon us; the gods heal the diseases that afflict us. The Babylonian books of
medicine contained strange interminglings of prescription and incantation.
The priests studied the livers of sacrificial animals in order to divine the
thoughts of the gods—a practice which stimulated the study of anatomy.
The maintenance of state menageries no doubt had a similar influence on
the study of the natural history of animals.
The Babylonians were a nation of agriculturists and merchants. Sargon of
Akkad, who founded the first Semitic empire in Asia (3800 b.c.), was
brought up by an irrigator, and was himself a gardener. Belshazzar, the son
of the last Babylonian king, dealt in wool on a considerable scale.
Excavation in the land watered by the Tigris and Euphrates tells the tale of
the money-lenders, importers, dyers, fullers, tanners, saddlers, smiths,
carpenters, shoemakers, stonecutters, ivory-cutters, brickmakers, porcelain-
makers, potters, vintners, sailors, butchers, engineers, architects, painters,
sculptors, musicians, dealers in rugs, clothing and fabrics, who contributed
to the culture of this great historic people. It is not surprising that science
should find its matrix in so rich a civilization.

The lever and the pulley, lathes, picks, saws, hammers, bronze operating-
lances, sundials, water-clocks, the gnomon (a vertical pillar for determining
the sun's altitude) were in use. Gem-cutting was highly developed as early
as 3800 b.c. The Babylonians made use of copper hardened with antimony
and tin, lead, incised shells, glass, alabaster, lapis-lazuli, silver, and gold.
Iron was not employed before the period of contact with Egyptian
civilization. Their buildings were furnished with systems of drains and
flushes that seem to us altogether modern. Our museums are enriched by
specimens of their handicraft—realistic statuary in dolerite of 2700 b.c.;
rock crystal worked to the form of a plano-convex lens, 3800 b.c.; a
beautiful silver vase of the period 3950 b.c.; and the head of a goat in
copper about 4000 b.c.
Excavation has not disclosed nor scholarship interpreted the full record of
this ancient people in the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, not far
from the Gulf of Persia, superior in religious inspiration, not inferior in
practical achievements to the Egyptians. Both these great nations of
antiquity, however, failed to carry the sciences that arose in connection with
their arts to a high degree of generalization. That was reserved for another
people of ancient times, namely, the Greeks.

REFERENCES

F. H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine.
H. V. Hilprecht, Excavations in Assyria and Babylonia.
Max Neuburger, History of Medicine.
A. H. Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians.

CHAPTER II
THE INFLUENCE OF ABSTRACT THOUGHT—GREECE:
ARISTOTLE

No sooner did the Greeks turn their attention to the sciences which had
originated in Egypt and Babylonia than the characteristic intellectual quality
of the Hellenic genius revealed itself. Thales (640-546 b.c.), who is usually
regarded as the first of the Greek philosophers, was the founder of Greek
geometry and astronomy. He was one of the seven "wise men" of Greece,
and might be called the Benjamin Franklin of antiquity, for he was
interested in commerce, famous for political sagacity, and honored for his
disinterested love of general truth. His birthplace was Miletus, a Greek city
on the coast of Asia Minor. There is evidence that he acquired a knowledge
of Babylonian astronomy. The pursuit of commerce carried him to Egypt,
and there he gained a knowledge of geometry. Not only so, but he was able
to advance this study by generalizing and formulating its truths. For the
Egyptians, geometry was concerned with surfaces and dimensions, with
areas and cubical contents; for the Greek, with his powers of abstraction, it
became a study of line and angle. For example, Thales saw that the angles
at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, and that when two straight
lines cut one another the vertically opposite angles are equal. However,
after having established general principles, he showed himself capable of
applying them to the solution of particular problems. In the presence of the
Egyptian priests, to which class he was solely indebted for instruction,
Thales demonstrated a method of measuring the height of a pyramid by
reference to its shadow. And again, on the basis of his knowledge of the
relation of the sides of a triangle to its angles, he developed a practical rule
for ascertaining the distance of a ship from the shore.
The philosophical mind of Thales laid hold, no doubt, of some of the
essentials of astronomical science. The particulars usually brought forward
to prove his originality tend rather to show his indebtedness to the
Babylonians. The number of days in the year, the length of the synodic

month, the relation of the sun's apparent diameter to the ecliptic, the times
of recurrence of eclipses, were matters that had long been known to the
Babylonians, as well as to the Chinese. However, he aroused great interest
in astronomy among the Greeks by the prediction of a solar eclipse. This
was probably the eclipse of 585 b.c., which interrupted a fierce battle
between the Medes and the Lydians. The advice of Thales to mariners to
steer by the Lesser Bear, as nearer the pole, rather than by the Great Bear,
shows also that in his astronomical studies as in his geometrical he was not
indifferent to the applications of scientific knowledge.
In fact, some writers maintain that Thales was not a philosopher at all, but
rather an astronomer and engineer. We know very little of his purely
speculative thought. We do know, however, that he arrived at a
generalization—fantastic to most minds—that all things are water. Attempts
have been made to add to this statement, and to explain it away. Its great
interest for the history of thought lies in the fact that it is the result of
seeking the constant in the variable, the unitary principle in the multiple
phenomena of nature. This abstract and general view (though perhaps
suggested by the Babylonian belief that the world originated in a watery
chaos, or by the teaching of Egyptian priests) was preëminently Greek, and
was the first of a series of attempts to discover the basis or origin of all
things. One of the followers of Thales taught that air was the fundamental
principle; while Heraclitus, anticipating to some extent modern theories of
the origin of the cosmos, declared in favor of a fiery vapor subject to
ceaseless change. Empedocles, the great philosopher-physician, first set
forth the doctrine of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water. For
Democritus indivisible particles or atoms are fundamental to all
phenomena. It is evident that the theory of Thales was a starting point for
Greek abstract thought, and that his inclination to seek out principles and
general laws accounts for his influence on the development both of
philosophy and the sciences.
Pythagoras, on the advice of Thales, visited Egypt in the pursuit of
mathematics. There is reason to believe that he also visited Babylonia. For
him and his followers mathematics became a philosophy—almost a
religion. They had discovered (by experimenting with the monochord, the
first piece of physical-laboratory apparatus, consisting of a tense harpstring
with a movable bridge) the effect on the tone of the string of a musical

instrument when the length is reduced by one half, and also that strings of
like thickness and under equal tension yield harmonious tones when their
lengths are related as 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5. The Pythagoreans drew from this
the extravagant inference that the heavenly bodies would be in distance
from the earth as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Much of their theory must seem to the
modern mind merely fanciful and unsupported speculation. At the same
time it is only just to this school of philosophers to recognize that their
assumption that simple mathematical relationships govern the phenomena
of nature has had an immense influence on the advance of the sciences.
Whether their fanaticism for number was owing to the influence of
Egyptian priests or had an Oriental origin, it gave to the Pythagoreans an
enthusiasm for pure mathematics. They disregarded the bearing of their
science on the practical needs of life. Old problems like squaring the circle,
trisecting the angle, and doubling the cube, were now attempted in a new
spirit and with fresh vigor. The first, second, and fourth books of Euclid are
largely of Pythagorean origin. For solid geometry as a science we are also
indebted to this sect of number-worshipers. One of them (Archytas, 428-
347 b.c., a friend of Plato) was the first to apply geometry to mechanics. We
see again here, as in the case of Thales, that the love of abstract thought, the
pursuit of science as science, did not interfere with ultimate practical
applications.
Plato (429-347 b.c.), like many other Greek philosophers, traveled
extensively, visiting Asia Minor, Egypt, and Lower Italy, where
Pythagorean influence was particularly strong. His chief interest lay in
speculation. For him there were two worlds, the world of sense and the
world of ideas. The senses deceive us; therefore, the philosopher should
turn his back upon the world of sensible impressions, and develop the
reason. In his Dialogues he outlined a course of training and study, the
professed object of which was to educate a class of philosophers. (Strange
to say, Plato's curriculum, planned originally for the intellectual élite, still
dictates in our schools the education of millions of boys and girls whose
careers do not call for a training merely of the reason.)
Over the porch of his school, the Academy at Athens, were inscribed the
words, "Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here." It was
not because it was useful in everyday life that Plato laid such insistence on
this study, but because it increased the students' powers of abstraction and

trained the mind to correct and vigorous thinking. From his point of view
the chief good of geometry is lost unless we can through it withdraw the
mind from the particular and the material. He delighted in clearness of
conception. His main scientific interest was in astronomy and mathematics.
We owe to him the definition of a line as "length without breadth," and the
formulation of the axiom, "Equals subtracted from equals leave equals."
Plato had an immediate influence in stimulating mathematical studies, and
has been called a maker of mathematicians. Euclid, who was active at
Alexandria toward the end of the fourth century b.c., was not one of Plato's
immediate disciples but shared the great philosopher's point of view. The
story is told that one of his pupils, arrived perhaps at the pons asinorum,
asked, "What do I get by learning these things?" Euclid, calling his servant,
said, "Give him sixpence, since he must make gain out of what he learns."
Adults were also found, even among the nimble-witted Greeks, to whom
abstract reasoning was not altogether congenial. This is attested by the
familiar story of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, who once asked Euclid whether
geometry could not be learned in some easier way than by studying the
geometer's book, The Elements. To this the schoolmaster replied, "There is
no royal road to geometry." For the academic intelligence abstract and
abstruse mathematics are tonic and an end in themselves. As already stated,
their ultimate practical value is also immense. One of Plato's associates,
working under his direction, investigated the curves produced by cutting
cones of different kinds in a certain plane. These curves—the ellipse, the
parabola, hyperbola—play a large part in the subsequent history of
astronomy and mechanics. Another Platonist made the first measurement of
the earth's circumference.
Aristotle, the greatest pupil of Plato, was born at Stagira in 384 b.c. He
came of a family of physicians, was trained for the medical profession, and
had his attention early directed to natural phenomena. He entered the
Academy at Athens about 367 b.c., and studied there till the death of Plato
twenty years later. He was a diligent but, as was natural, considering the
character of his early education, by no means a passive student. Plato said
that Aristotle reacted against his instructor as a vigorous colt kicks the
mother that nourishes it. The physician's son did not accept without
modification the view that the philosopher should turn his back upon the
things of sense. He had been trained in the physical science of the time, and

believed in the reality of concrete things. At the same time he absorbed
what he found of value in his master's teachings. He thought that science
did not consist in a mere study of individual things, but that we must pass
on to a formulation of general principles and then return to a study of the
concrete. His was a great systematizing intellect, which has left its imprint
on nearly every department of knowledge. Physical astronomy, physical
geography, meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, botany, anatomy,
physiology, embryology, and zoölogy were enriched by his teaching. It was
through him that logic, ethics, psychology, rhetoric, æsthetics, political
science, zoölogy (especially ichthyology), first received systematic
treatment. As a great modern philosopher has said, Aristotle pressed his way
through the mass of things knowable, and subjected its diversity to the
power of his thought. No wonder that for ages he was known as "The
Philosopher," master of those who know. His purpose was to comprehend,
to define, to classify the phenomena of organic and inorganic nature, to
systematize the knowledge of his own time.
Twenty years' apprenticeship in the school of Plato had sharpened his
logical powers and added to his stock of general ideas, but had not taught
him to distrust his senses. When we say that our eyes deceive us, we really
confess that we have misinterpreted the data that our sight has furnished.
Properly to know involves the right use of the senses as well as the right use
of reason. The advance of science depends on the development both of
speculation and observation. Aristotle advised investigators to make sure of
the facts before seeking the explanation of the facts. Where preconceived
theory was at variance with observed facts, the former must of course give
way. Though it has been said that while Plato was a dreamer, Aristotle was
a thinker, yet it must be acknowledged in qualification that Plato often
showed genuine knowledge of natural phenomena in anatomy and other
departments of study, and that Aristotle was carried away at times by his
own presuppositions, or failed to bring his theories to the test of
observation. The Stagirite held that the velocity of falling bodies is
proportional to their weight, that the function of the diaphragm is to divide
the region of the nobler from that of the animal passions, and that the brain
is intended to act in opposition to the heart, the brain being formed of earthy
and watery material, which brings about a cooling effect. The theory of the
four elements—the hot, the cold, the moist, the dry—led to dogmatic

statements with little attempt at verification. From the standpoint of modern
studies it is easy to point out the mistakes of Aristotle even. Science is
progressive, not infallible.
In his own time he was rather reproached for what was considered an
undignified and sordid familiarity with observed facts. His critics said that
having squandered his patrimony, he had served in the army, and, failing
there, had become a seller of drugs. His observations on the effects of heat
seem to have been drawn from the common processes of the home and the
workshop. Even in the ripening of fruits heat appears to him to have a
cooking effect. Heat distorts articles made of potters' clay after they have
been hardened by cold. Again we find him describing the manufacture of
potash and of steel. He is not disdainful of the study of the lower animals,
but invites us to investigate all forms in the expectancy of discovering
something natural and beautiful. In a similar spirit of scientific curiosity the
Aristotelian work The Problems studies the principle of the lever, the
rudder, the wheel and axle, the forceps, the balance, the beam, the wedge, as
well as other mechanical principles.
In Aristotle, in fact, we find a mind exceptionally able to form clear ideas,
and at the same time to observe the rich variety of nature. He paid homage
both to the multiplicity and the uniformity of nature, the wealth of the
phenomena and the simplicity of the law explaining the phenomena. Many
general and abstract ideas (category, energy, entomology, essence, mean
between extremes, metaphysics, meteorology, motive, natural history,
principle, syllogism) have through the influence of Aristotle become the
common property of educated people the world over.
Plato was a mathematician and an astronomer. Aristotle was first and
foremost a biologist. His books treated the history of animals, the parts of
animals, the locomotion of animals, the generation of animals, respiration,
life and death, length and shortness of life, youth and old age. His
psychology is, like that of the present day, a biological psychology. In his
contributions to biological science is manifested his characteristic
inclination to be at once abstract and concrete. His works display a
knowledge of over five hundred living forms. He dissected specimens of
fifty different species of animals. One might mention especially his minute
knowledge of the sea-urchin, of the murex (source of the famous Tyrian

dye), of the chameleon, of the habits of the torpedo, the so-called fishing-
frog, and nest-making fishes, as well as of the manner of reproduction of
whales and certain species of sharks. One of his chief contributions to
anatomy is the description of the heart and of the arrangement of the blood-
vessels. A repugnance to the dissection of the human body seems to have
checked to some extent his curiosity in reference to the anatomy of man,
but he was acquainted with the structure of the internal ear, the passage
leading from the pharynx to the middle ear, and the two outer membranes of
the brain of man. Aristotle's genius did not permit him to get lost in the
mere details of observed phenomena. He recognized resemblances and
differences between the various species, classified animals as belonging to
two large groups, distinguished whales and dolphins from fishes,
recognized the family likeness of the domestic pigeon, the wood pigeon, the
rock pigeon, and the turtle dove. He laid down the characteristics of the
class of invertebrates to which octopus and sepia belong. Man takes a place
in Aristotle's system of nature as a social animal, the highest type of the
whole series of living beings, characterized by certain powers of recall,
reason, deliberation. Of course it was not to be expected that Aristotle
should work out a fully satisfactory classification of all the varieties of
plants and animals known to him. Yet his purpose and method mark him as
the father of natural science. He had the eye to observe and the mind to
grasp the relationships and the import of what he observed. His attempt to
classify animals according to the nature of their teeth (dentition) has been
criticized as unsuccessful, but this principle of classification is still of use,
and may be regarded as typical of his mind, at once careful and
comprehensive.
One instance of Aristotle's combining philosophical speculation with acute
observation of natural phenomena is afforded by his work on generation
and development. He knew that the transmission of life deserves special
study as the predominant function of the various species of plants and
animals. Deformed parents may have well-formed offspring. Children may
resemble grandparents rather than parents. It is only toward the close of its
development that the embryo exhibits the characteristics of its parent
species. Aristotle traced with some care the embryological development of
the chick from the fourth day of incubation. His knowledge of the
propagation of animals was, however, not sufficient to make him reject the

belief in spontaneous generation from mud, sand, foam, and dew. His errors
are readily comprehensible, as, for example, in attributing spontaneous
generation to eels, the habits and mode of reproduction of which only recent
studies have made fully known. In regard to generation, as in other
scientific fields, the philosophic mind of Aristotle anticipated modern
theories, and also raised general questions only to be solved by later
investigation of the facts.
Only one indication need be given of the practical results that flowed from
Aristotle's scientific work. In one of his writings he has stated that the
sphericity of the earth can be observed from the fact that its shadow on the
moon at the time of eclipse is an arc. That it is both spherical and small in
comparison with the heavenly bodies appears, moreover, from this, that
stars visible in Egypt are invisible in countries farther north; while stars
always above the horizon in northern countries are seen to set from
countries to the south. Consequently the earth is not only spherical but also
not large; otherwise this phenomenon would not present itself on so limited
a change of position on the part of the observer. "It seems, therefore, not
incredible that the region about the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar] is
connected with that of India, and that there is thus only one ocean." It is
known that this passage from The Philosopher influenced Columbus in his
undertaking to reach the Orient by sailing west from the coast of Spain.
We must pass over Aristotle's observation of a relationship (homology)
between the arms of man, the forelegs of quadrupeds, the wings of birds,
and the pectoral fins of fishes, as well as many other truths to which his
genius for generalization led him.
In the field of botany Aristotle had a wide knowledge of natural
phenomena, and raised general questions as to mode of propagation,
nourishment, relation of plants to animals, etc. His pupil and lifelong friend,
and successor as leader of the Peripatetic school of philosophy,
Theophrastus, combined a knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, botany,
and mineralogy. His History of Plants describes about five hundred species.
At the same time he treats the general principles of botany, the distribution
of plants, the nourishment of the plant through leaf as well as root, the
sexuality of date palm and terebinth. He lays great stress on the uses of
plants. His classification of plants is inferior to Aristotle's classification of

animals. His views in reference to spontaneous generation are more guarded
than those of his master. His work On Stones is dominated by the practical
rather than the generalizing spirit. It is evidently inspired by a knowledge of
mines, such as the celebrated Laurium, from which Athens drew its supply
of silver, and the wealth from which enabled the Athenians to develop a
sea-power that overmatched that of the Persians. Even to-day enough
remains of the galleries, shafts, scoria, mine-lamps, and other utensils to
give a clear idea of this scene of ancient industry. Theophrastus considered
the medicinal uses of minerals as well as of plants.
We have failed to mention Hippocrates (460-370 b.c.), the Father of
Medicine, in whom is found an intimate union of practical science and
speculative philosophy. We must also pass over such later Greek scientists
as Aristarchus and Hipparchus who confuted the theories of Pythagoras and
Plato in reference to the relative distances of the heavenly bodies from the
earth. Archimedes of Syracuse demands, however, particular consideration.
He lived in the third century b.c., and has been called the greatest
mathematician of antiquity. In him we find the devotion to the abstract that
marked the Greek intelligence. He went so far as to say that every kind of
art is ignoble if connected with daily needs. His interest lay in abstruse
mathematical problems. His special pride was in having determined the
relative dimensions of the sphere and the enclosing cylinder. He worked out
the principle of the lever. "Give me," he said, "a place on which to stand
and I will move the earth." He approximated more closely than the
Egyptians the solution of the problem of the relation between the area of a
circle and the radius. His work had practical value in spite of himself. At the
request of his friend the King of Sicily, he applied his ingenuity to discover
whether a certain crown were pure gold or alloyed with silver, and he hit
upon a method which has found many applications in the industries. His
name is associated with the endless screw. In fact, his practical contrivances
won such repute that it is not easy to separate the historical facts from the
legends that enshroud his name. He aided in the defense of his native city
against the Romans in 212 b.c., and devised war-engines with which to
repel the besiegers. After the enemy had entered the city, says tradition, he
stood absorbed in a mathematical problem which he had diagrammed on the
sand. As a rude Roman soldier approached, Archimedes cried, "Don't spoil
my circles," and was instantly killed. The victorious general, however,

buried him with honor, and on the tomb of the mathematician caused to be
inscribed the sphere with its enclosing cylinder. The triumphs of Greek
abstract thought teach the lesson that practical men should pay homage to
speculation even when they fail to comprehend a fraction of it.

REFERENCES

Aristotle, Historia Animalium; translated by D'A. W. Thompson. (Vol. iv of
the Works of Aristotle Translated into English. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.)
A. B. Buckley (Mrs. Buckley Fisher), A Short History of Natural Science.
G. H. Lewes, Aristotle; A Chapter in the History of Science.
T. E. Lones, Aristotle's Researches in Natural Science.
D'A. W. Thompson, On Aristotle as a Biologist.
William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences.
Alfred Weber, History of Philosophy.

CHAPTER III
SCIENTIFIC THEORY SUBORDINATED TO
APPLICATION—ROME: VITRUVIUS

Vitruvius was a cultured engineer and architect. He was employed in the
service of the Roman State at the time of Augustus, shortly before the
beginning of the Christian era. He planned basilicas and aqueducts, and
designed powerful war-engines capable of hurling rocks weighing three or
four hundred pounds. He knew the arts and the sciences, held lofty ideals of
professional conduct and dignity, and was a diligent student of Greek
philosophy.
We know of him chiefly from his ten short books on Architecture (De
Architectura, Libri Decem), in which he touches upon much of the learning
of his time. Architecture for Vitruvius is a science arising out of many other
sciences. Practice and theory are its parents. The merely practical man loses
much by not knowing the background of his activities; the mere theorist
fails by mistaking the shadow for the substance. Vitruvius in the theoretical
and historical parts of his book draws largely on Greek writers; but in the
parts bearing on practice he sets forth, with considerable shrewdness, the
outcome of years of thoughtful professional experience. One cannot read
his pages without feeling that he is more at home in the concrete than in the
abstract and speculative, in describing a catapult than in explaining a
scientific theory or a philosophy. He was not a Plato or an Archimedes, but
an efficient officer of State, conscious of indebtedness to the great scientists
and philosophers. With a just sense of his limitations he undertook to write,
not as a literary man, but as an architect. His education had been mainly
professional, but, the whole circle of learning being one harmonious
system, he had been drawn to many branches of knowledge in so far as they
were related to his calling.
In the judgment of Vitruvius an architect should be a good writer, able to
give a lucid explanation of his plans, a skillful draftsman, versed in
geometry and optics, expert at figures, acquainted with history, informed in

the principles of physics and of ethics, knowing something of music (tones
and acoustics), not ignorant of law, or of hygiene, or of the motions, laws,
and relations to each other of the heavenly bodies. For, since architecture "is
founded upon and adorned with so many different sciences, I am of opinion
that those who have not, from their early youth, gradually climbed up to the
summit, cannot without presumption, call themselves masters of it."
Vitruvius was far from sharing the view of Archimedes that art which was
connected with the satisfaction of daily needs was necessarily ignoble and
vulgar. On the contrary, his interest centered in the practical; and he was
mainly concerned with scientific theory by reason of its application in the
arts. Geometry helped him plan a staircase; a knowledge of tones was
necessary in discharging catapults; law dealt with boundary-lines, sewage-
disposal, and contracts; hygiene enabled the architect to show a Hippocratic
wisdom in the choice of building-sites with due reference to airs and waters.
Vitruvius had the Roman practical and regulative genius, not the abstract
and speculative genius of Athens.
The second book begins with an account of different philosophical views
concerning the origin of matter, and a discussion of the earliest dwellings of
man. Its real theme, however, is building-material—brick, sand, lime, stone,
concrete, marble, stucco, timber, pozzolano. In reference to the last
(volcanic ash combined with lime and rubble to form a cement) Vitruvius
writes in a way that indicates a discriminating knowledge of geological
formations. Likewise his discussion of the influence of the Apennines on
the rainfall, and, consequently, on the timber of the firs on the east and west
of the range, shows a grasp of meteorological principles. His real power to
generalize is shown in connection with his specialty, in his treatment of the
sources of building-material, rather than in his consideration of the origin of
matter.
Similarly the fifth book begins with a discussion of the theories of
Pythagoras, but its real topic is public buildings—fora, basilicas, theaters,
baths, palæstras, harbors, and quays. In the theaters bronze vases of various
sizes, arranged according to Pythagorean musical principles, were to be
used in the auditorium to reinforce the voice of the actor. (This
recommendation was misunderstood centuries later, when Vitruvius was
considered of great authority, and led to the futile practice of placing

earthenware jars beneath the floors of church choirs.) According to our
author, "The voice arises from flowing breath, sensible to the hearing
through its percussion on the air." It is compared to the wavelets produced
by a stone dropped in water, only that in the case of sound the waves are not
confined to one plane. This generalization concerning the nature of sound
was probably not original, however; it may have been suggested to
Vitruvius by one of the Aristotelian writings.
The seventh book treats of interior decoration—mosaic floors, gypsum
mouldings, wall painting, white lead, red lead, verdigris, mercury (which
may be used to recover gold from worn-out pieces of embroidery),
encaustic painting with hot wax, colors (black, blue, genuine and imitation
murex purple). The eighth book deals with water and with hydraulic
engineering, hot springs, mineral waters, leveling instruments, construction
of aqueducts, lead and clay piping. Vitruvius was not ignorant of the fact
that water seeks its own level, and he even argued that air must have weight
in order to account for the rise of water in pumps. In his time it was more
economical to convey the hard water by aqueducts than by such pipes as
could then be constructed. The ninth book undertakes to rehearse the
elements of geometry and astronomy—the signs of the zodiac, the sun,
moon, planets, the phases of the moon, the mathematical divisions of the
gnomon, the use of the sundial, etc. One feels in reading Vitruvius that his
purpose was to turn to practical account what he had gained from the study
of the sciences; and, at the same time, one is convinced that his applications
tend to react on theoretical knowledge, and lead to new insights through the
suggestion of new problems.
The tenth book of the so-called De Architectura is concerned with
machinery—windmills, windlasses, axles, pulleys, cranes, pumps, fire-
engines, revolving spiral tubes for raising water, wheels for irrigation
worked by water-power, wheels to register distance traveled by land or
water, scaling-ladders, battering-rams, tortoises, catapults, scorpions, and
ballistæ. On the subject of war-engines Vitruvius speaks with special
authority, as he had served, probably as military engineer, under Julius
Cæsar in 46 b.c., and had been appointed superintendent of ballistæ and
other military engines in the time of Augustus. It was to the divine Emperor
that his book was dedicated as a protest against the administration of
Roman public works. In its pages we see reflected the life of a nation

employed in conquering and ruling the world, with a genius more
distinguished for practical achievement than for theory and speculation. Its
author is truly representative of Roman culture, for nearly everything that
Rome had of a scientific and intellectual sort it drew from Greece, and it
selected that part of Greek wisdom that ministered to the daily needs of the
times. In his work on architecture, Vitruvius shows himself a diligent and
devoted student of the sciences in order that he may turn them to account in
his own department of technology.
If you glance at the study of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine among
the Romans prior to the time of Greek influence, you find that next to
nothing had been accomplished. Their method of field measurement was far
less developed than the ancient Egyptian geometry, and even for it (as well
as for their system of numerals) they were indebted to the Etruscans. The
history of astronomy has nothing to record of scientific accomplishment on
the part of the Romans. They reckoned time by months, and in the earlier
period kept a rude tally of the years by driving nails into a statue of Janus,
the ancient sun-god. As we shall see, they were unable to regulate the
calendar. Again, so far were they from contributing to the development of
medicine that they had no physicians for the six hundred years preceding
the coming of Greek science. A medical slave acted as overseer of the
family health, and disease was combated in primitive fashion by prayers
and offerings to various gods, who were supposed to furnish general health
or to influence the functions of the different parts of the body. So rude was
the native culture of the Romans that it is doubtful whether they had any
schools before the advent of Greek learning. The girls were trained by their
mothers, the boys either by their fathers or by some master to whom they
were apprenticed.
The Greeks were conquered by the Romans in 146 b.c., but before that time
Roman life and institutions had been touched by Hellenic culture. Cato the
Censor (who died in 149 b.c.) and other conservatives tried in vain to resist
the invasion of Greek science, philosophy, and refinement. After the
conquest of Greece the master became pupil, and the conqueror was taken
captive. The Romans, however, never rose to preëminence in science or the
fine arts. A further development in technology corresponded more closely to
their national needs, and in this field they came undoubtedly to surpass the
Greeks. Bridges, ships, military roads, war-engines, aqueducts, public

buildings, organization of the State and the army, the formulation of legal
procedure, the enactment and codification of laws, were necessary to secure
and maintain the Empire. The use in building construction of a knowledge
of the right-angled triangle as well as other matters known to the Egyptians
and Babylonians, and Archimedes' method of determining specific gravity
were of peculiar interest to the practical Romans.
Julius Cæsar, 102-44 b.c., instituted a reform of the calendar. This was very
much needed, as the Romans were eighty-five days out of their reckoning,
and the date for the spring equinox, instead of coming at the proper time,
was falling in the middle of winter. An Alexandrian astronomer (Sosigenes)
assisted in establishing the new (Julian) calendar. The principle followed
was based on ancient Egyptian practice. Among the 365 days of the year
was to be inserted, or intercalated, every fourth year an extra day. This the
Romans did by giving to two days in leap-year the same name; thus the
sixth day before the first of March was repeated, and leap-year was known
as a bissextile year. Cæsar, trained himself in the Greek learning and known
to his contemporaries as a writer on mathematics and astronomy, also
planned a survey of the Empire, which was finally carried into execution by
Augustus.
There is evidence that the need of technically trained men became more and
more pressing as the Empire developed. At first there were no special
teachers or schools. Later we find mention of teachers of architecture and
mechanics. Then the State came to provide classrooms for technical
instruction and to pay the salaries of the teachers. Finally, in the fourth
century a.d., further measures were adopted by the State. The Emperor
Constantine writes to one of his officials: "We need as many engineers as
possible. Since the supply is small, induce to begin this study youths of
about eighteen years of age who are already acquainted with the sciences
required in a general education. Relieve their parents from the payment of
taxes, and furnish the students with ample means."
Pliny the Elder (23-79 a.d.), in the encyclopedic work which he compiled
under the title Natural History, drew freely on hundreds of Greek and Latin
authors for his facts and fables. In the selection that he made from his
sources can be traced, as in the work of Vitruvius and other Latin writers,
the tendency to make the sciences subservient to the arts. For example, the

one thousand species of plants of which he makes mention are considered
from the medicinal or from the economic point of view. It was largely in the
interest of their practical uses that the Roman regarded both plants and
animals; his chief motive was not a disinterested love of truth. Pliny thought
that each plant had its special virtue, and much of his botany is applied
botany. So comprehensive a work as the Natural History was sure to
contain interesting anticipations of modern science. Pliny held that the earth
hovers in the heavens upheld by the air, that its sphericity is proved by the
fact that the mast of a ship approaching the land is visible before the hull
comes in sight. He also taught that there are inhabitants on the other side of
the earth (antipodes), that at the time of the winter solstice the polar night
must last for twenty-four hours, and that the moon plays a part in the
production of the tides. Nevertheless, the whole book is permeated by the
idea that the purpose of nature is to minister to the needs of man.
It further marks the practical spirit among the Romans that a work on
agriculture by a Carthaginian (Mago) was translated by order of the Senate.
Cato (234-149 b.c.), so characteristically Roman in his genius, wrote (De
Re Rustica) concerning grains and the cultivation of fruits. Columella wrote
treatises on agriculture and forestry. Among the technical writings of Varro
besides the book on agriculture, which is extant, are numbered works on
law, mensuration, and naval tactics.
It was but natural that at the time of the Roman Empire there should be
great advances in medical science. A Roman's interest in a science was keen
when it could be proved to have immediate bearing on practical life. The
greatest physician of the time, however, was a Greek. Galen (131-201 a.d.),
who counted himself a disciple of Hippocrates, began to practice at Rome at
the age of thirty-three. He was the only experimental physiologist before
the time of Harvey. He studied the vocal apparatus in the larynx, and
understood the contraction and relaxation of the muscles, and, to a
considerable extent, the motion of the blood through the heart, lungs, and
other parts of the body. He was a vivisector, made sections of the brain in
order to determine the functions of its parts, and severed the gustatory,
optic, and auditory nerves with a similar end in view. His dissections were
confined to the lower animals. Yet his works on human anatomy and
physiology were authoritative for the subsequent thirteen centuries. It is
difficult to say how much of the work and credit of this practical scientist is

to be given to the race from which he sprang and how much to the social
environment of his professional career. (In the ruins of Pompeii, destroyed
in 79 a.d., have been recovered some two hundred kinds of surgical
instrument, and in the later Empire certain departments of surgery
developed to a degree not surpassed till the sixteenth century.) If it is too
much to say that the Roman environment is responsible for Galen's
achievements, we can at least say that it was characteristic of the Roman
people to welcome such science as his, capable of demonstrating its utility.
Dioscorides was also a Greek who, long resident at Rome, applied his
science in practice. He knew six hundred different plants, one hundred more
than Theophrastus. The latter laid much stress, as we have seen in the
preceding chapter, on the medicinal properties of plants, but in this respect
he was outdone by Dioscorides (as well as by Pliny). Theophrastus was the
founder of the science of botany, Dioscorides the founder of materia
medica.
Quintilian, born in Spain, spent the greater part of his life as a teacher of
rhetoric in Rome. He valued the sciences, not on their own account, but as
they might subserve the purposes of the orator. Music, astronomy, logic,
and even theology, might be exploited as aids to public speech. In the time
of Quintilian (first century a.d.), as in our own, oratory was considered one
of the great factors in a young man's success; mock debating contests were
frequent, and the periods of the future orators reverberated among the seven
hills of Rome. To him our schools are also indebted for the method of
teaching foreign languages by declensions, conjugations, vocabularies,
formal rhetoric and annotations. He considered ethics the most valuable part
of philosophy.
In fact, it would not be pressing our argument unduly to say that, so far as
the minds of the Romans turned to speculation, it was the tendency to
practical philosophy—Epicureanism or Stoicism—that was most
characteristic. This was true even of Lucretius (98-55 b.c.), author of the
noble poem concerning the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura). In this
work he writes under the inspiration of Greek philosophy. His model was a
poem by Empedocles on Nature, the grand hexameters of which had
fascinated the Roman poet. The distinctive feature of the work of Lucretius
is the purpose, ethical rather than speculative, to curb the ambition, passion,

luxury of those hard pagan times, and likewise to free the souls of his
countrymen from the fear of the gods and the fear of death, and to replace
superstition by peace of mind and purity of heart.
From the work on Physical Science (Quæstionum Naturalium, Libri
Septem) of Seneca, the tutor of Nero, we learn that the Romans made use of
globes filled with water as magnifiers, employed hothouses in their highly
developed horticulture, and observed the refraction of colors by the prism.
At the same time the book contains interesting conjectures in reference to
the relation of earthquakes and volcanoes, and to the fact that comets travel
in fixed orbits. In the main, however, this work is an attempt to find a basis
for ethics in natural phenomena. Seneca was a Stoic, as Lucretius was an
Epicurean, moralist.
When we glance back at the culture, or cultures, of the great peoples of
antiquity, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman, that which had its
center on the banks of the Tiber offers the closest analogy to our own.
Among English-speaking peoples as among the Romans there is noticeable
a certain contempt for scientific studies strangely mingled with an
inclination to exploit all theory in the interest of immediate application. An
English author, writing in 1834, remarks that the Romans, eminent in war,
in polite literature, and civil policy, showed at all times a remarkable
indisposition to the pursuit of mathematical and physical science. Geometry
and astronomy, so highly esteemed by the Greeks, were not merely
disregarded by the Italians, but even considered beneath the attention of a
man of good birth and liberal education; they were imagined to partake of a
mechanical, and therefore servile, character. "The results were seen to be
made use of by the mechanical artist, and the abstract principles were
therefore supposed to be, as it were, contaminated by his touch. This
unfortunate peculiarity in the taste of his countrymen is remarked by
Cicero. And it may not be irrelevant to inquire, whether similar prejudices
do not prevail to some extent even among ourselves." To Americans also
must be attributed an impatience of theory as theory, and a predominant
interest in the applications of science.

REFERENCES

Lucretius, The Nature of Things; translated by H. A. J. Munro.

Pliny, Natural History; translated by Philemon Holland.
Professor Baden Powell, History of Natural Philosophy.
Seneca, Physical Science; translated by John Clarke.
Vitruvius, Architecture; translated by Joseph Gwilt, 1826.
Vitruvius, Architecture; translated by Professor M. H. Morgan, 1914.

CHAPTER IV
THE CONTINUITY OF SCIENCE—THE MEDIEVAL
CHURCH AND THE ARABS

Learning has very often and very aptly been compared to a torch passed
from hand to hand. By the written sign or spoken word it is transmitted
from one person to another. Very little advance in culture could be made
even by the greatest man of genius if he were dependent, for what
knowledge he might acquire, merely on his own personal observation.
Indeed, it might be said that exceptional mental ability involves a power to
absorb the ideas of others, and even that the most original people are those
who are able to borrow the most freely.
In recalling the lives of certain great men we may at first be inclined to
doubt this truth. How shall we account for the part played in the progress of
civilization by the rustic Burns, the village-bred Shakespeare, or by Lincoln
the frontiersman? When, however, we scrutinize the case of any one of
these, we discover, of course, exceptional natural endowment, susceptibility
to mental influence, remarkable powers of acquisition, but no ability to
produce anything absolutely original. In the case of Lincoln, for example,
we find that in his youth he was as distinguished by diligence in study as by
physical stature and prowess. After he withdrew from school, he read,
wrote, and ciphered (in the intervals of manual work) almost incessantly.
He read everything he could lay hands on. He copied out what most
appealed to him. A few books he read and re-read till he had almost
memorized them. What constituted his library? The Bible, Æsop's Fables,
Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress, a Life of Washington, a History
of the United States. These established for him a vital relation with the past,
and laid the foundations of a democratic culture; not the culture of a
Chesterfield, to be sure, but something immeasurably better, and none the
less good for being almost universally accessible. Lincoln developed his
logical powers conning the dictionary. Long before he undertook the regular
study of the law, he spent long hours poring over the revised statutes of the

State in which he was living. From a book he mastered with a purpose the
principles of grammar. In the same spirit he learned surveying, also by
means of a book. There is no need to ignore any of the influences that told
toward the development of this great statesman, the greatest of English-
speaking orators, but it is evident that remote as was his habitation from all
the famous centers of learning he was, nevertheless, early immersed in the
current of the world's best thought.
Similarly, in the history of science, every great thinker has his intellectual
pedigree. Aristotle was the pupil of Plato, Plato was the disciple of Socrates,
and the latter's intellectual genealogy in turn can readily be traced to Thales,
and beyond—to Egyptian priests and Babylonian astronomers.
The city of Alexandria, founded by the pupil of Aristotle in 332 b.c.,
succeeded Athens as the center of Greek culture. On the death of Alexander
the Great, Egypt was ruled by one of his generals, Ptolemy, who assumed
the title of king. This monarch, though often engaged in war, found time to
encourage learning, and drew to his capital scholars and philosophers from
Greece and other countries. He wrote himself a history of Alexander's
campaigns, and instituted the famous library of Alexandria. This was
greatly developed (and supplemented with schools of science and an
observatory) by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, a prince distinguished by his
zeal in promoting the good of the human species. He collected vast numbers
of manuscripts, had strange animals brought from distant lands to
Alexandria, and otherwise promoted scientific research. This movement
was continued under Ptolemy III (246-221 b.c.).
Something has already been said of the early astronomers and
mathematicians of Alexandria. The scientific movement of the later
Alexandrian period found its consummation in the geographer, astronomer,
and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy (not to be confused with the rulers of
that name). He was most active 127-151 a.d., and is best known by his
work the Syntaxis, which summarized what was known in astronomy at that
time. Ptolemy drew up a catalogue of 1080 stars based on the earlier work
of Hipparchus. He followed that astronomer in teaching that the earth is the
center of the movement of the heavenly bodies, and this geocentric system
of the heavens became known as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. To
Hipparchus and Ptolemy we owe also the beginnings of the science of

trigonometry. The Syntaxis sets forth his method of drawing up a table of
chords. For example, the side of a hexagon inscribed in a circle is equal to
the radius, and is the chord of 60°, or of the sixth part of the circle. The
radius is divided into sixty equal parts, and these again divided and
subdivided sexagesimally. The smaller divisions and the subdivisions are
known as prime minute parts and second minute parts (partes minutæ
primæ and partes minutæ secundæ), whence our terms "minute" and
"second." The sexagesimal method of dividing the circle and its parts was,
as we have seen in the first chapter, of Babylonian origin.
Ptolemy was the last of the great Greek astronomers. In the fourth century
and at the beginning of the fifth, Theon and his illustrious daughter Hypatia
commented on and taught the astronomy of Ptolemy. In the Greek schools
of philosophy Plato's doctrine of the supreme reality of the invisible world
was harmonized for a time with Christian mysticism, but these schools were
suppressed at the beginning of the sixth century. The extinction of scientific
and of all other learning seemed imminent.
What were the causes of this threatened break in the historical continuity of
science? They were too many and too varied to admit of adequate statement
here. From the latter part of the fourth century the Roman Empire had been
overrun by the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the
Lombards, and other barbarians. Even before these incursions learning had
suffered under the calamity of war. In the time of Julius Cæsar the larger of
the famous libraries of Alexandria, containing, it is computed, some
490,000 rolls, caught fire from ships burning in the harbor, and perished.
This alone involved an incalculable setback to the march of scientific
thought.
Another influence tending to check the advance of the sciences was the
clash between Christian and Pagan ideals. To many of the bishops of the
Church the aims and pursuits of science seemed vain and trivial when
compared with the preservation of purity of character or the assurance of
eternal felicity. Many were convinced that the end of the world was at hand,
and strove to fix their thoughts solely on the world to come. Their austere
disregard of this life found some support in a noble teaching of the Stoic
philosophy that death itself is no evil to the just man. The early Christian
teachers held that the body should be mortified if it interfered with spiritual

welfare. Disease is a punishment, or a discipline to be patiently borne. One
should choose physical uncleanliness rather than run any risk of moral
contamination. It is not impossible for enlightened people at the present
time to assume a tolerant attitude toward the worldly Greeks or the other-
worldly Christians. At that time, however, mutual antipathy was intense.
The long and cruel war between science and Christian theology had begun.
Not all the Christian bishops, to be sure, took a hostile view of Greek
learning. Some regarded the great philosophers as the allies of the Church.
Some held that churchmen should study the wisdom of the Greeks in order
the better to refute them. Others held that the investigation of truth was no
longer necessary after mankind had received the revelation of the gospel.
One of the ablest of the Church Fathers regretted his early education and
said that it would have been better for him if he had never heard of
Democritus. The Christian writer Lactantius asked shrewdly whence atoms
came, and what proof there was of their existence. He also allowed himself
to ridicule the idea of the antipodes, a topsy-turvy world of unimaginable
disorder. In 389 a.d. one of the libraries at Alexandria was destroyed and its
books were pillaged by the Christians. In 415 Hypatia, Greek philosopher
and mathematician, was murdered by a Christian mob. In 642 the Arabs
having pushed their conquest into northern Africa gained possession of
Alexandria. The cause of learning seemed finally and irrecoverably lost.
The Arab conquerors, however, showed themselves singularly hospitable to
the culture of the nations over which they had gained control. Since the
time of Alexander there had been many Greek settlers in the larger cities of
Syria and Persia, and here learning had been maintained in the schools of
the Jews and of a sect of Christians (Nestorians), who were particularly
active as educators from the fifth century to the eleventh. The principal
Greek works on science had been translated into Syrian. Hindu arithmetic
and astronomy had found their way into Persia. By the ninth century all
these sources of scientific knowledge had been appropriated by the Arabs.
Some fanatics among them, to be sure, held that one book, the Koran, was
of itself sufficient to insure the well-being of the whole human race, but
happily a more enlightened view prevailed.
In the time of Harun Al-Rashid (800 a.d.), and his son, the Caliphate of
Bagdad was the center of Arab science. Mathematics and astronomy were

especially cultivated; an observatory was established; and the work of
translation was systematically carried on by a sort of institute of translators,
who rendered the writings of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid,
Ptolemy, and other Greek scientists, into Arabic. The names of the great
Arab astronomers and mathematicians are not popularly known to us; their
influence is greater than their fame. One of them describes the method
pursued by him in the ninth century in taking measure of the circumference
of the earth. A second developed a trigonometry of sines to replace the
Ptolemaic trigonometry of chords. A third made use of the so-called Arabic
(really Hindu) system of numerals, and wrote the first work on Algebra
under that name. In this the writer did not aim at the mental discipline of
students, but sought to confine himself to what is easiest and most useful in
calculation, "such as men constantly require in cases of inheritance,
legacies, partition, law-suits, and trade, and in all their dealings with one
another, or where the measuring of lands, the digging of canals, geometrical
computation, and other objects of various sorts and kinds are concerned."
In the following centuries Arab institutions of higher learning were widely
distributed and the flood-tide of Arab science was borne farther west. At
Cairo about the close of the tenth century the first accurate records of
eclipses were made, and tables were constructed of the motions of the sun,
moon, and planets. Here as elsewhere the Arabs displayed ingenuity in the
making of scientific apparatus, celestial globes, sextants of large size,
quadrants of various sorts, and contrivances from which in the course of
time were developed modern surveying instruments for measuring
horizontal and vertical angles. Before the end of the eleventh century an
Arab born at Cordova, the capital of Moorish Spain, constructed the Toletan
Tables. These were followed in 1252 by the publication of the Alphonsine
Tables, an event which astronomers regard as marking the dawn of
European science.
Physics and chemistry, as well as mathematics and astronomy, owe much in
their development to the Arabs. An Arabian scientist of the eleventh century
studied the phenomena of the reflection and refraction of light, explained
the causes of morning and evening twilight, understood the magnifying
power of lenses and the anatomy of the human eye. Our use of the terms
retina, cornea, and vitreous humor may be traced to the translation of his
work on optics. The Arabs also made fair approximations to the correct

specific weights of gold, copper, mercury, and lead. Their alchemy was
closely associated with metallurgy, the making of alloys and amalgams, and
the handicrafts of the goldsmiths and silversmiths. The alchemists sought to
discover processes whereby one metal might be transmuted into another.
Sulphur affected the color and substance. Mercury was supposed to play an
important part in metal transmutations. They thought, for example, that tin
contained more mercury than lead, and that the baser, more unhealthy metal
might be converted into the nobler and more healthy by the addition of
mercury. They even sought for a substance that might effect all
transmutations, and be for mankind a cure for all ailments, even that of
growing old. The writings that have been attributed to Geber show the
advances that chemistry made through the experiments of the Arabs. They
produced sulphuric and nitric acids, and aqua regia, able to dissolve gold,
the king of metals. They could make use of wet methods, and form metallic
salts such as silver nitrate. Laboratory processes like distilling, filtering,
crystallization, sublimation, became known to the Europeans through them.
They obtained potash from wine lees, soda from sea-plants, and from
quicksilver the mercuric oxide which played so interesting a part in the later
history of chemistry.
Much of the science lore of the Arabs arose from their extensive trade, and
in the practice of medicine. They introduced sugar-cane into Europe,
improved the methods of manufacturing paper, discovered a method of
obtaining alcohol, knew the uses of gypsum and of white arsenic, were
expert in pharmacy and learned in materia medica. They are sometimes
credited with introducing to the West the knowledge of the mariner's
compass and of gunpowder.
Avicenna (980-1037), the Arab physician, not only wrote a large work on
medicine (the Canon) based on the lore of Galen, which was used as a text-
book for centuries in the universities of Europe, but wrote commentaries on
all the works of Aristotle. For Averroës (1126-1198), the Arab physician and
philosopher, was reserved the title "The Commentator," due to his devotion
to the works of the Greek biologist and philosopher. It was through the
commentaries of Averroës that Aristotelian science became known in
Europe during the Middle Ages. In his view Aristotle was the founder and
perfecter of science; yet he showed an independent knowledge of physics
and chemistry, and wrote on astronomy and medicine as well as philosophy.

He set forth the facts in reference to natural phenomena purely in the
interests of the truth. He could not conceive of anything being created from
nothing. At the same time he taught that God is the essence, the eternal
cause, of progress. It is in humanity that intellect most clearly reveals itself,
but there is a transcendent intellect beyond, union with which is the highest
bliss of the individual soul. With the death of the Commentator the culture
of liberal science among the Arabs came to an end, but his influence (and
through him that of Aristotle) was perpetuated in all the western centers of
education.
The preservation of the ancient learning had not, however, depended solely
on the Arabs. At the beginning of the sixth century, before the taking of
Alexandria by the followers of Mohammed, St. Benedict had founded the
monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. Here was begun the copying of
manuscripts, and the preparation of compendiums treating of grammar,
dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry. These were
based on ancient, Roman writings. Works like Pliny's Natural History, the
encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, had survived all the wars by which Rome
had been devastated. Learning, which in Rome's darkest days had found
refuge in Britain and Ireland, returned book in hand. Charlemagne (800)
called Alcuin from York to instruct princes and nobles at the Frankish court.
At this same palace school half a century later the Irishman Scotus Erigena
exhibited his learning, wit, and logical acumen. In the tenth century Gerbert
(Pope Sylvester II) learned mathematics at Arab schools in Spain. The
translation of Arab works on science into the Latin language, freer
intercourse of European peoples with the East through war and trade,
economic prosperity, the liberation of serfs and the development of a well-
to-do middle class, the voyages of Marco Polo to the Orient, the founding
of universities, the encouragement of learning by the Emperor Frederick II,
the study of logic by the schoolmen, were all indicative of a new era in the
history of scientific thought.
The learned Dominican Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) was a careful student
of Aristotle as well as of his Arabian commentators. In his many books on
natural history he of course pays great deference to the Philosopher, but he
is not devoid of original observation. As the official visitor of his order he
had traveled through the greater part of Germany on foot, and with a keen
eye for natural phenomena was able to enrich botany and zoölogy by much

accurate information. His intimacy with the details of natural history made
him suspected by the ignorant of the practice of magical arts.
His pupil and disciple Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) was the philosopher
and recognized champion of the Christian Church. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII,
while proclaiming that every wise saying, every useful discovery, by
whomsoever it may be wrought, should be welcomed with a willing and
grateful mind, exhorted the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church to restore
the golden wisdom of St. Thomas and to propagate it as widely as possible
for the good of society and the advancement of all the sciences. Certainly
the genius of St. Thomas Aquinas seems comprehensive enough to embrace
all science as well as all philosophy from the Christian point of view.
According to him there are two sources of knowledge, reason and
revelation. These are not irreconcilably opposed. The Greek philosophers
speak with the voice of reason. It is the duty of theology to bring all
knowledge into harmony with the truths of revelation imparted by God for
the salvation of the human race. Averroës is in error when he argues the
impossibility of something being created from nothing, and again when he
implies that the individual intellect becomes merged in a transcendental
intellect; for such teaching would be the contrary of what has been revealed
in reference to the creation of the world and the immortality of the
individual soul. In the accompanying illustration we see St. Thomas
inspired by Christ in glory, guided by Moses, St. Peter, and the Evangelists,
and instructed by Aristotle and Plato. He has overcome the heathen
philosopher Averroës, who lies below discomfited.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS OVERCOMING
AVERROËS
The English Franciscan Roger Bacon (1214-1294) deserves to be
mentioned with the two great Dominicans. He was acquainted with the
works of the Greek and Arabian scientists. He transmitted in a treatise that
fell under the eye of Columbus the view of Aristotle in reference to the
proximity of another continent on the other side of the Atlantic; he
anticipated the principle on which the telescope was afterwards constructed;
he advocated basing natural science on experience and careful observation
rather than on a process of reasoning. Roger Bacon's writings are

characterized by a philosophical breadth of view. To his mind the earth is
only an insignificant dot in the center of the vast heavens.
In the centuries that followed the death of Bacon the relation of this planet
to the heavenly bodies was made an object of study by a succession of
scientists who like him were versed in the achievements of preceding ages.
Peurbach (1423-1461), author of New Theories of the Planets, developed
the trigonometry of the Arabians, but died before fulfilling his plan to give
Europe an epitome of the astronomy of Ptolemy. His pupil, Regiomontanus,
however, more than made good the intentions of his master. The work of
Peurbach had as commentator the first teacher in astronomy of Copernicus
(1473-1543). Later Copernicus spent nine years in Italy, studying at the
universities and acquainting himself with Ptolemaic and other ancient views
concerning the motions of the planets. He came to see that the apparent
revolution of the heavenly bodies about the earth from east to west is really
owing to the revolution of the earth on its axis from west to east. This view
was so contrary to prevailing beliefs that Copernicus refused to publish his
theory for thirty-six years. A copy of his book, teaching that our earth is not
the center of the universe, was brought to him on his deathbed, but he never
opened it.
Momentous as was this discovery, setting aside the geocentric system which
had held captive the best minds for fourteen slow centuries and substituting
the heliocentric, it was but a link in the chain of successes in astronomy to
which Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and their followers
contributed.

REFERENCES

The Catholic Encyclopedia.
J. L. E. Dreyer, History of the Planetary Systems.
Encyclopædia Britannica. Arabian Philosophy; Roger Bacon.
W. J. Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.
R. B. Vaughan, St. Thomas of Aquin; his Life and Labours.

Andrew D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom.

CHAPTER V
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES—FRANCIS
BACON

The preceding chapter has shown that there is a continuity in the
development of single sciences. The astronomy, or the chemistry, or the
mathematics, of one period depends so directly on the respective science of
the foregoing period, that one feels justified in using the term "growth," or
"evolution," to describe their progress. Now a vital relationship can be
observed not only among different stages of the same science, but also
among the different sciences. Physics, astronomy, and chemistry have much
in common; geometry, trigonometry, arithmetic, and algebra are called
"branches" of mathematics; zoölogy and botany are biological sciences, as
having to do with living species. In the century following the death of
Copernicus, two great scientists, Bacon and Descartes, compared all
knowledge to a tree, of which the separate sciences are branches. They
thought of all knowledge as a living organism with an interconnection or
continuity of parts, and a capability of growth.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century the sciences were so
considerable that in the interest of further progress a comprehensive view of
the tree of knowledge, a survey of the field of learning, was needed. The
task of making this survey was undertaken by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam
(1561-1626). His classification of human knowledge was celebrated, and
very influential in the progress of science. He kept one clear purpose in
view, namely, the control of nature by man. He wished to take stock of what
had already been accomplished, to supply deficiencies, and to enlarge the
bounds of human empire. He was acutely conscious that this was an
enterprise too great for any one man, and he used his utmost endeavors to
induce James I to become the patron of the plan. His project admits of very
simple statement now; he wished to edit an encyclopedia, but feared that it
might prove impossible without coöperation and without state support. He
felt capable of furnishing the plans for the building, but thought it a

hardship that he was compelled to serve both as architect and laborer. The
worthiness of these plans was attested in the middle of the eighteenth
century, when the great French Encyclopaedia was projected by Diderot
and D'Alembert. The former, its chief editor and contributor, wrote in the
Prospectus: "If we come out successful from this vast undertaking, we shall
owe it mainly to Chancellor Bacon, who sketched the plan of a universal
dictionary of sciences and arts at a time when there were not, so to speak,
either arts or sciences. This extraordinary genius, when it was impossible to
write a history of what men knew, wrote one of what they had to learn."
Bacon, as we shall amply see, was a firm believer in the study of the arts
and occupations, and at the same time retained his devotion to principles
and abstract thought. He knew that philosophy could aid the arts that supply
daily needs; also that the arts and occupations enriched the field of
philosophy, and that the basis of our generalizations must be the universe of
things knowable. "For," he writes, "if men judge that learning should be
referred to use and action, they judge well; but it is easy in this to fall into
the error pointed out in the ancient fable; in which the other parts of the
body found fault with the stomach, because it neither performed the office
of motion as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head does; but yet
notwithstanding it is the stomach which digests and distributes the aliment
to all the rest. So that if any man think that philosophy and universality are
idle and unprofitable studies, he does not consider that all arts and
professions are from thence supplied with sap and strength." For Bacon, as
for Descartes, natural philosophy was the trunk of the tree of knowledge.

On the other hand, he looked to the arts, crafts, and occupations as a source
of scientific principles. In his survey of learning he found some records of
agriculture and likewise of many mechanical arts. Some think them a kind
of dishonor. "But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of History
Mechanical is, of all others, the most radical and fundamental towards
natural philosophy." When the different arts are known, the senses will
furnish sufficient concrete material for the information of the
understanding. The record of the arts is of most use because it exhibits
things in motion, and leads more directly to practice. "Upon this history,
therefore, mechanical and illiberal as it may seem (all fineness and

daintiness set aside), the greatest diligence must be bestowed." "Again,
among the particular arts those are to be preferred which exhibit, alter, and
prepare natural bodies and materials of things as agriculture, cooking,
chemistry, dyeing; the manufacture of glass, enamel, sugar, gunpowder,
artificial fires, paper and the like." Weaving, carpentry, architecture,
manufacture of mills, clocks, etc. follow. The purpose is not solely to bring
the arts to perfection, but all mechanical experiments should be as streams
flowing from all sides into the sea of philosophy.
Shortly after James I came to the throne in 1603, Bacon published his
Advancement of Learning. He continued in other writings, however, to
develop the organization of knowledge, and in 1623 summed up his plan in
the De Augmentis Scientiarum.
A recent writer (Pearson, 1900) has attempted to summarize Bacon's
classification of the different branches of learning. When one compares this
summary with an outline of the classification of knowledge made by the
French monk, Hugo of St. Victor, who stands midway between Isidore of
Seville (570-636) and Bacon, some points of resemblance are of course
obvious. Moreover, Hugo, like Bacon, insisted on the importance of not
being narrowly utilitarian. Men, he says, are often accustomed to value
knowledge not on its own account but for what it yields. Thus it is with the
arts of husbandry, weaving, painting, and the like, where skill is considered
absolutely vain, unless it results in some useful product. If, however, we
judged after this fashion of God's wisdom, then, no doubt, the creation
would be preferred to the Creator. But wisdom is life, and the love of
wisdom is the joy of life (felicitas vitæ).
Nevertheless, when we compare these classifications diligently, we find
very marked differences between Bacon's views and the medieval. The
weakest part of Hugo's classification is that which deals with natural
philosophy. Physica, he says, undertakes the investigation of the causes of
things in their effects, and of effects in their causes. It deals with the
explanation of earthquakes, tides, the virtues of plants, the fierce instincts of
wild animals, every species of stone, shrub, and reptile. When we turn to his
special work, however, on this branch of knowledge, Concerning Beasts
and Other Things, we find no attempt to subdivide the field of physica, but

a series of details in botany, geology, zoölogy, and human anatomy, mostly
arranged in dictionary form.
When we refer to Bacon's classification we find that Physics corresponds to
Hugo's Physica. It studies natural phenomena in relation to their material
causes. For this study, Natural History, according to Bacon, supplies the
facts. Let us glance, then, at his work on natural history, and see how far he
had advanced from the medieval toward the modern conception of the
sciences.
For purposes of scientific study he divided the phenomena of the universe
into (1) Celestial phenomena; (2) Atmosphere; (3) Globe; (4) Substance of
earth, air, fire, water; (5) Genera, species, etc. Great scope is given to the
natural history of man. The arts are classified as nature modified by man.
History means, of course, descriptive science.

Bacon's Catalogue of Particular Histories by Titles (1620)

1. History of the Heavenly Bodies; or Astronomical History.
2. History of the Configuration of the Heavens and the parts thereof
towards the Earth and the parts thereof; or Cosmographical History.
3. History of Comets.
4. History of Fiery Meteors.
5. History of Lightnings, Thunderbolts, Thunders, and Coruscations.
6. History of Winds and Sudden Blasts and Undulations of the Air.
7. History of Rainbows.
8. History of Clouds, as they are seen above.
9. History of the Blue Expanse, of Twilight, of Mock-Suns, Mock-
Moons, Haloes, various colours of the Sun; and of every variety in the
aspect of the heavens caused by the medium.
10. History of Showers, Ordinary, Stormy, and Prodigious; also of
Waterspouts (as they are called); and the like.
11. History of Hail, Snow, Frost, Hoar-frost, Fog, Dew, and the like.
12. History of all other things that fall or descend from above, and that are
generated in the upper region.
13. History of Sounds in the upper region (if there be any), besides
Thunder.
14. History of Air as a whole, or in the Configuration of the World.

15. History of the Seasons or Temperatures of the Year, as well according
to the variations of Regions as according to accidents of Times and
Periods of Years; of Floods, Heats, Droughts, and the like.
16. History of Earth and Sea; of the Shape and Compass of them, and their
Configurations compared with each other; and of their broadening or
narrowing; of Islands in the Sea; of Gulfs of the Sea, and Salt Lakes
within the Land; Isthmuses and Promontories.
17. History of the Motions (if any be) of the Globe of Earth and Sea; and
of the Experiments from which such motions may be collected.
18. History of the greater motions and Perturbations in Earth and Sea;
Earthquakes, Tremblings and Yawnings of the Earth, Islands newly
appearing; Floating Islands; Breakings off of Land by entrance of the
Sea, Encroachments and Inundations and contrariwise Recessions of
the Sea; Eruptions of Fire from the Earth; Sudden Eruptions of Waters
from the Earth; and the like.
19. Natural History of Geography; of Mountains, Vallies, Woods, Plains,
Sands, Marshes, Lakes, Rivers, Torrents, Springs, and every variety of
their course, and the like; leaving apart Nations, Provinces, Cities, and
such like matters pertaining to Civil life.
20. History of Ebbs and Flows of the Sea; Currents, Undulations, and
other Motions of the Sea.
21. History of other Accidents of the Sea; its Saltness, its various Colours,
its Depth; also of Rocks, Mountains, and Vallies under the Sea, and the
like.

Next come Histories of the Greater Masses

22. History of Flame and of things Ignited.
23. History of Air, in Substance, not in the Configuration of the World.
24. History of Water, in Substance, not in the Configuration of the World.
25. History of the Earth and the diversity thereof, in Substance, not in the
Configuration of the World.

Next come Histories of Species

26. History of perfect Metals, Gold, Silver; and of the Mines, Veins,
Marcasites of the same; also of the Working in the Mines.
27. History of Quicksilver.
28. History of Fossils; as Vitriol, Sulphur, etc.
29. History of Gems; as the Diamond, the Ruby, etc.
30. History of Stones; as Marble, Touchstone, Flint, etc.
31. History of the Magnet.
32. History of Miscellaneous Bodies, which are neither entirely Fossil nor
Vegetable; as Salts, Amber, Ambergris, etc.
33. Chemical History of Metals and Minerals.
34. History of Plants, Trees, Shrubs, Herbs; and of their parts, Roots,
Stalks, Wood, Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, Seeds, Gums, etc.
35. Chemical History of Vegetables.
36. History of Fishes, and the Parts and Generation of them.
37. History of Birds, and the Parts and Generation of them.
38. History of Quadrupeds, and the Parts and Generation of them.
39. History of Serpents, Worms, Flies, and other insects; and of the Parts
and Generation of them.
40. Chemical History of the things which are taken by Animals.

Next come Histories of Man

41. History of the Figure and External Limbs of man, his Stature, Frame,
Countenance, and Features; and of the variety of the same according to
Races and Climates, or other smaller differences.
42. Physiognomical History of the same.
43. Anatomical History, or of the Internal Members of Man; and of the
variety of them, as it is found in the Natural Frame and Structure, and
not merely as regards Diseases and Accidents out of the course of
Nature.
44. History of the parts of Uniform Structure in Man; as Flesh, Bones,
Membranes, etc.
45. History of Humours in Man; Blood, Bile, Seed, etc.
46. History of Excrements; Spittle, Urine, Sweats, Stools, Hair of the
Head, Hairs of the Body, Whitlows, Nails, and the like.
47. History of Faculties; Attraction, Digestion, Retention, Expulsion,
Sanguification, Assimilation of Aliment into the members, conversion

of Blood and Flower of Blood into Spirit, etc.
48. History of Natural and Involuntary Motions; as Motion of the Heart,
the Pulses, Sneezing, Lungs, Erection, etc.
49. History of Motions partly Natural and Partly Violent; as of
Respiration, Cough, Urine, Stool, etc.
50. History of Voluntary Motions; as of the Instruments of Articulation of
Words; Motions of the Eyes, Tongue, Jaws, Hands, Fingers; of
Swallowing, etc.
51. History of Sleep and Dreams.
52. History of different habits of Body—Fat, Lean; of the Complexions (as
they call them), etc.
53. History of the Generation of Man.
54. History of Conception, Vivification, Gestation in the Womb, Birth, etc.
55. History of the Food of Man; and of all things Eatable and Drinkable;
and of all Diet; and of the variety of the same according to nations and
smaller differences.
56. History of the Growth and Increase of the Body, in the whole and in its
parts.
57. History of the Course of Age; Infancy, Boyhood, Youth, Old Age; of
Length and Shortness of Life, and the like, according to nations and
lesser differences.
58. History of Life and Death.

59. History Medicinal of Diseases, and of the Symptoms and Signs of
them.
60. History Medicinal of the Treatment and Remedies and Cures of
Diseases.
61. History Medicinal of those things which preserve the Body and the
Health.
62. History Medicinal of those things which relate to the Form and
Comeliness of the Body.
63. History Medicinal of those things which alter the Body, and pertain to
Alterative Regimen.
64. History of Drugs.
65. History of Surgery.
66. Chemical History of Medicines.

67. History of Vision, and of things Visible.
68. History of Painting, Sculpture, Modelling, etc.
69. History of Hearing and Sound.
70. History of Music.
71. History of Smell and Smells.
72. History of Taste and Tastes.
73. History of Touch, and the objects of Touch.
74. History of Venus, as a species of Touch.
75. History of Bodily Pains, as species of Touch.
76. History of Pleasure and Pain in general.
77. History of the Affections; as Anger, Love, Shame, etc.
78. History of the Intellectual Faculties; Reflexion, Imagination,
Discourse, Memory, etc.
79. History of Natural Divinations.
80. History of Diagnostics, or Secret Natural Judgements.

81. History of Cookery, and of the arts thereto belonging, as of the
Butcher, Poulterer, etc.
82. History of Baking, and the Making of Bread, and the arts thereto
belonging, as of the Miller, etc.
83. History of Wine.
84. History of the Cellar and of different kinds of Drink.
85. History of Sweetmeats and Confections.
86. History of Honey.
87. History of Sugar.
88. History of the Dairy.
89. History of Baths and Ointments.
90. Miscellaneous History concerning the care of the body—as of Barbers,
Perfumers, etc.
91. History of the working of Gold, and the arts thereto belonging.
92. History of the manufactures of Wool, and the arts thereto belonging.
93. History of the manufactures of Silk, and the arts thereto belonging.
94. History of the manufactures of Flax, Hemp, Cotton, Hair, and other
kinds of Thread, and the arts thereto belonging.
95. History of manufactures of Feathers.
96. History of Weaving, and the arts thereto belonging.

97. History of Dyeing.
98. History of Leather-making, Tanning, and the arts thereto belonging.
99. History of Ticking and Feathers.
100. History of working in Iron.
101. History of Stone-cutting.
102. History of the making of Bricks and Tiles.
103. History of Pottery.
104. History of Cements, etc.
105. History of working in Wood.
106. History of working in Lead.
107. History of Glass and all vitreous substances, and of Glass-making.
108. History of Architecture generally.
109. History of Waggons, Chariots, Litters, etc.
110. History of Printing, of Books, of Writing, of Sealing; of Ink, Pen,
Paper, Parchment, etc.
111. History of Wax.
112. History of Basket-making.
113. History of Mat-making, and of manufactures of Straw, Rushes, and the
like.
114. History of Washing, Scouring, etc.
115. History of Agriculture, Pasturage, Culture of Woods, etc.
116. History of Gardening.
117. History of Fishing.
118. History of Hunting and Fowling.
119. History of the Art of War, and of the arts thereto belonging, as
Armoury, Bow-making, Arrow-making, Musketry, Ordnance, Cross-
bows, Machines, etc.
120. History of the Art of Navigation, and of the crafts and arts thereto
belonging.
121. History of Athletics and Human Exercises of all kinds.
122. History of Horsemanship.
123. History of Games of all kinds.
124. History of Jugglers and Mountebanks.
125. Miscellaneous History of various Artificial Materials,—Enamel,
Porcelain, various cements, etc.
126. History of Salts.
127. Miscellaneous History of various Machines and Motions.

128. Miscellaneous History of Common Experiments which have not
grown into an Art.

Histories must also be written of Pure Mathematics; though they are
rather observations than experiments

129. History of the Natures and Powers of Numbers.
130. History of the Natures and Powers of Figures.

The fragment containing this catalogue (Parasceve—Day of Preparation)
was added to Bacon's work on method, The New Logic (Novum Organum),
1620. Besides completing his survey and classification of the sciences (De
Augmentis Scientiarum), 1623, he published a few separate writings on
topics in the catalogue—Winds, Life and Death, Tides, etc. In 1627, a year
after his death, appeared his much misunderstood work, Sylva Sylvarum. He
had found that the Latin word sylva meant stuff or raw material, as well as a
wood, and called this final work Sylva Sylvarum, which I would translate,
"Jungle of Raw Material." He himself referred to it as "an undigested heap
of particulars"; yet he was willing it should be published because "he
preferred the good of men to anything that might have relation to himself."
In it, following his catalogue, he fulfilled the promise made in 1620, of
putting nature and the arts to question. Some of the problems suggested for
investigation are: congealing of air, turning air into water, the secret nature
of flame, motion of gravity, production of cold, nourishing of young
creatures in the egg or womb, prolongation of life, the media of sound,
infectious diseases, accelerating and preventing putrefaction, accelerating
and staying growth, producing fruit without core or seed, production of
composts and helps for ground, flying in the air.
In the New Atlantis, a work of imagination, Bacon had represented as
already achieved for mankind some of the benefits he wished for: artificial
metals, various cements, excellent dyes, animals for vivisection and
medical experiment, instruments which generate heat solely by motion,
artificial precious stones, conveyance of sound for great distances and in
tortuous lines, new explosives. "We imitate," says the guide in the Utopian
land, "also flights of birds; we have some degree of flying in the air; we
have ships and boats for going under water." Bacon believed in honoring

the great discoverers and inventors, and advocated maintaining a calendar
of inventions.
He was a fertile and stimulating thinker, and much of his great influence
arose from the comprehensiveness that led to his celebrated classification of
the sciences.

REFERENCES

Bacon's Philosophical Works, vol. iv, Parasceve, edited by R. L. Ellis, J.
Spedding, and D. D. Heath.
Karl Pearson, Grammar of Science.
J. A. Thomson, Introduction to Science.

CHAPTER VI
SCIENTIFIC METHOD—GILBERT, GALILEO, HARVEY,
DESCARTES

The previous chapter has given some indication of the range of the material
which was demanding scientific investigation at the end of the sixteenth and
the beginning of the seventeenth century. The same period witnessed a
conscious development of the method, or methods, of investigation. As we
have seen, Bacon wrote in 1620 a considerable work, The New Logic
(Novum Organum), so called to distinguish it from the traditional deductive
logic. It aimed to furnish the organ or instrument, to indicate the correct
mental procedure, to be employed in the discovery of natural law. Some
seventeen years later, the illustrious Frenchman René Descartes (1596-
1650) published his Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting the
Reason and seeking Truth in the Sciences. Both of these philosophers
illustrated by their own investigations the efficiency of the methods which
they advocated.

Painting by A. Ackland Hunt
DR. GILBERT SHOWING HIS ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS TO
QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER COURT
Before 1620, however, the experimental method had already yielded
brilliant results in the hands of other scientists. We pass over Leonardo da
Vinci and many others in Italy and elsewhere, whose names should be
mentioned if we were tracing this method to its origin. By 1600 William
Gilbert (1540-1603), physician to Queen Elizabeth, before whom, as a
picture in his birthplace illustrates, he was called to demonstrate his
discoveries, had published his work on the Magnet, the outcome of about
eighteen years of critical research. He may be considered the founder of
electrical science. Galileo, who discovered the fundamental principles of
dynamics and thus laid the basis of modern physical science, although he
did not publish his most important work till 1638, had even before the close
of the sixteenth century prepared the way for the announcement of his
principles by years of strict experiment. By the year 1616, William Harvey
(1578-1657), physician at the court of James I, and, later, of Charles I, had,
as the first modern experimental physiologist, gained important results
through his study of the circulation of the blood.

It is not without significance that both Gilbert and Harvey had spent years
in Italy, where, as we have implied, the experimental method of scientific
research was early developed. Harvey was at Padua (1598-1602) within the
time of Galileo's popular professoriate, and may well have been inspired by
the physicist to explain on dynamical principles the flow of blood through
arteries and veins. This conjecture is the more probable, since Galileo, like
Harvey and Gilbert, had been trained in the study of medicine. Bacon in
turn had in his youth learned something of the experimental method on the
Continent of Europe, and, later, was well aware of the studies of Gilbert and
Galileo, as well as of Harvey, who was indeed his personal physician.
Although these facts seem to indicate that method may be transmitted in a
nation or a profession, or through personal association, there still remains
some doubt as to whether anything so intimate as the mental procedure
involved in invention and in the discovery of truth can be successfully
imparted by instruction. The individuality of the man of genius engaged in
investigation must remain a factor difficult to analyze. Bacon, whose
purpose was to hasten man's empire over nature through increasing the
number of inventions and discoveries, recognized that the method he
illustrated is not the sole method of scientific investigation. In fact, he
definitely states that the method set forth in the Novum Organum is not
original, or perfect, or indispensable. He was aware that his method tended
to the ignoring of genius and to the putting of intelligences on one level. He
knew that, although it is desirable for the investigator to free his mind from
prepossessions, and to avoid premature generalizations, interpretation is the
true and natural work of the mind when free from impediments, and that the
conjecture of the man of genius must at times anticipate the slow process of
painful induction. As we shall see in the nineteenth chapter, the psychology
of to-day does not know enough about the workings of the mind to
prescribe a fixed mental attitude for the investigator. Nevertheless, Bacon
was not wrong in pointing out the virtues of a method which he and many
others turned to good account. Let us first glance, however, at the activities
of those scientists who preceded Bacon in the employment of the
experimental method.
Gilbert relied, in his investigations, on oft-repeated and verifiable
experiments, as can be seen from his work De Magnete. He directs the
experimenter, for example, to take a piece of loadstone of convenient size

and turn it on a lathe to the form of a ball. It then may be called a terrella,
or earthkin. Place on it a piece of iron wire. The ends of the wire move
round its middle point and suddenly come to a standstill. Mark with chalk
the line along which the wire lies still and sticks. Then move the wire to
other spots on the terrella and repeat your procedure. The lines thus
marked, if produced, will form meridians, all coming together at the poles.
Again, place the magnet in a wooden vessel, and then set the vessel afloat
in a tub or cistern of still water. The north pole of the stone will seek
approximately the direction of the south pole of the earth, etc. It was on the
basis of scores of experiments of this sort, carried on from about 1582 till
1600, that Gilbert felt justified in concluding that the terrestrial globe is a
magnet. This theory has since that time been abundantly confirmed by
navigators. The full title of his book is Concerning the Magnet and
Magnetic Bodies, and concerning the Great Magnet the Earth: A New
Natural History (Physiologia) demonstrated by many Arguments and
Experiments. It does not detract from the credit of Gilbert's result to state
that his initial purpose was not to discover the nature of magnetism or
electricity, but to determine the true substance of the earth, the innermost
constitution of the globe. He was fully conscious of his own method and
speaks with scorn of certain writers who, having made no magnetical
experiments, constructed ratiocinations on the basis of mere opinions and
old-womanishly dreamed the things that were not.
Galileo (1564-1642) even as a child displayed something of the inventor's
ingenuity, and when he was nineteen, shortly after the beginning of Gilbert's
experiments, his keen perception for the phenomena of motion led to his
making a discovery of great scientific moment. He observed a lamp
swinging by a long chain in the cathedral of his native city of Pisa, and
noticed that, no matter how much the range of the oscillations might vary,
their times were constant. He verified his first impressions by counting his
pulse, the only available timepiece. Later he invented simple pendulum
devices for timing the pulse of patients, and even made some advances in
applying his discovery in the construction of pendulum clocks.

In 1589 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the University of
Pisa, and within a year or two established through experiment the
foundations of the science of dynamics. As early as 1590 he put on record,
in a Latin treatise Concerning Motion (De Motu), his dissent from the
theories of Aristotle in reference to moving bodies, confuting the
Philosopher both by reason and ocular demonstration. Aristotle had held
that two moving bodies of the same sort and in the same medium have
velocities in proportion to their weights. If a moving body, whose weight is
represented by b, be carried through the line c—e which is divided in the
point d, if, also, the moving body is divided according to the same
proportion as line c—e is in the point d, it is manifest that in the time taken
to carry the whole body through c—e, the part will be moved through c—d.
Galileo said that it is as clear as daylight that this view is ridiculous, for
who would believe that when two lead spheres are dropped from a great
height, the one being a hundred times heavier than the other, if the larger
took an hour to reach the earth, the smaller would take a hundred hours? Or,
that if from a high tower two stones, one twice the weight of the other,
should be pushed out at the same moment, the larger would strike the
ground while the smaller was still midway? His biography tells that Galileo
in the presence of professors and students dropped bodies of different
weights from the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate the
truth of his views. If allowance be made for the friction of the air, all bodies
fall from the same height in equal times: the final velocities are proportional
to the times; the spaces passed through are proportional to the squares of the
times. The experimental basis of the last two statements was furnished by

means of an inclined plane, down a smooth groove in which a bronze ball
was allowed to pass, the time being ascertained by means of an improvised
water-clock.
Galileo's mature views on dynamics received expression in a work
published in 1638, Mathematical Discourses and Demonstrations
concerning Two New Sciences relating to Mechanics and Local Movements.
It treats of cohesion and resistance to fracture (strength of materials), and
uniform, accelerated, and projectile motion (dynamics). The discussion is in
conversation form. The opening sentence shows Galileo's tendency to base
theory on the empirical. It might be freely translated thus: "Large scope for
intellectual speculation, I should think, would be afforded, gentlemen, by
frequent visits to your famous Venetian Dockyard (arsenale), especially that
part where mechanics are in demand; seeing that there every sort of
instrument and machine is put to use by numbers of workmen, among
whom, taught both by tradition and their own observation, there must be
some very skillful and also able to talk." The view of the shipbuilders, that a
large galley before being set afloat is in greater danger of breaking under its
own weight than a small galley, is the starting-point of this most important
of Galileo's contributions to science.
Vesalius (1514-1564) had in his work on the structure of the human body
(De Humani Corporis Fabrica, 1543) shaken the authority of Galen's
anatomy; it remained for Harvey on the basis of the new anatomy to
improve upon the Greek physician's experimental physiology. Harvey
professed to learn and teach anatomy, not from books, but from dissections,
not from the dogmas of the philosophers, but from the fabric of nature.
There have come down to us notes of his lectures on anatomy delivered first
in 1616. A brief extract will show that even at that date he had already
formulated a theory of the circulation of the blood:—
[1]
" By the structure of the heart it appears that the blood is continually
transfused through the lungs to the aorta—as by the two clacks of a water-
ram for raising water.
"It is shown by ligature that there is continuous motion of the blood from
arteries to veins.

"Whence Δ it is demonstrated that there is a continuous motion of the blood
in a circle, affected by the beat of the heart."
It was not till 1628 that Harvey published his Anatomical Disquisition on
the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. It gives the experimental
basis of his conclusions. If a live snake be laid open, the heart will be seen
pulsating and propelling its contents. Compress the large vein entering the
heart, and the part intervening between the point of constriction and the
heart becomes empty and the organ pales and shrinks. Remove the pressure,
and the size and color of the heart are restored. Now compress the artery
leading from the organ, and the part between the heart and the point of
pressure, and the heart itself, become distended and take on a deep purple
color. The course of the blood is evidently from the vena cava through the
heart to the aorta. Harvey in his investigations made use of many species of
animals—at least eighty-seven.
It was believed by some, before Harvey's demonstrations, that the arteries
were hollow pipes carrying air from the lungs throughout the body,
although Galen had shown by cutting a dog's trachea, inflating the lungs
and tying the trachea, that the lungs were in an enclosing sack which
retained the air. Harvey, following Galen, held that the pulmonary artery,
carrying blood to the lungs from the right side of the heart, and the
pulmonary veins, carrying blood from the lungs to the left side of the heart,
intercommunicate in the hidden porosities of the lungs and through minute
inosculations.
In man the vena cava carries the blood to the right side of the heart, the
pulmonary artery inosculates with the pulmonary veins, which convey it to
the left side of the heart. This muscular pump drives it into the aorta. It still
remains to be shown that in the limbs the blood passes from the arteries to
the veins. Bandage the arm so tightly that no pulse is felt at the wrist. The
hand appears at first natural, and then grows cold. Loose the bandage
sufficiently to restore the pulse. The hand and forearm become suffused and
swollen. In the first place the supply of blood from the deep-lying arteries is
cut off. In the second case the blood returning by the superficial veins is
dammed back. In the limbs as in the lungs the blood passes from artery to
vein by anastomoses and porosities. All these arteries have their source in
the aorta; all these veins pour their stream ultimately into the vena cava.

The veins have valves, which prevent the blood flowing except toward the
heart. Again, the veins and arteries form a connected system; for through
either a vein or an artery all the blood may be drained off. The arguments
by which Harvey supported his view were various. The opening clause of
his first chapter, "When I first gave my mind to vivisection as a means of
discovering the motions and uses of the heart," throws a strong light on his
special method of experimental investigation.
Bacon, stimulated by what he called philanthropia, always aimed, as we
have seen, to establish man's control over nature. But all power of a high
order depends on an understanding of the essential character, or law, of
heat, light, sound, gravity, and the like. Nothing short of a knowledge of the
underlying nature of phenomena can give science advantage over chance in
hitting upon useful discoveries and inventions. It is, therefore, natural to
find him applying his method of induction—his special method of true
induction—to the investigation of heat.
In the first place, let there be mustered, without premature speculation, all
the instances in which heat is manifested—flame, lightning, sun's rays,
quicklime sprinkled with water, damp hay, animal heat, hot liquids, bodies
subjected to friction. Add to these, instances in which heat seems to be
absent, as moon's rays, sun's rays on mountains, oblique rays in the polar
circle. Try the experiment of concentrating on a thermoscope, by means of a
burning-glass, the moon's rays. Try with the burning-glass to concentrate
heat from hot iron, from common flame, from boiling water. Try a concave
glass with the sun's rays to see whether a diminution of heat results. Then
make record of other instances, in which heat is found in varying degrees.
For example, an anvil grows hot under the hammer. A thin plate of metal
under continuous blows might grow red like ignited iron. Let this be tried as
an experiment.
After the presentation of these instances induction itself must be set to work
to find out what factor is ever present in the positive instances, what factor
is ever wanting in the negative instances, what factor always varies in the
instances which show variation. According to Bacon it is in the process of
exclusion that the foundations of true induction are laid. We can be certain,
for example, that the essential nature of heat does not consist in light and
brightness, since it is present in boiling water and absent in the moon's rays.

The induction, however, is not complete till something positive is
established. At this point in the investigation it is permissible to venture an
hypothesis in reference to the essential character of heat. From a survey of
the instances, all and each, it appears that the nature of which heat is a
particular case is motion. This is suggested by flame, simmering liquids, the
excitement of heat by motion, the extinction of fire by compression, etc.
Motion is the genus of which heat is the species. Heat itself, its essence, is
motion and nothing else.
It remains to establish its specific differences. This accomplished, we arrive
at the definition: Heat is a motion, expansive, restrained, and acting in its
strife upon the smaller particles of bodies. Bacon, glancing toward the
application of this discovery, adds: "If in any natural body you can excite a
dilating or expanding motion, and can so repress this motion and turn it
back upon itself, that the dilation shall not proceed equally, but have its way
in one part and be counteracted in another, you will undoubtedly generate
heat." The reader will recall that Bacon looked for the invention of
instruments that would generate heat solely by motion.
Descartes was a philosopher and mathematician. In his Discourse on
Method and his Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1628) he laid emphasis
on deduction rather than on induction. In the subordination of particulars to
general principles he experienced a satisfaction akin to the sense of beauty
or the joy of artistic production. He speaks enthusiastically of that pleasure
which one feels in truth, and which in this world is about the only pure and
unmixed happiness.
At the same time he shared Bacon's distrust of the Aristotelian logic and
maintained that ordinary dialectic is valueless for those who desire to
investigate the truth of things. There is need of a method for finding out the
truth. He compares himself to a smith forced to begin at the beginning by
fashioning tools with which to work.
In his method of discovery he determined to accept nothing as true that he
did not clearly recognize to be so. He stood against assumptions, and
insisted on rigid proof. Trust only what is completely known. Attain a
certitude equal to that of arithmetic and geometry. This attitude of strict
criticism is characteristic of the scientific mind.

Again, Descartes was bent on analyzing each difficulty in order to solve it;
to neglect no intermediate steps in the deduction, but to make the
enumeration of details adequate and methodical. Preserve a certain order;
do not attempt to jump from the ground to the gable, but rise gradually from
what is simple and easily understood.
Descartes' interest was not in the several branches of mathematics; rather he
wished to establish a universal mathematics, a general science relating to
order and measurement. He considered all physical nature, including the
human body, as a mechanism, capable of explanation on mathematical
principles. But his immediate interest lay in numerical relationships and
geometrical proportions.
Recognizing that the understanding was dependent on the other powers of
the mind, Descartes resorted in his mathematical demonstrations to the use
of lines, because he could find no method, as he says, more simple or more
capable of appealing to the imagination and senses. He considered,
however, that in order to bear the relationships in memory or to embrace
several at once, it was essential to explain them by certain formulæ, the
shorter the better. And for this purpose it was requisite to borrow all that
was best in geometrical analysis and algebra, and to correct the errors of
one by the other.
Descartes was above all a mathematician, and as such he may be regarded
as a forerunner of Newton and other scientists; at the same time he
developed an exact scientific method, which he believed applicable to all
departments of human thought. "Those long chains of reasoning," he says,
"quite simple and easy, which geometers are wont to employ in the
accomplishment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think that
everything which might fall under the cognizance of the human mind might
be connected together in the same manner, and that, provided only one
should take care not to receive anything as true which was not so, and if one
were always careful to preserve the order necessary for deducing one truth
from another, there would be none so remote at which he might not at last
arrive, or so concealed which he might not discover."

REFERENCES

Francis Bacon, Philosophical Works (Ellis and Spedding edition), vol. iv,
Novum Organum.
J. J. Fahie, Galileo; His Life and Work.
Galileo, Two New Sciences; translated by Henry Crew and Alphonse De
Salvio.
William Gilbert, On the Loadstone; translated by P. F. Mottelay.
William Harvey, An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart
and Blood in Animals.
T. H. Huxley, Method and Results.
D'Arcy Power, William Harvey (in Masters of Medicine).

FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is Harvey's monogram, which he used in his notes to mark any original
observation.

CHAPTER VII
SCIENCE AS MEASUREMENT—TYCHO BRAHE,
KEPLER, BOYLE

Considering the value for clearness of thought of counting, measuring and
weighing, it is not surprising to find that in the seventeenth century, and
even at the end of the sixteenth, the advance of the sciences was
accompanied by increased exactness of measurement and by the invention
of instruments of precision. The improvement of the simple microscope, the
invention of the compound microscope, of the telescope, the micrometer,
the barometer, the thermoscope, the thermometer, the pendulum clock, the
improvement of the mural quadrant, sextant, spheres, astrolabes, belong to
this period.
Measuring is a sort of counting, and weighing a form of measuring. We may
count disparate things whether like or unlike. When we measure or weigh
we apply a standard and count the times that the unit—cubit, pound, hour—
is found to repeat itself. We apply our measure to uniform extension, meting
out the waters by fathoms or space by the sun's diameter, and even subject
time to arbitrary divisions. The human mind has been developed through
contact with the multiplicity of physical objects, and we find it impossible
to think clearly and scientifically about our environment without dividing,
weighing, measuring, counting.
In measuring time we cannot rely on our inward impressions; we even
criticize these impressions and speak of time as going slowly or quickly. We
are compelled in the interests of accuracy to provide an objective standard
in the clock, or the revolving earth, or some other measurable thing.
Similarly with weight and heat; we cannot rely on the subjective
impression, but must devise apparatus to record by a measurable movement
the amount of the pressure or the degree of temperature.
"God ordered all things by measure, number, and weight." The scientific
mind does not rest satisfied till it is able to see phenomena in their number

relationships. Scientific thought is in this sense Pythagorean, that it inquires
in reference to quantity and proportion.
As implied in a previous chapter, number relations are not clearly grasped
by primitive races. Many primitive languages have no words for numerals
higher than five. That fact does not imply that these races do not know the
difference between large and small numbers, but precision grows with
civilization, with commercial pursuits, and other activities, such as the
practice of medicine, to which the use of weights and measures is essential.
Scientific accuracy is dependent on words and other means of numerical
expression. From the use of fingers and toes, a rude score or tally, knots on
a string, or a simple abacus, the race advances to greater refinement of
numerical expression and the employment of more and more accurate
apparatus.
One of the greatest contributors to this advance was the celebrated Danish
astronomer, Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Before 1597 he had completed his
great mural quadrant at the observatory of Uraniborg. He called it with
characteristic vanity the Tichonic quadrant. It consisted of a graduated arc
of solid polished brass five inches broad, two inches thick, and with a radius
of about six and three quarters feet. Each degree was divided into minutes,
and each minute into six parts. Each of these parts was then subdivided into
ten seconds, which were indicated by dots arranged in transverse oblique
lines on the width of brass.

THE TICHONIC QUADRANT
The arc was attached in the observation room to a wall running exactly
north, and so secured with screws (firmissimis cochleis) that no force could
move it. With its concavity toward the southern sky it was closely
comparable, though reverse, to the celestial meridian throughout its length
from horizon to zenith. The south wall, above the point where the radii of
the quadrant met, was pierced by a cylinder of gilded brass placed in a
rectangular opening, which could be opened or closed from the outside. The
observation was made through one of two sights that were attached to the
graduated arc and could be moved from point to point on it. In the sights

were parallel slits, right, left, upper, lower. If the altitude and the transit
through the meridian were to be taken at the same time the four directions
were to be followed. It was the practice for the student making the
observation to read off the number of degrees, minutes, etc., of the angle at
which the altitude or transit was observed, so that it might be recorded by a
second student. A third took the time from two clock dials when the
observer gave the signal, and the exact moment of observation was also
recorded by student number two. The clocks recorded minutes and the
smaller divisions of time; great care, however, was required to obtain good
results from them. There were four clocks in the observatory, of which the
largest had three wheels, one wheel of pure solid brass having twelve
hundred teeth and a diameter of two cubits.
Lest any space on the wall should lie empty a number of paintings were
added: Tycho himself in an easy attitude seated at a table and directing from
a book the work of his students. Over his head is an automatic celestial
globe invented by Tycho and constructed at his own expense in 1590. Over
the globe is a part of Tycho's library. On either side are represented as
hanging small pictures of Tycho's patron, Frederick II of Denmark (d. 1588)
and Queen Sophia. Then other instruments and rooms of the observatory are
pictured; Tycho's students, of whom there were always at least six or eight,
not to mention younger pupils. There appears also his great brass globe six
feet in diameter. Then there is pictured Tycho's chemical laboratory, on
which he has expended much money. Finally comes one of Tycho's hunting
dogs—very faithful and sagacious; he serves here as a hieroglyph of his
master's nobility as well as of sagacity and fidelity. The expert architect and
the two artists who assisted Tycho are delineated in the landscape and even
in the setting sun in the top-most part of the painting, and in the decoration
above.
The principal use of this largest quadrant was the determination of the angle
of elevation of the stars within the sixth part of a minute, the collineation
being made by means of one of the sights, the parallel horizontal slits in
which were aligned with the corresponding parts of the circumference of
the cylinder. The altitude was recorded according to the position of the sight
attached to the graduated arc.

Tycho Brahe had a great reverence for Copernicus, but he did not accept his
planetary system; and he felt that advance in astronomy depended on
painstaking observation. For over twenty years under the kings of Denmark
he had good opportunities for pursuing his investigation. The island of
Hven became his property. A thoroughly equipped observatory was
provided, including printing-press and workshops for the construction of
apparatus. As already implied, capable assistants were at the astronomer's
command. In 1598, after having left Denmark, Tycho in a splendid
illustrated book (Astronomiæ Instauratæ Mechanica) gave an account of
this astronomical paradise on the Insula Venusia as he at times called it. The
book, prepared for the hands of princes, contains about twenty full-page
colored illustrations of astronomical instruments (including, of course, the
mural quadrant), of the exterior of the observatory of Uraniborg, etc. The
author had a consciousness of his own worth, and deserves the name Tycho
the Magnificent. The results that he obtained were not unworthy of the
apparatus employed in his observations, and before he died at Prague in
1601, Tycho Brahe had consigned to the worthiest hands the painstaking
record of his labors.
Johann Kepler (1571-1630) had been called, as the astronomer's assistant,
to the Bohemian capital in 1600 and in a few months fell heir to Tycho's
data in reference to 777 stars, which he made the basis of the Rudolphine
tables of 1627. Kepler's genius was complementary to that of his
predecessor. He was gifted with an imagination to turn observations to
account. His astronomy did not rest in mere description, but sought the
physical explanation. He had the artist's feeling for the beauty and harmony,
which he divined before he demonstrated, in the number relations of the
planetary movements. After special studies of Mars based on Tycho's data,
he set forth in 1609 (Astronomia Nova) (1) that every planet moves in an
ellipse of which the sun occupies one focus, and (2) that the area swept by
the radius vector from the planet to the sun is proportional to the time.
Luckily for the success of his investigation the planet on which he had
concentrated his attention is the one of all the planets then known, the orbit
of which most widely differs from a circle. In a later work (Harmonica
Mundi, 1619) the title of which, the Harmonics of the Universe, proclaimed
his inclination to Pythagorean views, he demonstrated (3) that the square of

the periodic time of any planet is proportional to the cube of its mean
distance from the sun.
Kepler's studies were facilitated by the invention, in 1614 by John Napier,
of logarithms, which have been said, by abridging tedious calculations, to
double the life of an astronomer. About the same time Kepler in purchasing
some wine was struck by the rough-and-ready method used by the merchant
to determine the capacity of the wine-vessels. He applied himself for a few
days to the problems of mensuration involved, and in 1615 published his
treatise (Stereometria Doliorum) on the cubical contents of casks (or wine-
jars), a source of inspiration to all later writers on the accurate
determination of the volume of solids. He helped other scientists and was
himself richly helped. As early as 1610 there had been presented to him a
means of precision of the first importance to the progress of astronomy,
namely, a Galilean telescope.
The early history of telescopes shows that the effect of combining two
lenses was understood by scientists long before any particular use was made
of this knowledge; and that those who are accredited with introducing
perspective glasses to the public hit by accident upon the invention. Priority
was claimed by two firms of spectacle-makers in Middelburg, Holland,
namely, Zacharias, miscalled Jansen, and Lippershey. Galileo heard of the
contrivance in July, 1609, and soon furnished so powerful an instrument of
discovery that things seen through it appeared more than thirty times nearer
and almost a thousand times larger than when seen by the naked eye. He
was able to make out the mountains in the moon, the satellites of Jupiter in
rotation, the spots on the revolving sun; but his telescope afforded only an
imperfect view of Saturn. Of course these facts, published in 1610 (Sidereus
Nuncius), strengthened his advocacy of the Copernican system. Galileo
laughingly wrote Kepler that the professors of philosophy were afraid to
look through his telescope lest they should fall into heresy. The German
astronomer, who had years before written on the optics of astronomy, now
(1611) produced his Dioptrice, the first satisfactory statement of the theory
of the telescope.
About 1639 Gascoigne, a young Englishman, invented the micrometer,
which enables an observer to adjust a telescope with very great precision.
Before the invention of the micrometer exactitude was impossible, because

the adjustment of the instrument depended on the discrimination of the
naked eye. The micrometer was a further advance in exact measurement.
Gascoigne's determinations of, for example, the diameter of the sun, bear
comparison with the findings of even recent astronomical science.
The history of the microscope is closely connected with that of the
telescope. In the first half of the seventeenth century the simple microscope
came into use. It was developed from the convex lens, which, as we have
seen in a previous chapter, had been known for centuries, if not from remote
antiquity. With the simple microscope Leeuwenhoek before 1673 had
studied the structure of minute animal organisms and ten years later had
even obtained sight of bacteria. Very early in the same century Zacharias
had presented Prince Maurice, the commander of the Dutch forces, and the
Archduke Albert, governor of Holland, with compound microscopes.
Kircher (1601-1680) made use of an instrument that represented
microscopic forms as one thousand times larger than their actual size, and
by means of the compound microscope Malpighi was able in 1661 to see
blood flowing from the minute arteries to the minute veins on the lung and
on the distended bladder of the live frog. The Italian microscopist thus,
among his many achievements, verified by observation what Harvey in
1628 had argued must take place.
In this same epoch apparatus of precision developed in other fields. Weight
clocks had been in use as time-measurers since the thirteenth century, but
they were, as we have seen, difficult to control and otherwise unreliable.
Even in the seventeenth century scientists in their experiments preferred
some form of water-clock. In 1636 Galileo, in a letter, mentioned the
feasibility of constructing a pendulum clock, and in 1641 he dictated a
description of the projected apparatus to his son Vincenzo and to his
disciple Viviani. He himself was then blind, and he died the following year.
His instructions were never carried into effect. However, in 1657 Christian
Huygens applied the pendulum to weight clocks of the old stamp. In 1674
he gave directions for the manufacture of a watch, the movement of which
was driven by a spring.
Galileo, to whom the advance in exact science is so largely indebted, must
also be credited with the first apparatus for the measurement of
temperatures. This was invented before 1603 and consisted of a glass bulb

with a long stem of the thickness of a straw. The bulb was first heated and
the stem placed in water. The point at which the water, which rose in the
tube, might stand was an indication of the temperature. In 1631 Jean Rey
just inverted this contrivance, filling the bulb with water. Of course these
thermoscopes would register the effect of varying pressures as well as
temperatures, and they soon made way for the thermometer and the
barometer. Before 1641 a true thermometer was constructed by sealing the
top of the tube after driving out the air by heat. Spirits of wine were used in
place of water. Mercury was not employed till 1670.
Descartes and Galileo had brought under criticism the ancient idea that
nature abhors a vacuum. They knew that the horror vacui was not sufficient
to raise water in a pump more than about thirty-three feet. They had also
known that air has weight, a fact which soon served to explain the so-called
force of suction. Galileo's associate Torricelli reasoned that if the pressure
of the air was sufficient to support a column of water thirty-three feet in
height, it would support a column of mercury of equal weight. Accordingly
in 1643 he made the experiment of filling with mercury a glass tube four
feet long closed at the upper end, and then opening the lower end in a basin
of mercury. The mercury in the tube sank until its level was about thirty
inches above that of the mercury in the basin, leaving a vacuum in the upper
part of the tube. As the specific gravity of mercury is 13, Torricelli knew
that his supposition had been correct and that the column of mercury in the
tube and the column of water in the pump were owing to the pressure or
weight of the air.
Pascal thought that this pressure would be less at a high altitude. His
supposition was tested on a church steeple at Paris, and, later, on the Puy de
Dôme, a mountain in Auvergne. In the latter case a difference of three
inches in the column of mercury was shown at the summit and base of the
ascent. Later Pascal experimented with the siphon and succeeded in
explaining it on the principle of atmospheric pressure.
Torricelli in the space at the top of his barometer (pressure-gauge) had
produced what is called a Torricellian vacuum. Otto von Guericke, a
burgomaster of Magdeburg, who had traveled in France and Italy,
succeeded in constructing an air-pump by means of which air might be

exhausted from a vessel. Some of his results became widely known in 1657,
though his works were not published till 1673.
Robert Boyle (1626-1691), born at Castle Lismore in Ireland, was the
seventh son and fourteenth child of the distinguished first Earl of Cork. He
was early acquainted with these various experiments in reference to the air,
as well as with Descartes' theory that air is nothing but a congeries or heap
of small, and, for the most part, flexible particles. In 1659 he wrote his New
Experiments Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring of the Air. Instead of
spring, he at times used the word elater (ἐλατὴρ). In this treatise he
describes experiments with the improved air-pump constructed at his
suggestion by his assistant, Robert Hooke.
One of Boyle's critics, a professor at Louvain, while admitting that air had
weight and elasticity, denied that these were sufficient to account for the
results ascribed to them. Boyle thereupon published a Defence of the
Doctrine touching the Spring and Weight of the Air. He felt able to prove
that the elasticity of the air could under circumstances do far more than
sustain twenty-nine or thirty inches of mercury. In support of his view he
cited a recent experiment.
He had taken a piece of strong glass tubing fully twelve feet in length. (The
experiment was made by a well-lighted staircase, the tube being suspended
by strings.) The glass was heated more than a foot from the lower end, and
bent so that the shorter leg of twelve inches was parallel with the longer.
The former was hermetically sealed at the top and marked off in forty-eight
quarter-inch spaces. Into the opening of the longer leg, also graduated,
mercury was poured. At first only enough was introduced to fill the arch, or
bent part of the tube below the graduated legs. The tube was then inclined
so that the air might pass from one leg to the other, and equality of pressure
at the start be assured. Then more mercury was introduced and every time
that the air in the shorter leg was compressed a half or a quarter of an inch,
a record was made of the height of the mercury in the long leg of the tube.
Boyle reasoned that the compressed air was sustaining the pressure of the
column of mercury in the long leg plus the pressure of the atmosphere at the
tube's opening, equivalent to 292⁄16 inches of mercury. Some of the results
were as follows: When the air in the short tube was compressed from 12 to
3 inches, it was under a pressure of 1179⁄16 inches of mercury; when

compressed to 4 it was under pressure of 8715⁄16 inches of mercury; when
compressed to 6, 5813⁄16; to 9, 395⁄8. Of course, when at the beginning of the
experiment there were 12 inches of air in the short tube, it was under the
pressure of the atmosphere, equal to that of 292⁄16 inches of mercury. Boyle
with characteristic caution was not inclined to draw too general a
conclusion from his experiment. However, it was evident, making
allowance for some slight irregularity in the experimental results, that air
reduced under pressure to one half its original volume, doubles its
resistance; and that if it is further reduced to one half,—for example, from
six to three inches,—it has four times the resistance of common air. In fact,
Boyle had sustained the hypothesis that supposes the pressures and
expansions to be in reciprocal proportions.

REFERENCES

Sir Robert S. Ball, Great Astronomers.
Robert Boyle, Works (edited by Thomas Birch).
Sir David Brewster, Martyrs of Science.
J. L. E. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe.
Sir Oliver Lodge, Pioneers of Science.
Flora Masson, Robert Boyle; a Biography.

CHAPTER VIII
COÖPERATION IN SCIENCE—THE ROYAL SOCIETY

The period from 1637 to 1687 affords a good illustration of the value for the
progress of science of the coöperation in the pursuit of truth of men of
different creeds, nationalities, vocations, and social ranks. At, or even
before, the beginning of that period the need of coöperation was indicated
by the activities of two men of pronouncedly social temperament and
interests, namely, the French Minim father, Mersenne, and the Protestant
Prussian merchant, Samuel Hartlib.
Mersenne was a stimulating and indefatigable correspondent. His letters to
Galileo, Jean Rey, Hobbes, Descartes, Gassendi, not to mention other
scientists and philosophers, constitute an encyclopedia of the learning of the
time. A mathematician and experimenter himself, he had a genius for
eliciting discussion and research by means of adroit questions. Through him
Descartes was drawn into debate with Hobbes, and with Gassendi, a
champion of the experimental method. Through him the discoveries of
Harvey, Galileo, and Torricelli, as well as of many others, became widely
known. His letters, in the dearth of scientific associations and the absence
of scientific periodicals, served as a general news agency among the learned
of his time. It is not surprising that a coterie gathered about him at Paris.
Hobbes spent months in daily intercourse with this group of scientists in the
winter of 1636-37.
Hartlib, though he scarcely takes rank with Mersenne as a scientist, was no
less influential. Of a generous and philanthropic disposition, he repeatedly
impoverished himself in the cause of human betterment. His chief reliance
was on education and improved methods of husbandry, but he resembled
Horace Greeley in his hospitality to any project for the public welfare.
One of Hartlib's chief hopes for the regeneration of England, if not of the
whole world, rested on the teachings of the educational reformer Comenius,
a bishop of the Moravian Brethren. In 1637, Comenius having shown

himself rather reluctant to put his most cherished plans before the public,
his zealous disciple precipitated matters, and on his own responsibility, and
unknown to Comenius, issued from his library at Oxford Preludes to the
Endeavors of Comenius. Besides Hartlib's preface it contained a treatise by
the great educator on a Seminary of Christian Pansophy, a method of
imparting an encyclopedic knowledge of the sciences and arts.
The two friends were followers of the Baconian philosophy. They were
influenced, as many others of the time, by the New Atlantis, which went
through ten editions between 1627 and 1670, and which outlined a plan for
an endowed college with thirty-six Fellows divided into groups—what
would be called to-day a university of research endowed by the State. It is
not surprising to find Comenius (who in his student days had been under the
influence of Alsted, author of an encyclopedia on Baconian lines) speaking
in 1638 on the need of a collegiate society for carrying on the educational
work that he himself had at heart.
In 1641 Hartlib published a work of fiction in the manner of the New
Atlantis, and dedicated it to the Long Parliament. In the same year he urged
Comenius to come to London, and published another work, A Reformation
of Schools. He had great influence and did not hesitate to use it in his
adoptive country. Everybody knew Hartlib, and he was acquainted with all
the strata of English society; for although his father had been a merchant,
first in Poland and later in Elbing, his mother was the daughter of the
Deputy of the English Company in Dantzic and had relatives of rank in
London, where Hartlib spent most of his life. He gained the good-will of the
Puritan Government, and even after Cromwell's death was working, in
conjunction with Boyle, for the establishment of a national council of
universal learning with Wilkins as president.
When Comenius arrived in London he learned that the invitation had been
sent by order of Parliament. This body was very anxious to take up the
question of education, especially university education. Bacon's criticisms of
Oxford and Cambridge were still borne in mind; the legislators considered
that the college curriculum was in need of reformation, that there ought to
be more fraternity and correspondence among the universities of Europe,
and they even contemplated the endowment by the State of scientific
experiment. They spoke of erecting a university at London, where Gresham

College had been established in 1597 and Chelsea College in 1610. It was
proposed to place Gresham College, the Savoy, or Winchester College, at
the disposition of the pansophists. Comenius thought that nothing was more
certain than that the design of the great Verulam concerning the opening
somewhere of a universal college, devoted to the advancement of the
sciences, could be carried out. The impending struggle, however, between
Charles I and the Parliament prevented the attempt to realize the pansophic
dream, and the Austrian Slav, who knew something of the horrors of civil
war, withdrew, discouraged, to the Continent.
Nevertheless, Hartlib did not abandon the cause, but in 1644 broached
Milton on the subject of educational reform, and drew from him the brief
but influential tract on Education. In this its author alludes rather slightingly
to Comenius, who had something of Bacon's infelicity in choice of titles
and epithets and who must have seemed outlandish to the author of Lycidas
and Comus. But Milton joined in the criticism of the universities—the study
of words rather than things—and advocated an encyclopedic education
based on the Greek and Latin writers of a practical and scientific tendency
(Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro, Vitruvius, Seneca, and others). He
outlined a plan for the establishment of an institution to be known by the
classical (and Shakespearian) name "Academy"—a plan destined to have a
great effect on education in the direction indicated by the friends of
pansophia.
In this same year Robert Boyle, then an eager student of eighteen just
returned to England from residence abroad, came under the influence of the
genial Hartlib. In 1646 he writes his tutor inquiring about books on methods
of husbandry and referring to the new philosophical college, which valued
no knowledge but as it had a tendency to use. A few months later he was in
correspondence with Hartlib in reference to the Invisible College, and had
written a third friend that the corner-stones of the invisible, or, as they
termed themselves, the philosophical college, did now and then honor him
with their company. These philosophers whom Boyle entertained, and
whose scientific acumen, breadth of mind, humility, and universal good-
will he found so congenial, were the nucleus of the Royal Society of
London, of which, on its definite organization in 1662, he was the foremost
member. They had begun to meet together in London about 1645, worthy
persons inquisitive into natural philosophy—Wilkins, interested in the

navigation of the air and of waters below the surface; Wallis, mathematician
and grammarian; the many-sided Petty, political economist, and inventor of
a double-bottomed boat, who had as a youth of twenty studied with Hobbes
in Paris in 1643, and in 1648 was to write his first treatise on industrial
education at the suggestion of Hartlib, and finally make a survey of Ireland
and acquire large estates; Foster, professor of astronomy at Gresham
College; Theodore Haak from the Pfalz; a number of medical men, Dr.
Merret, Dr. Ent, a friend of Harvey, Dr. Goddard, who could always be
relied upon to undertake an experiment, Dr. Glisson, the physiologist,
author in 1654 of a treatise on the liver (De Hepate), and others. They met
once a week at Goddard's in Wood Street, at the Bull's Head Tavern in
Cheapside, and at Gresham College.
Dr. Wilkins, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, who is regarded by some as
the founder of the Royal Society, removed to Oxford, as Warden of
Wadham, in 1649. Here he held meetings and conducted experiments in
conjunction with Wallis, Goddard, Petty, Boyle, and others, including Ward
(afterwards Bishop of Salisbury) interested in Bulliau's Astronomy; and the
celebrated physician and anatomist, Thomas Willis, author of a work on the
brain (Cerebri Anatome), and another on fevers (De Febribus), in which he
described epidemic typhoid as it occurred during the Civil War in 1643.
In the mean time the weekly meetings in London continued, and were
attended when convenient by members of the Oxford group. At Gresham
College by 1658 it was the custom to remain for discussion Wednesdays
and Thursdays after Mr. Wren's lecture and Mr. Rooke's. During the
unsettled state of the country after Cromwell's death there was some
interruption of the meetings, but with the accession of Charles II in 1660
there came a greater sense of security. New names appear on the records,
Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Moray, John Evelyn, Brereton, Ball, Robert
Hooke, and Abraham Cowley.

From a print of 1675
WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
Plans were discussed for a more permanent form of organization, especially
on November 28, 1660, when something was said of a design to found a
college for the promotion of physico-mathematical experimental learning. A
few months later was published Cowley's proposition for an endowed
college with twenty professors, four of whom should be constantly traveling
in the interests of science. The sixteen resident professors "should be bound
to study and teach all sorts of natural, experimental philosophy, to consist of
the mathematics, mechanics, medicine, anatomy, chemistry, the history of
animals, plants, minerals, elements, etc.; agriculture, architecture, art
military, navigation, gardening; the mysteries of all trades and improvement
of them; the facture of all merchandise, all natural magic or divination; and
briefly all things contained in the Catalogue of Natural Histories annexed to
my Lord Bacon's Organon." The early official history of the Royal Society
(Sprat, 1667) says that this proposal hastened very much the adoption of a
plan of organization. Cowley wished to educate youth and incur great

expense (£4,000), but "most of the other particulars of his draught the Royal
Society is now putting in practice."
A charter of incorporation was granted in July, 1662; and, later, Charles II
proclaimed himself founder and patron of the Royal Society for the
advancement of natural science. Charles continued to take an interest in this
organization, devoted to the discovery of truth by the corporate action of
men; he proposed subjects for investigation, and asked their coöperation in
a more accurate measurement of a degree of latitude. He showed himself
tactful to take account of the democratic spirit of scientific investigation,
and recommended to the Royal Society John Graunt, the author of a work
on mortality statistics first published in 1661. Graunt was a shop-keeper of
London, and Charles said that if they found any more such tradesmen, they
should be sure to admit them all without more ado.
It was a recognized principle of the Society freely to admit men of different
religions, countries, professions. Sprat said that they openly professed, not
to lay the foundation of an English, Scotch, Irish, Popish or Protestant
philosophy, but a philosophy of mankind. They sought (hating war as most
of them did) to establish a universal culture, or, as they phrased it, a
constant intelligence throughout all civil nations. Even for the special
purposes of the Society, hospitality toward all nations was necessary; for
the ideal scientist, the perfect philosopher, should have the diligence and
inquisitiveness of the northern nations, and the cold and circumspect and
wary disposition of the Italians and Spaniards. Haak from the German
Palatinate was one of the earliest Fellows of the Society, and is even
credited by Wallis with being the first to suggest the meetings of 1645.
Oldenburg from Bremen acted as secretary (along with Wilkins) and carried
on an extensive foreign correspondence. Huygens of Holland was one of
the original Fellows in 1663, while the names of Auzout, Sorbière, the Duke
of Brunswick, Bulliau, Cassini, Malpighi, Leibnitz, Leeuwenhoek (as well
as Winthrop and Roger Williams) appear in the records of the Society
within the first decade. It seemed fitting that this cosmopolitan organization
should be located in the world's metropolis rather than in a mere university
town. Sprat thought London the natural seat of a universal philosophy.
As already implied, the Royal Society was not exclusive in its attitude
toward the different vocations. A spirit of true fellowship prevailed in

Gresham College, as the Society was sometimes called. The medical
profession, the universities, the churches, the court, the army, the navy,
trade, agriculture, and other industries were there represented. Social
partition walls were broken down, and the Fellows, sobered by years of
political and religious strife, joined, mutually assisting one another, in the
advance of science for the sake of the common weal. Their express purpose
was the improvement of all professions from the highest general to the
lowest artisan. Particular attention was paid to the trades, the mechanic arts,
and the fostering of inventions. One of their eight committees dealt with the
histories of trades; another was concerned with mechanical inventions, and
the king ordained in 1662 that no mechanical device should receive a patent
before undergoing their scrutiny. A great many inventions emanated from
the Fellows themselves—Hooke's hygroscope; Boyle's hydrometer, of use
in the detection of counterfeit coin; and, again, the tablet anemometer used
by Sir Christopher Wren (the Leonardo da Vinci of his age) to register the
velocity of the wind. A third committee devoted itself to agriculture, and in
the Society's museum were collected products and curiosities of the shop,
mine, sea, etc. One Fellow advised that attention should be paid even to the
least and plainest of phenomena, as otherwise they might learn the romance
of nature rather than its true history. So bent were they on preserving a spirit
of simplicity and straightforwardness that in their sober discussions they
sought to employ the language of artisans, countrymen, and merchants
rather than that of wits and scholars.
Of course there was in the Society a predominance of gentlemen of means
and leisure, "free and unconfined." Their presence was thought to serve a
double purpose. It checked the tendency to sacrifice the search of truth to
immediate profit, and to lay such emphasis on application, as, in the words
of a subsequent president of the Society, would make truth, and wisdom,
and knowledge of no importance for their own sakes. In the second place
their presence was held to check dogmatism on the part of the leaders, and
subservience on the part of their followers. They understood how difficult it
is to transmit knowledge without putting initiative in jeopardy and that quiet
intellect is easily dismayed in the presence of bold speech. The Society
accepted the authority of no one, and adopted as its motto Nullius in Verba.
In this attitude they were aided by their subject and method. Search for
scientific truth by laboratory procedure does not favor dogmatism. The

early meetings were taken up with experiments and discussions. The
Fellows recognized that the mental powers are raised to a higher degree in
company than in solitude. They welcomed diversity of view and the
common-sense judgment of the onlooker. As in the Civil War the private
citizen had held his own with the professional soldier, so here the
contribution of the amateur to the discussion was not to be despised. They
had been taught to shun all forms of narrowness and intolerance. They
wished to avoid the pedantry of the mere scholar, and the allied states of
mind to which all individuals are liable; they valued the concurring
testimony of the well-informed assembly. In the investigation of truth by
the experimental method they even arrived at the view that "true
experimenting has this one thing inseparable from it, never to be a fixed and
settled art, and never to be limited by constant rules." In its incipience at
least it is evident that the Royal Society was filled with the spirit of
tolerance and coöperation, and was singularly free from the spirit of envy
and faction.
Not least important of the joint labors of the Society were its publications,
which established contacts and stimulated research throughout the scientific
world. Besides the Philosophical Transactions, which, since their first
appearance in 1665, are the most important source of information
concerning the development of modern science, the Royal Society printed
many important works, among which the following will indicate its early
achievements:—
Hooke, Robert, Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of
Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. 1665.
Graunt, John, Natural and Political Observations ... made upon the
Bills of Mortality, with reference to the Government, Religion,
Trade, Growth, Air, Diseases, and the several changes of the City.
3d edition, 1665.
Sprat, Thomas, The History of the Royal Society of London, for the
Improving of Natural Knowledge. 1667.
Malpighi, Marcello, Dissertatio epistolica de Bombyce; Societati
Regiæ Londini dicata. 1669. (On the silkworm.)

Evelyn, John, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees. 1670.
Horrocks, Jeremiah, Opera [Astronomica] postuma. 1673.
Malpighi, Marcello, Anatome Plantarum. 1675.
Willughby, Francis, Ornithology (revised by John Ray). 1676.
Evelyn, John, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the
Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation. 1676.
Grew, Nehemiah, The Anatomy of Plants. 1682.
Willughby, F., Historia Piscium. 1686.
Ray, John, Historia Plantarum. 2 vols., 1686-88.
Flamsteed, John, Tide-Table for 1687.
Newton, Isaac, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Autore
Is. Newton. Imprimatur: S. Pepys, Reg. Soc. Præses. Julii 5, 1686.
4to. Londini, 1687.
After the Society had ordered that Newton's Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy should be printed, it was found that the funds had been
exhausted by the publication of Willughby's book on fishes. It was
accordingly agreed that Halley should undertake the business of looking
after it, and printing it at his own charge, which he had engaged to do.
Shortly after, the President of the Royal Society, Mr. Samuel Pepys, was
desired to license Mr. Newton's book.
It was not merely by defraying the expense of publication that Halley
contributed to the success of the Principia. He, Wren, Hooke, and other
Fellows of the Royal Society, concluded in 1684 that if Kepler's third law
were true, then the attraction exerted on the different planets would vary
inversely as the square of the distance. What, then, would be the orbit of a
planet under a central attraction varying as the inverse square of the
distance? Halley found that Newton had already determined that the form of
the orbit would be an ellipse. Newton had been occupied with the problem
of gravitation for about eighteen years, but until Halley induced him to do

so, had hesitated, on account of certain unsettled points, to publish his
results.
He writes: "I began (1666) to think of gravity extending to the orb of the
moon, ... and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the moon in her
orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them
answer pretty nearly." As early as March of that same year Hooke had
communicated to the Society an account of experiments in reference to the
force of gravity at different distances from the surface of the earth, either
upwards or downwards. At this and at every point in Newton's discovery
the records of co-workers are to be found.
By Flamsteed, the first Royal Astronomer, were supplied more accurate
data for the determination of planetary orbits. To Huygens Newton was
indebted for the laws of centrifugal force. Two doubts had made his
meticulous mind pause—one, of the accuracy of the data in reference to the
measurement of the meridian, another, of the attraction of a spherical shell
upon an external point. In the first matter the Royal Society, as we have
seen, had been long interested, and Picard, who had worked on the
measurement of the earth under the auspices of the Académie des Sciences,
brought his results, which came to the attention of Newton, before the
Royal Society in 1672. The second difficulty was solved by Newton himself
in 1685, when he proved that a series of concentric spherical shells would
act on an external point as if their mass were concentrated at the center. For
his calculations henceforth the planets and stars, comets and all other bodies
are points acted on by lines of force, and "Every particle of matter in the
universe attracts every other particle with a force varying inversely as the
square of their mutual distances, and directly as the mass of the attracting
particle." He deduced from this law that the earth must be flattened at the
poles; he determined the orbit of the moon and of comets; he explained the
precession of the equinoxes, the semi-diurnal tides, the ratio of the mass of
the moon and the earth, of the sun and the earth, etc. No wonder that
Laplace considered that Newton's Principia was assured a preëminence
above all the other productions of the human intellect. It is no detraction
from Newton's merit to say that Halley, Hooke, Wren, Huygens, Bulliau,
Picard, and many other contemporaries (not to mention Kepler and his
predecessors), as well as the organizations in which they were units, share
the glory of the result which they coöperated to achieve. On the contrary, he

seems much more conspicuous in the social firmament because, in spite of
the austerity and seeming independence of his genius, he formed part of a
system, and was under its law.

Portrait by John Van der Bank
By permission of W. A. Maxwell & Co.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Shortly after the founding of the Royal Society, correspondence, for which
a committee was appointed, had been adopted as a means of gaining the
coöperation of men and societies elsewhere. Sir John Moray, as President,
wrote to Monsieur de Monmort, around whom, after the death of Mersenne,
the scientific coterie in Paris had gathered. This group of men, which
toward the close of the seventeenth century regarded itself, not unnaturally,
as the parent society, was in 1666 definitely organized as the Académie
Royale des Sciences. Finally, Leibnitz, who had been a Fellow of the Royal
Society as early as 1673, and had spent years in the service of the Dukes of
Brunswick, was instrumental in the establishment in 1700 of the Prussian
Akademie der Wissenschaften at Berlin.

REFERENCES

Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton.
E. Conradi, Learned Societies and Academies in Early Times, Pedagogical
Seminary, vol. xii (1905), pp. 384-426.
Abraham Cowley, A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental
Philosophy.
D. Masson, Life of Milton. Vol. iii, chap. ii.
Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London.
The Record of the Royal Society (third edition, 1912).

CHAPTER IX
SCIENCE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY—
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Of the Fellows of the Royal Society, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is the
most representative of that age of enlightenment which had its origin in
Newton's Principia. Franklin represents the eighteenth century in his
steadfast pursuit of intellectual, social, and political emancipation. And in
his long fight, calmly waged, against the forces of want, superstition, and
intolerance, such as still hamper the development of aspiring youth in
America, England, and elsewhere, he found science no mean ally.
There is some reason for believing that the Franklins (francus—free) were
of a free line, free from that vassalage to an overlord, which in the different
countries of Europe did not cease to exist with the Middle Ages. For
hundreds of years they had lived obscurely near Northampton. They had
early joined the revolt against the papal authority. For generations they were
blacksmiths and husbandmen. Franklin's great-grandfather had been
imprisoned for writing satirical verses about some provincial magnate. Of
the grandfather's four sons the eldest became a smith, but having some
ingenuity and scholarly ability turned conveyancer, and was recognized as
able and public-spirited. The other three were dyers. Franklin's father Josiah
and his Uncle Benjamin were nonconformists, and conceived the plan of
emigrating to America in order to enjoy their way of religion with freedom.
Benjamin, born at Boston, twenty-one years after his father's emigration,
was the youngest of ten sons, all of whom were eventually apprenticed to
trades. The father was a man of sound judgment who encouraged sensible
conversation in his home. Uncle Benjamin, who did not emigrate till much
later, showed interest in his precocious namesake. Both he and the maternal
grandfather expressed in verse dislike of war and intolerance, the one with
considerable literary skill, the other with a good deal of decent plainness
and manly freedom, as his grandson said.

Benjamin was intended as a tithe to the Church, but the plan was abandoned
because of lack of means to send him to college. After one year at the Latin
Grammar School, and one year at an arithmetic and writing school, for
better or worse, his education of that sort ceased; and at the age of ten he
began to assist in his father's occupation, now that of tallow-chandler and
soap-boiler. He wished to go to sea, and gave indications of leadership and
enterprise. His father took him to visit the shops of joiners, bricklayers,
turners, braziers, cutlers, and other artisans, thus stimulating in him a
delight in handicraft. Finally, because of a bookish turn he had been
exhibiting, the boy was bound apprentice to his brother James, who about
1720 began to publish the New England Courant, the fourth newspaper to
be established in America.
Among the books early read by Benjamin Franklin were The Pilgrim's
Progress, certain historical collections, a book on navigation, works of
Protestant controversy, Plutarch's Lives, filled with the spirit of Greek
freedom, Dr. Mather's Bonifacius, and Defoe's Essay on Projects. The last
two seemed to give him a way of thinking, to adopt Franklin's phraseology,
that had an influence on some of the principal events of his life. Defoe, an
ardent nonconformist, educated in one of the Academies (established on
Milton's model) and especially trained in English and current history,
advocated among other projects a military academy, an academy for
improving the vernacular, and an academy for women. He thought it
barbarous that a civilized and Christian country should deny the advantages
of learning to women. They should be brought to read books and especially
history. Defoe could not think that God Almighty had made women so
glorious, with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all
to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves.
Benjamin still had a hankering for the sea, but he recognized in the
printing-office and access to books other means of escape from the
narrowness of the Boston of 1720. Between him and another bookish boy,
John Collins, arose an argument in reference to the education of women.
The argument took the form of correspondence. Josiah Franklin's judicious
criticism led Benjamin to undertake the well-known plan of developing his
literary style.

Passing over his reading of the Spectator, however, it is remarkable how
soon his mind sought out and assimilated its appropriate nourishment,
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, which began the modern
epoch in psychology; the Port Royal Logic, prepared by that brilliant group
of noble Catholics about Pascal; the works of Locke's disciple Collins,
whose Discourse on Freethinking appeared in 1713; the ethical writings
(1708-1713) of Shaftesbury, who defended liberty and justice, and detested
all persecution. A few pages of translation of Xenophon's Memorabilia gave
him a hint as to Socrates' manner of discussion, and he made it his own, and
avoided dogmatism.
Franklin rapidly became expert as a printer, and early contributed articles to
the paper. His brother, however, to whom he had been bound apprentice for
a period of nine years, humiliated and beat him. Benjamin thought that the
harsh and tyrannical treatment he received at this time was the means of
impressing him with that aversion to arbitrary power that stuck to him
through his whole life. He had a strong desire to escape from his bondage,
and, after five years of servitude, found the opportunity. James Franklin, on
account of some offensive utterances in the New England Courant, was
summoned before the Council and sent to jail for one month, during which
time Benjamin, in charge of the paper, took the side of his brother and made
bold to give the rulers some rubs. Later, James was forbidden to publish the
paper without submitting to the supervision of the Secretary oProvince. To
evade the difficulty the New England Courant was published in Benjamin's
name, James announcing his own retirement. In fear that this subterfuge
might be challenged, he gave Benjamin a discharge of his indentures, but at
the same time signed with him a new secret contract. Fresh quarrels arose
between the brothers, however, and Benjamin, knowing that the editor
dared not plead before court the second contract, took upon himself to
assert his freedom, a step which he later regretted as not dictated by the
highest principle.
Unable to find other employment in Boston, condemned by his father's
judgment in the matter of the contract, somewhat under public criticism
also for his satirical vein and heterodoxy, Franklin determined to try his
fortunes elsewhere. Thus, at the age of seventeen he made his escape from
Boston.

Unable to find work in New York, he arrived after some difficulties in
Philadelphia in October, 1723. He had brought no recommendations from
Boston; his supply of money was reduced to one Dutch dollar and a shilling
in copper. But he that hath a Trade hath an Estate (as Poor Richard says).
His capital was his industry, his skill as a printer, his good-will, his shrewd
powers of observation, his knowledge of books, and ability to write.
Franklin, recognized as a promising young man by the Governor, Sir
William Keith, as previously by Governor Burnet of New York, had a
growing sense of personal freedom and self-reliance.
But increased freedom for those who deserve it means increased
responsibility; for it implies the possibility of error. Franklin, intent above
all on the wise conduct of life, was deeply perturbed in his nineteenth and
twentieth years by a premature engagement, in which his ever-passionate
nature had involved him, by his failure to pay over money collected for a
friend, and by the unsettled state of his religious and ethical beliefs.
Encouraged by Keith to purchase the equipment for an independent
printing-office, Franklin, though unable to gain his father's support for the
project, went to London (for the ostensible purpose of selecting the stock) at
the close of the year 1724.
He remained in London a year and a half, working in two of the leading
printing establishments of the metropolis, where his skill and reliability
were soon prized. He found the English artisans of that time great guzzlers
of beer, and influenced some of his co-workers to adopt his own more
abstinent and hygienic habits of eating and drinking. About this time a
book, Religion of Nature Delineated, by William Wollaston (great-
grandfather of the scientist Wollaston) so roused Franklin's opposition that
he wrote a reply, which he printed in pamphlet form before leaving London
in 1726, and the composition of which he afterwards regretted.
He returned to Philadelphia in the employ of a Quaker merchant, on whose
death he resumed work as printer under his former employer. He was given
control of the office, undertook to make his own type, contrived a copper-
plate press, the first in America, and printed paper money for New Jersey.
The substance of some lectures in defense of Christianity, in courses
endowed by the will of Robert Boyle, made Franklin a Deist. At the same
time his views on moral questions were clarified, and he came to recognize

that truth, sincerity, and integrity were of the utmost importance to the
felicity of life. What he had attained by his own independent thought
rendered him ultimately more careful rather than more reckless. He now set
value on his own character, and resolved to preserve it.
In 1727, still only twenty-one, he drew together a number of young men in
a sort of club, called the "Junto," for mutual benefit in business and for the
discussion of morals, politics, and natural philosophy. They professed
tolerance, benevolence, love of truth. They discussed the effect on business
of the issue of paper money, various natural phenomena, and kept a sharp
look-out for any encroachment on the rights of the people. It is not
unnatural to find that in a year or two (1729), after Franklin and a friend
had established a printing business of their own and acquired the
Pennsylvania Gazette, the young politician championed the cause of the
Massachusetts Assembly against the claims first put forward by Governor
Burnet, and that he used spirited language referring to America as a nation
and clime foreign to England.
In 1730 Franklin bought out his partner, and in the same year published
dialogues in the Socratic manner in reference to virtue and pleasure, which
show a rapid development in his general views. About the same time he
married, restored the money that had long been owing, and formulated his
ethical code and religious creed. He began in 1732 the Poor Richard
Almanacks, said to offer in their homely wisdom the best course in
existence in practical morals.
As early as 1729 Franklin had published a pamphlet on Paper Currency. It
was a well-reasoned discussion on the relation of the issue of paper
currency to rate of interest, land values, manufactures, population, and
wages. The want of money discouraged laboring and handicraftsmen. One
must consider the nature and value of money in general. This essay
accomplished its purpose in the Assembly. It was the first of those
contributions which, arising from Franklin's consideration of the social and
industrial circumstances of the times, gained for him recognition as the first
American economist. It was in the same spirit that in 1751 he discussed the
question of population after the passage of the British Act forbidding the
erection or the operation of iron or steel mills in the colonies. Science for
Franklin was no extraneous interest; he was all of a piece, and it was as a

citizen of Philadelphia he wrote those essays that commanded the attention
of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Turgot.
In 1731 he was instrumental in founding the first of those public libraries,
which (along with a free press) have made American tradesmen and farmers
as intelligent, in Franklin's judgment, as most gentlemen from other
countries, and contributed to the spirit with which they defended their
liberties. The diffusion of knowledge became so general in the colonies that
in 1766 Franklin was able to tell the English legislators that the seeds of
liberty were universally found there and that nothing could eradicate them.
Franklin became clerk of the General Assembly and postmaster, improved
the paving and lighting of the city streets, and established the first fire
brigade and the first police force in America. Then in 1743 in the same
spirit of public beneficence Franklin put forth his Proposal for Promoting
Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America. It outlines his
plan for the establishment of the American Philosophical Society.
Correspondence had already been established with the Royal Society of
London. It is not difficult to see in Franklin the same spirit that had
animated Hartlib, Boyle, Petty,[2] Wilkins, and their friends one hundred
years before. In fact, Franklin was the embodiment of that union of
scientific ideas and practical skill in the industries that with them was
merely a pious wish.
In this same year of 1743 an eclipse of the moon, which could not be seen
at Philadelphia on account of a northeast storm, was yet visible at Boston,
where the storm came, as Franklin learned from his brother, about an hour
after the time of observation. Franklin, who knew something of fireplaces,
explained the matter thus: "When I have a fire in my chimney, there is a
current of air constantly flowing from the door to the chimney, but the
beginning of the motion was at the chimney." So in a mill-race, water
stopped by a gate is like air in a calm. When the gate is raised, the water
moves forward, but the motion, so to speak, runs backward. Thus the
principle was established in meteorology that northeast storms arise to the
southwest.
No doubt Franklin was not oblivious of the practical value of this discovery,
for, as Sir Humphry Davy remarked, he in no instance exhibited that false
dignity, by which philosophy is kept aloof from common applications. In

fact, Franklin was rather apologetic in reference to the magic squares and
circles, with which he sometimes amused his leisure, as a sort of ingenious
trifling. At the very time that the question of the propagation of storms
arose in his mind he had contrived the Pennsylvania fireplace, which was to
achieve cheap, adequate, and uniform heating for American homes. His
aspiration was for a free people, well sheltered, well fed, well clad, well
instructed.
In 1747 Franklin made what is generally considered his chief contribution
to science. One of his correspondents, Collinson (a Fellow of the Royal
Society and a botanist interested in useful plants, through whom the vine
was introduced into Virginia), had sent to the Library Company at
Philadelphia one of the recently invented Leyden jars with instructions for
its use. Franklin, who had already seen similar apparatus at Boston, and his
friends, set to work experimenting. For months he had leisure for nothing
else. In this sort of activity he had a spontaneous and irrepressible delight.
By March, 1747, they felt that they had made discoveries, and in July, and
subsequently, Franklin reported results to Collinson. He had observed that a
pointed rod brought near the jar was much more efficacious than a blunt rod
in drawing off the charge; also that if a pointed rod were attached to the jar,
the charge would be thrown off, and accumulation of charge prevented.
Franklin, moreover, found that the nature of the charges on the inside and
on the outside of the glass was different. He spoke of one as plus and the
other as minus. Again, "We say B (and bodies like-circumstanced) is
electricized positively; A negatively." Dufay had recognized two sorts of
electricity, obtained by rubbing a glass rod and a stick of resin, and had
spoken of them as vitreous and resinous. For Franklin electricity was a
single subtle fluid, and electrical manifestations were owing to the degree
of its presence, to interruption or restoration of equilibrium.
His mind, however, was bent on the use, the applications, the inventions, to
follow. He contrived an "electric jack driven by two Leyden jars and
capable of carrying a large fowl with a motion fit for roasting before a fire."
He also succeeded in driving an "automatic" wheel by electricity, but he
regretted not being able to turn his discoveries to greater account.
He thought later—in 1748—that there were many points of similarity
between lightning and the spark from a Leyden jar, and suggested an

experiment to test the identity of their natures. The suggestion was acted
upon at Marly in France. An iron rod about forty feet long and sharp at the
end was placed upright in the hope of drawing electricity from the storm-
clouds. A man was instructed to watch for storm-clouds, and to touch a
brass wire, attached to a glass bottle, to the rod. The conditions seemed
favorable May 10, 1752; sparks between the wire and rod and a
"sulphurous" odor were perceived (the manifestations of wrath!). Franklin's
well-known kite experiment followed. In 1753 he received from the Royal
Society a medal for the identification and control of the forces of lightning;
subsequently he was elected Fellow, became a member of the Académie des
Sciences, and of other learned bodies. By 1782 there were as many as four
hundred lightning rods in use in Philadelphia alone, though some
conservative people regarded their employment as impious. Franklin's
good-will, clearness of conception, and common sense triumphed
everywhere.
One has only to recall that in 1753 he (along with Hunter) was in charge of
the postal service of the colonies, that in 1754 as delegate to the Albany
Convention he drew up the first plan for colonial union, and that in the
following year he furnished Braddock with transportation for the expedition
against Fort Duquesne, to realize the distractions amid which he pursued
science. In 1748 he had sold his printing establishment with the purpose of
devoting himself to physical experiment, but the conditions of the time
saved him from specialization.
In 1749 he drew up proposals relating to the education of youth in
Pennsylvania, which led, two years later, to the establishment of the first
American Academy. His plan was so advanced, so democratic, springing as
it did from his own experience, that no secondary school has yet taken full
advantage of its wisdom. The school, chartered in 1753, grew ultimately
into the University of Pennsylvania. Moreover, it became the prototype of
thousands of schools, which departed from the Latin Grammar Schools and
the Colleges by the introduction of the sciences and practical studies into
the curriculum.
Franklin deserves mention not only in connection with economics,
meteorology, practical ethics, electricity, and pedagogy; his biographer
enumerates nineteen sciences to which he made original contributions or

which he advanced by intelligent criticism. In medicine he invented bifocal
lenses and founded the first American public hospital; in navigation he
studied the Gulf Stream and waterspouts, and suggested the use of oil in
storms and the construction of ships with water-tight compartments; in
agriculture he experimented with plaster of Paris as a fertilizer and
introduced in America the use of rhubarb; in chemistry he aided Priestley's
experiments by information in reference to marsh gas. He foresaw the
employment of air craft in war. Thinking the English slow to take up the
interest in balloons, he wrote that we should not suffer pride to prevent our
progress in science. Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt, as Poor
Richard says. When it was mentioned in his presence that birds fly in
inclined planes, he launched a half sheet of paper to indicate that his
previous observations had prepared his mind to respond readily to the
discovery. His quickness and versatility made him sought after by the best
intellects of Europe.
I pass over his analysis of mesmerism, his conception of light as dependent
(like lightning) on a subtle fluid, his experiments with colored cloths, his
view of the nature of epidemic colds, interest in inoculation for smallpox, in
ventilation, vegetarianism, a stove to consume its own smoke, the
steamboat, and his own inventions (clock, harmonica, etc.), for which he
refused to take out patents.
However, from the many examples of his scientific acumen I select one
more. As early as 1747 he had been interested in geology and had seen
specimens of the fossil remains of marine shells from the strata of the
highest parts of the Alleghany Mountains. Later he stated that either the sea
had once stood at a higher level, or that these strata had been raised by the
force of earthquakes. Such convulsions of nature are not wholly injurious,
since, by bringing a great number of strata of different kinds today, they
have rendered the earth more fit for use, more capable of being to mankind
a convenient and comfortable habitation. He thought it unlikely that a great
bouleversement should happen if the earth were solid to the center. Rather
the surface of the globe was a shell resting on a fluid of very great specific
gravity, and was thus capable of being broken and disordered by violent
movement. As late as 1788 Franklin wrote his queries and conjectures
relating to magnetism and the theory of the earth. Did the earth become
magnetic by the development of iron ore? Is not magnetism rather

interplanetary and interstellar? May not the near passing of a comet of
greater magnetic force than the earth have been a means of changing its
poles and thereby wrecking and deranging its surface, and raising and
depressing the sea level?
We are not here directly concerned with his political career, in his checking
of governors and proprietaries, in his activities as the greatest of American
diplomats, as the signer of the Declaration of Independence, of the Treaty of
Versailles, and of the American Constitution, nor as the president of the
Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in his eightieth, eighty-first,
and eighty-second years. When he was eighty-four, as president of the
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, he signed a petition to
Congress against that atrocious debasement of human nature, and six weeks
later, within a few weeks of his death, defended the petition with his
accustomed vigor, humor, wisdom, and ardent love of liberty. Turgot wittily
summed up Franklin's career by saying that he had snatched the lightning
from the heavens and the scepter from the hands of tyrants (eripuit cɶlo
fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis); for both his political and scientific activities
sprang from the same impelling emotion—hatred of the exercise of
arbitrary power and desire for human welfare. It is no wonder that the
French National Assembly, promulgators of the Rights of Man, paused in
their labors to pay homage to the simple citizen, who, representing America
in Paris from his seventy-first till his eightieth year, had by his wisdom and
urbanity illustrated the best fruits of an instructed democracy.

REFERENCES

American Philosophical Society, Record of the Celebration of the Two
Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Benjamin Franklin.
S. G. Fisher, The True Benjamin Franklin.
Paul L. Ford, Many-sided Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin, Complete Works, edited by A. H. Smyth, ten volumes,
vol. x containing biography.

FOOTNOTES:
[2] See The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of some
Particular Parts of Learning, in which is advocated a Gymnasium Mechanicum
or a College of Tradesmen with fellowships for experts. Petty wanted trade
encyclopedias prepared, and hoped for inventions in abundance.

CHAPTER X
THE INTERACTION OF THE SCIENCES—WERNER,
HUTTON, BLACK, HALL, WILLIAM SMITH

The view expressed by Franklin regarding the existence of a fiery mass
underlying the crust of the earth was not in his time universally accepted. In
fact, it was a question very vigorously disputed what part the internal or
volcanic fire played in the formation and modification of rock masses.
Divergent views were represented by men who had come to the study of
geology with varying aims and diverse scientific schooling, and the advance
of the science of the earth's crust was owing in no small measure to the
interaction of the different sciences which the exponents of the various
points of view brought to bear.
Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817) was the most conspicuous and
influential champion on the side of the argument opposed to the acceptance
of volcanic action as one of the chief causes of geologic formations. He was
born in Saxony and came of a family which had engaged for three hundred
years in mining and metal working. They were active in Saxony when
George Agricola prepared his famous works on metallurgy and mineralogy
inspired by the traditional wisdom of the local iron industry. Werner's father
was an overseer of iron-works, and furnished his son with mineral
specimens as playthings before the child could pronounce their names. In
1769 Werner was invited to attend the newly founded Bergakademie
(School of Mines) at Freiberg. Three years later he went to the University of
Leipzig, but, true to his first enthusiasm, wrote in 1774 concerning the
outward characteristics of minerals (Von den äusserlichen Kennzeichen der
Fossilien). The next year he was recalled to Freiberg as teacher of
mineralogy and curator of collections. He was intent on classification, and
might be compared in that respect with the naturalist Buffon, or the botanist
Linnæus. He knew that chemistry afforded a surer, but slower, procedure;
his was a practical, intuitive, field method. He observed the color, the
hardness, weight, fracture of minerals, and experienced the joy the youthful

mind feels in rapid identification. He translated Cronstedt's book on
mineralogy descriptive of the practical blow-pipe tests. After the
identification of minerals, Werner was interested in their discovery, the
location of deposits, their geographical distribution, and the relative
positions of different kinds of rocks, especially the constant juxtaposition or
superposition of one stratum in relation to another.
Werner was an eloquent, systematic teacher with great charm of manner. He
kept in mind the practical purposes of mining, and soon people flocked to
Freiberg to hear him from all the quarters of Europe. He had before long
disciples in every land. He saw all phenomena from the standpoint of the
geologist. He knew the medicinal, as well as the economic, value of
minerals. He knew the relation of the soil to the rocks, and the effects of
both on racial characteristics. Building-stone determines style of
architecture. Mountains and river-courses have bearing on military tactics.
He turned his linguistic knowledge to account and furnished geology with a
definite nomenclature. Alex. v. Humboldt, Robert Jameson, D'Aubuisson,
Weiss (the teacher of Froebel), were among his students. Crystallography
and mineralogy became the fashion. Goethe was among the enthusiasts, and
philosophers like Schelling, under the spell of the new science, almost
deified the physical universe.
Werner considered all rocks as having originated by crystallization, either
chemical or mechanical, from an aqueous solution—a universal primitive
ocean. He was a Neptunist, as opposed to the Vulcanists or Plutonists, who
believed in the existence of a central fiery mass. Werner thought that the
earth showed universal strata like the layers of an onion, the mountains
being formed by erosion, subsidence, cavings-in. In his judgment granite
was a primitive rock formed previous to animal and vegetable life (hence
without organic remains) by chemical precipitation. Silicious slate was
formed later by mechanical crystallization. At this period organized fossils
first appear. Sedimentary rocks, like old red sandstone, and, according to
Werner, basalt, are in a third class. Drift, sand, rubble, boulders, come next;
and finally volcanic products, like lava, ashes, pumice. He was quite
positive that all basalt was of aqueous origin and of quite recent formation.
This part of his teaching was soon challenged. He was truer to his own
essential purposes in writing a valuable treatise on metalliferous veins (Die
Neue Theorie der Erzgänge), but even there his general views are apparent,

for he holds that veins are clefts filled in from above by crystallization from
aqueous solution.
Before Werner had begun his teaching career at Freiberg, Desmarest, the
French geologist, had made a special study of the basalts of Auvergne. As a
mathematician he was able to make a trigonometrical survey of that district,
and constructed a map showing the craters of volcanoes of different ages,
the streams of lava following the river courses, and the relation of basalt to
lava, scoria, ashes, and other recognized products of volcanic action. In
1788 he was made inspector-general of French manufactures, later
superintendent of the porcelain works at Sèvres. He lived to the age of
ninety, and whenever Neptunists would try to draw him into argument, the
old man would simply say, "Go and see."
James Hutton (1726-1797), the illustrious Scotch geologist, had something
of the same aversion to speculation that did not rest on evidence; though he
was eminently a philosopher in the strictest sense of the word, as his three
quarto volumes on the Principles of Knowledge bear witness. Hutton was
well trained at Edinburgh in the High School and University. In a lecture on
logic an illustrative reference to aqua regia turned his mind to the study of
chemistry. He engaged in experiments, and ultimately made a fortune by a
process for the manufacture of sal ammoniac from coal-soot. In the mean
time he studied medicine at Edinburgh, Paris, and Leyden, and continued
the pursuit of chemistry. Then, having inherited land in Berwickshire, he
studied husbandry in Norfolk and took interest in the surface of the land and
water-courses; later he pursued these studies in Flanders. During years of
highly successful farming, during which Hutton introduced new methods in
Berwickshire, he was interested in meteorology, and in geology as related to
soils. In 1768, financially independent, Dr. Hutton retired to reside in
Edinburgh.
He was very genial and sociable and was in close association with Adam
Smith, the economist, and with Black, known in the history of chemistry in
connection with carbonic acid, latent heat, and experiments in magnesia,
quicklime, and other alkaline substances (1777). Playfair, professor of
mathematics, and later of natural philosophy, was Hutton's disciple and
intimate friend. In the distinguished company of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, established in 1782, the founder of dynamic geology was

stimulated by these and other distinguished men like William Robertson,
Lord Kames, and Watt. The first volume of the Transactions contains his
Theory of Rains, and the first statement of his famous Theory of the Earth.
He was very broad-minded and enthusiastic and would rejoice in Watt's
improvements of the steam engine or Cook's discoveries in the South
Pacific. Without emphasizing his indebtedness to Horace-Bénédict de
Saussure, physicist, geologist, meteorologist, botanist, who gave to
Europeans an appreciation of the sublime in nature, nor dwelling further on
the range of Hutton's studies in language, general physics, etc., it is already
made evident that his mind was such as to afford comprehensiveness of
view.
He expressed the wish to induce men who had sufficient knowledge of the
particular branches of science, to employ their acquired talents in promoting
general science, or knowledge of the great system, where ends and means
are wisely adjusted in the constitution of the material universe. Philosophy,
he says, is surely the ultimate end of human knowledge, or the object at
which all sciences properly must aim. Sciences no doubt should promote
the arts of life; but, he proceeds, what are all the arts of life, or all the
enjoyments of mere animal nature, compared with the art of human
happiness, gained by education and brought to perfection by philosophy?
Man must learn to know himself; he must see his station among created
things; he must become a moral agent. But it is only by studying things in
general that he may arrive at this perfection of his nature. "To philosophize,
therefore, without proper science, is in vain; although it is not vain to
pursue science, without proceeding to philosophy."
In the early part of 1785 Dr. Hutton presented his Theory of the Earth in
ninety-six pages of perfectly lucid English. The globe is studied as a
machine adapted to a certain end, namely, to provide a habitable world for
plants, for animals, and, above all, for intellectual beings capable of the
contemplation and the appreciation of order and harmony. Hutton's theory
might be made plain by drawing an analogy between geological and
meteorological activities. The rain descends on the earth; streams and rivers
bear it to the sea; the aqueous vapors, drawn from the sea, supply the
clouds, and the circuit is complete. Similarly, the soil is formed from the
overhanging mountains; it is washed as sediment into the sea; it is elevated,
after consolidation, into the overhanging mountains. The earth is more than

a mechanism, it is an organism that repairs and restores itself in perpetuity.
Thus Hutton explained the composition, dissolution, and restoration of land
upon the globe on a general principle, even as Newton had brought a mass
of details under the single law of gravitation.
Again, as Newton had widened man's conception of space, so Hutton (and
Buffon) enlarged his conception of time. For the geologist did not undertake
to explain the origin of things; he found no vestige of a beginning,—no
prospect of an end; and at the same time he conjured up no hypothetical
causes, no catastrophes, or sudden convulsions of nature; neither did he
(like Werner) believe that phenomena now present, were once absent; but
he undertook to explain all geological change by processes in action now as
heretofore. Countless ages were requisite to form the soil of our smiling
valleys, but "Time, which measures everything in our idea, and is often
deficient to our schemes, is to nature endless and as nothing." The
calcareous remains of marine animals in the solid body of the earth bear
witness of a period to which no other species of chronology is able to
remount.
Hutton's imagination, on the basis of what can be observed to-day, pictured
the chemical and mechanical disintegration of the rocks; and saw ice-
streams bearing huge granite boulders from the declivities of primitive and
more gigantic Alps. He believed (as Desmarest) that rivulets and rivers have
constructed, and are constructing, their own valley systems, and that the
denudation ever in progress would be eventually fatal to the sustenance of
plant and animal and man, if the earth were not a renewable organism, in
which repair is correlative with waste.
All strata are sedimentary, consolidated at the bottom of the sea by the
pressure of the water and by subterranean heat. How are strata raised from
the ocean bed? By the same subterranean force that helped consolidate
them. The power of heat for the expansion of bodies, is, says Hutton
(possibly having in mind the steam engine), so far as we know, unlimited.
We see liquid stone pouring from the crater of a lofty volcano and casting
huge rocks into mid-air, and yet find it difficult to believe that Vesuvius and
Etna themselves have been formed by volcanic action. The interior of the
planet may be a fluid mass, melted, but unchanged by the action of heat.

The volcanoes are spiracles or safety-valves, and are widely distributed on
the surface of the earth.
Hutton believed that basalt, and the whinstones generally, are of igneous
origin. Moreover, he put granite in the same category, and believed it had
been injected, as also metalliferous veins, in liquid state into the stratified
rocks. If his supposition were correct, then granite would be found sending
out veins from its large masses to pierce the stratified rocks and to crop out
where stratum meets stratum. His conjecture was corroborated at Glen Tilt
(and in the island of Arran). Hutton was so elated at the verification of his
view that the Scotch guides thought he had struck gold, or silver at the very
least. In the bed of the river Tilt he could see at six points within half a mile
powerful veins of red granite piercing the black micaceous schist and giving
every indication of having been intruded from beneath, with great violence,
into the earlier formation.
Hutton felt confirmed in his view that in nature there is wisdom, system,
and consistency. Even the volcano and earthquake, instead of being
accidents, or arbitrary manifestations of divine wrath, are part of the
economy of nature, and the best clue we have to the stupendous force
necessary to heave up the strata, inject veins of metals and igneous rocks,
and insure a succession of habitable worlds.
In 1795 Dr. Hutton published a more elaborate statement of his theory in
two volumes. In 1802 Playfair printed Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory,
a simplification, having, naturally, little originality. Before his death in 1797
Hutton devoted his time to reading new volumes by Saussure on the Alps,
and to preparing a book on The Elements of Agriculture.
Sir James Hall of Dunglass was a reluctant convert to Hutton's system of
geology. Three arguments against the Huttonian hypothesis gave him cause
for doubt. Would not matter solidifying after fusion form a glass, a vitreous,
rather than a crystalline product? Why do basalts, whinstones, and other
supposedly volcanic rocks differ so much in structure from lava? How can
marble and other limestones have been fused, seeing that they are readily
calcined by heat? Hutton thought that the compression under which the
subterranean heat had been applied was a factor in the solution of these
problems. He was encouraged in this view by Black, who, as already

implied, had made a special study of limestone and had demonstrated that
lime acquires its causticity through the expulsion of carbonic acid.
Hall conjectured in addition that the rate at which the fused mass cooled
might have some bearing on the structure of igneous rocks. An accident in
the Leith glass works strengthened the probability of his conjecture and
encouraged him to experiment. A pot of green bottle-glass had been allowed
to cool slowly with the result that it had a stony, rather than a vitreous
structure. Hall experimenting with glass could secure either structure at will
by cooling rapidly or slowly, and that with the same specimen.
He later enclosed some fragments of whinstone in a black-lead crucible and
subjected it to intense heat in the reverberating furnace of an iron foundry.
(He was in consultation with Mr. Wedgwood on the scale of heat, and with
Dr. Hope and Dr. Kennedy, chemists.) After boiling, and then cooling
rapidly, the contents of the crucible proved a black glass. Hall repeated the
experiment, and cooled more slowly. The result was an intermediate
substance, neither glass nor whinstone—a sort of slag. Again he heated the
crucible in the furnace, and removed quickly to an open fire, which was
maintained some hours and then permitted to die out. The result in this case
was a perfect whinstone. Similar results were obtained with regular basalts
and different specimens of igneous rock.
Hall next experimented with lava from Vesuvius, Etna, Iceland, and
elsewhere, and found that it behaved like whinstone. Dr. Kennedy by
careful chemical analysis confirmed Hall's judgment of the similarity of
these two igneous products.
Still later Hall introduced chalk and powdered limestone into porcelain
tubes, gun barrels, and tubes bored in solid iron, which he sealed and
brought to very high temperatures. He obtained, by fusion, a crystalline
carbonate resembling marble. Under the high pressure in the tube the
carbonic acid was retained. By these and other experiments this doubting
disciple confirmed Hutton's theory, and became one of the great founders of
experimental geology.
It remained for William Smith (1769-1839), surveyor and engineer, to
develop that species of chronology that Hutton had ascribed to organic
remains in the solid strata, to arrange these strata in the order of time, and

thus to become the founder of historic geology. For this task his early
education might at first glance seem inadequate. His only schooling was
received in an elementary institution in Oxfordshire. He managed, however,
to acquire some knowledge of geometry, and at eighteen entered, as
assistant, a surveyor's office. He never attained any literary facility, and was
always more successful in conveying his observations by maps, drawings,
and conversation than by books.
However, he early began his collection of minerals and observed the
relation of the soil and the vegetation to the underlying rocks. Engaged at
the age of twenty-four in taking levelings for a canal, he noticed that the
strata were not exactly horizontal, but dipped to the east "like slices of
bread and butter," a phenomenon he considered of scientific significance. In
connection with his calling he had an opportunity of traveling to the north
of England and so extended the range of his observation, always
exceptionally alert. For six years he was engaged, as engineer, in the
construction of the Somerset Coal Canal, where he enlarged and turned to
practical account his knowledge of strata.
Collectors of fossils (as Lamarck afterwards called organic remains) were
surprised to find Smith able to tell in what formation their different
specimens had been found, and still more when he enunciated the view that
"whatever strata were to be found in any part of England the same remains
would be found in it and no other." Moreover, the same order of
superposition was constant among the strata, as Werner, of whom Smith
knew nothing, had indeed taught. Smith was able to dictate a Tabular View
of British Strata from coal to chalk with the characteristic fossils,
establishing an order that was found to obtain on the Continent of Europe as
well as in Britain.
He constructed geological maps of Somerset and fourteen other English
counties, to which the attention of the Board of Agriculture was called.
They showed the surface outcrops of strata, and were intended to be of
assistance in mining, roadmaking, canal construction, draining, and water
supply. It was at the time of William Smith's scientific discoveries that the
public interest in canal transportation was at its height in England, and his
study of the strata was a direct outcome of his professional activity. He
called himself a mineral surveyor, and he traveled many thousand miles

yearly in connection with his calling and his interest in the study of
geology. In 1815 he completed an extensive geological map of England, on
which all subsequent geological maps have been modeled. It took into
account the collieries, mines, canals, marshes, fens, and the varieties of soil
in relation to the substrata.
Later (1816-1819) Smith published four volumes, Strata Identified by
Organized Fossils, which put on record some of his extensive observations.
His mind was practical and little given to speculation. It does not lie in our
province here to trace his influence on Cuvier and other scientists, but to
add his name as a surveyor and engineer to the representatives of
mineralogy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and various
industries and vocations, which contributed to the early development of
modern geology.

REFERENCES

Sir A. Geikie, Founders of Geology.
James Hutton, Theory of the Earth.
Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology.
John Playfair, Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory.
K. A. v. Zittel, History of Geology and Palæontology.

CHAPTER XI
SCIENCE AND RELIGION—KANT, LAMBERT, LAPLACE,
SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL

Hutton had advanced the study of geology by concentrating attention on the
observable phenomena of the earth's crust, and turning away from
speculations about the origin of the world and the relation of this sphere to
other units of the cosmos. In the same century, however, other scientists and
philosophers were attracted by these very problems which seemed not to
promise immediate or demonstrative solution, and through their studies
they arrived at conclusions which profoundly affected the science, the
ethics, and the religion of the civilized world.
Whether religion be defined as a complex feeling of elation and humility—
a sacred fear—akin to the æsthetic sense of the sublime; or, as an
intellectual recognition of some high powers which govern us below—of
some author of all things, of some force social or cosmic which tends to
righteousness; or, as the outcrop of the moral life touched with light and
radiant with enthusiasm; or, as partaking of the nature of all these: it cannot
be denied that the eighteenth century contributed to its clarification and
formulation, especially through the efforts of the German philosopher,
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Yet it is not difficult to show that the
philosophy of Kant and of those associated with him was greatly influenced
by the science of the time, and that, in fact, in his early life he was a
scientist rather than a philosopher in the stricter sense. His General Natural
History and Theory of the Heavens, written at the age of thirty-one, enables
us to follow his transition from science to philosophy, and, more especially,
to trace the influence of his theory of the origin of the heavenly bodies on
his religious conceptions.
For part of this theory Kant was indebted to Thomas Wright of Durham
(1711-1786). Wright was the son of a carpenter, became apprenticed to a
watchmaker, went to sea, later became an engraver, a maker of
mathematical instruments, rose to affluence, wrote a book on navigation,

and was offered a professorship of navigation in the Imperial Academy of
St. Petersburg. It was in 1750 that he published, in the form of nine letters,
the work that stimulated the mind of Kant, An Original Theory or New
Hypothesis of the Universe. The author thought that the revelation of the
structure of the heavens naturally tended to propagate the principles of
virtue and vindicate the laws of Providence. He regarded the universe as an
infinity of worlds acted upon by an eternal Agent, and full of beings,
tending through their various states to a final perfection. Who, conscious of
this system, can avoid being filled with a kind of enthusiastic ambition to
contribute his atom toward the due admiration of its great and Divine
Author?
Wright discussed the nature of mathematical certainty and the various
degrees of moral probability proper for conjecture (thus pointing to a
distinction that ultimately became basal in the philosophy of Kant). When
he claimed that the sun is a vast body of blazing matter, and that the most
distant star is also a sun surrounded by a system of planets, he knew that he
was reasoning by analogy and not enunciating what is immediately
demonstrable. Yet this multitude of worlds opens out to us an immense field
of probation and an endless scene of hope to ground our expectation of an
ever future happiness upon, suitable to the native dignity of the awful Mind
which made and comprehended it.
The most striking part of Wright's Original Theory relates to the
construction of the Milky Way, which he thought analogous in form to the
rings of Saturn. From the center the arrangement of the systems and the
harmony of the movements could be discerned, but our solar system
occupies a section of the belt, and what we see of the creation gives but a
confused picture, unless by an effort of imagination we attain the right point
of view. The various cloudy stars or light appearances are nothing but a
dense accumulation of stars. What less than infinity can circumscribe them,
less than eternity comprehend them, or less than Omnipotence produce or
support them? He passes on to a discussion of time and space with regard to
the known objects of immensity and duration, and in the ninth letter says
that, granting the creation to be circular or orbicular, we can suppose in the
center of the whole an intelligent principle, the to-all-extending eye of
Providence, or, if the creation is real, and not merely ideal, a sphere of some
sort. Around this the suns keep their orbits harmoniously, all apparent

irregularities arising from our eccentric view. Moreover, space is sufficient
for many such systems.
Kant resembled his predecessor in his recognition of the bearing on moral
and religious conceptions of the study of the heavens and also in his
treatment of many astronomical details, sometimes merely adopting, more
frequently developing or modifying, the teachings of Wright. He held that
the stars constitute a system just as much as do the planets of our solar
system, and that other solar systems and other Milky Ways may have been
produced in the boundless fields of space. Indeed, he is inclined to identify
with the latter systems the small luminous elliptical areas in the heavens
reported by Maupertuis in 1742. Kant also accepted Wright's conjecture of a
central sun or globe and even made selection of one of the stars to serve in
that office, and taught that the stars consist like our sun of a fiery mass. One
cannot contemplate the world-structure without recognizing the excellent
orderliness of its arrangement, and perceiving the sure indications of the
hand of God in the completeness of its relations. Reason, he says in the
Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, refuses to believe it the work of chance. It
must have been planned by supreme wisdom and carried into effect by
Omnipotence.
Kant was especially stimulated by the analogy between the Milky Way and
the rings of Saturn. He did not agree with Wright that they, or the cloudy
areas, would prove to be stars or small satellites, but rather that both
consisted of vapor particles. Giving full scope to his imagination, he asks if
the earth as well as Saturn may not have been surrounded by a ring. Might
not this ring explain the supercelestial waters that gave such cause for
ingenuity to the medieval writers? Not only so, but, had such a vaporous
ring broken and been precipitated to the earth, it would have caused a
prolonged Deluge, and the subsequent rainbow in the heavens might very
well have been interpreted as an allusion to the vanished ring, and as a
promise. This, however, is not Kant's characteristic manner in supporting
moral and religious truth.
To account for the origin of the solar system, the German philosopher
assumes that at the beginning of all things the material of which the sun,
planets, satellites, and comets consist, was uncompounded, in its primary
elements, and filled the whole space in which the bodies formed out of it

now revolve. This state of nature seemed to be the very simplest that could
follow upon nothing. In a space filled in this way a state of rest could not
last for more than a moment. The elements of a denser kind would,
according to the law of gravitation, attract matter of less specific gravity.
Repulsion, as well as attraction, plays a part among the particles of matter
disseminated in space. Through it the direct fall of particles may be diverted
into a circular movement about the center toward which they are
gravitating.
Of course, in our system the center of attraction is the nucleus of the sun.
The mass of this body increases rapidly, as also its power of attraction. Of
the particles gravitating to it the heavier become heaped up in the center. In
falling from different heights toward this common focus the particles cannot
have such perfect equality of resistance that no lateral movements should be
set up. A general circulatory motion is in fact established ultimately in one
direction about the central mass, which receiving new particles from the
encircling current rotates in harmony with it.
Mutual interference in the particles outside the mass of the sun prevents all
accumulation except in one plane and that takes the form of a thin disk
continuous with the sun's equator. In this circulating vaporous disk about
the sun differences of density give rise to zones not unlike the rings of
Saturn. These zones ultimately contract to form planets, and as the planets
are thrown off from the central solar mass till an equilibrium is established
between the centripetal and centrifugal forces, so the satellites in turn are
formed from the planets. The comets are to be regarded as parts of the
system, akin to the planets, but more remote from the control of the
centripetal force of the sun. It is thus that Kant conceived the nebular
hypothesis, accounting (through the formation of the heavenly bodies from
a cloudy vapor similar to that still observable through the telescope) for the
revolution of the planets in one direction about the sun; the rotation of sun
and planets; the revolution and rotation of satellites; the comparative
densities of the heavenly bodies; the materials in the tails of comets; the
rings of Saturn, and other celestial phenomena. Newton, finding no matter
between the planets to maintain the community of their movements,
asserted that the immediate hand of God had instituted the arrangement
without the intervention of the forces of Nature. His disciple Kant now
undertook to explain an additional number of phenomena on mechanical

principles. Granted the existence of matter, he felt capable of tracing the
cosmic evolution, but at the same time he maintained and strengthened his
religious position, and did not assume (like Democritus and Epicurus)
eternal motion without a Creator or the coming together of atoms by
accident or haphazard.
It might be objected, he says, that Nature is sufficient unto itself; but
universal laws of the action of matter serve the plan of the Supreme
Wisdom. There is convincing proof of the existence of God in the very fact
that Nature, even in chaos, cannot proceed otherwise than regularly and
according to law. Even in the essential properties of the elements that
constituted the chaos, there could be traced the mark of that perfection
which they have derived from their origin, their essential character being a
consequence of the eternal idea of the Divine Intelligence. Matter, which
appears to be merely passive and wanting in form and arrangement, has in
its simplest state a tendency to fashion itself by a natural development into a
more perfect constitution. Matter must be considered as created by God in
accordance with law and as ever obedient to law, not as an independent or
hostile force needing occasional correction. To suppose the material world
not under law would be to believe in a blind fate rather than in Providence.
It is Nature's harmony and order revealed to our understanding that give us
a clue to its creation by an understanding of the highest order.
In a work written eight years later Kant sought to furnish people of ordinary
intelligence with a proof of the existence of God. It might seem irrelevant in
such a production to give an exposition of physical phenomena, but, intent
on his method of mounting to a knowledge of God by means of natural
science, he here repeats in summarized form his theory of the origin of the
heavenly bodies. Moreover, the influence of his astronomical studies
persisted in his maturest philosophy, as can be seen in the well-known
passage at the conclusion of his ethical work, the Critique of the Practical
Reason (1788): "There are two things that fill my spirit with ever new and
increasing awe and reverence—the more frequently and the more intently I
contemplate them—the star-strewn sky above me and the moral law
within." His religious and ethical conceptions were closely associated with
—indeed, dependent upon—an orderly and infinite physical universe.

In the mathematician, astronomer, physicist, and philosopher, J. H. Lambert
(1728-1777), Kant found a genius akin to his own, and through him hoped
for a reformation of philosophy on the basis of the study of science.
Lambert like his contemporary was a disciple of Newton, and in 1761 he
published a book in the form of letters expressing views in reference to the
Milky Way, fixed stars, central sun, very similar to those published by Kant
in 1755. Lambert had heard of Wright's work, so similar to his own, a year
after the latter was written.
Comets, now robbed of many of the terrors with which ancient superstition
endowed them, might, he says, seem to threaten catastrophe, by colliding
with the planets or by carrying off a satellite. But the same hand which has
cast the celestial spheres in space, has traced their course in the heavens,
and does not allow them to wander at random to disturb and destroy each
other. Lambert imagines that all these bodies have exactly the volume,
weight, position, direction, and speed necessary for the avoidance of
collisions. If we confess a Supreme Ruler who brought order from chaos,
and gave form to the universe; it follows that this universe is a perfect work,
the impress, picture, reflex of its Creator's perfection. Nothing is left to
blind chance. Means are fitted to ends. There is order throughout, and in
this order the dust beneath our feet, the stars above our heads, atoms and
worlds, are alike comprehended.
Laplace in his statement of the nebular hypothesis made no mention of
Kant. He sets forth, in the Exposition of the Solar System, the astronomical
data that the theory is designed to explain: the movements of the planets in
the same direction and almost in the same plane; the movements of the
satellites in the same direction as those of the planets; the rotation of these
different bodies and of the sun in the same direction as their projection, and
in planes little different; the small eccentricity of the orbits of planets and
satellites; the great eccentricity of the orbits of comets. How on the ground
of these data are we to arrive at the cause of the earliest movements of the
planetary system?
A fluid of immense extent must be assumed, embracing all these bodies. It
must have circulated about the sun like an atmosphere and, in virtue of the
excessive heat which was engendered, it may be assumed that this
atmosphere originally extended beyond the orbits of all the planets, and was

contracted by stages to its present form. In its primitive state the sun
resembled the nebulæ, which are to be observed through the telescope, with
fiery centers and cloudy periphery. One can imagine a more and more
diffuse state of the nebulous matter.
Planets were formed, in the plane of the equator and at the successive limits
of the nebulous atmosphere, by the condensation of the different zones
which it abandoned as it cooled and contracted. The force of gravity and the
centrifugal force sufficed to maintain in its orbit each successive planet.
From the cooling and contracting masses that were to constitute the planets
smaller zones and rings were formed. In the case of Saturn there was such
regularity in the rings that the annular form was maintained; as a rule from
the zones abandoned by the planet-mass satellites resulted. Differences of
temperature and density of the parts of the original mass account for the
eccentricity of orbits, and deviations from the plane of the equator.
In his Celestial Mechanics (1825) Laplace states that, according to
Herschel's observations, Saturn's rotation is slightly quicker than that of its
rings. This seemed a confirmation of the hypothesis of the Exposition du
Système du Monde.
When Laplace presented the first edition of this earlier work to Napoleon,
the First Consul said: "Newton has spoken of God in his book. I have
already gone through yours, and I have not found that name in it a single
time." To this Laplace is said to have replied: "First Citizen Consul, I have
not had need of that hypothesis." The astronomer did not, however, profess
atheism; like Kant he felt competent to explain on mechanical principles the
development of the solar system from the point at which he undertook it. In
his later years he desired that the misleading anecdote should be
suppressed. So far was he from self-sufficiency and dogmatism that his last
utterance proclaimed the limitations of even the greatest intellects: "What
we know is little enough, what we don't know is immense" (Ce que nous
connaissons est peu de chose, ce que nous ignorons est immense).
Sir William Herschel's observations, extended over many years, confirmed
both the nebular hypothesis and the theory of the systematic arrangement of
the stars. He made use of telescopes 20 and 40 feet in focal length, and of
18.7 and 48 inches aperture, and was thereby enabled, as Humboldt said, to

sink a plummet amid the fixed stars, or, in his own phrase, to gauge the
heavens. The Construction of the Heavens was always the ultimate object of
his observations. In a contribution on this subject submitted to the Royal
Society in 1787 he announced the discovery of 466 new nebulæ and
clusters of stars. The sidereal heavens are not to be regarded as the concave
surface of a sphere, from the center of which the observer might be
supposed to look, but rather as resembling a rich extent of ground or chains
of mountains in which the geologist discovers many strata consisting of
various materials. The Milky Way is one stratum and in it our sun is placed,
though perhaps not in the very center of its thickness.
By 1811 he had greatly increased his observations of the nebulæ and could
arrange them in series differing in extent, condensation, brightness, general
form, possession of nuclei, situation, and in resemblance to comets and to
stars. They ranged from a faint trace of extensive diffuse nebulosity to a
nebulous star with a mere vestige of cloudiness. Herschel was able to make
the series so complete that the difference between the members was no
more than could be found in a series of pictures of the human figure taken
from the birth of a child till he comes to be a man in his prime. The
difference between the diffuse nebulous matter and the star is so striking
that the idea of conversion from one to the other would hardly occur to any
one without evidence of the intermediate steps. It is highly probable that
each successive state is the result of the action of gravity.
In his last statement, 1818, he admitted that to his telescopes the Milky Way
had proved fathomless, but on "either side of this assemblage of stars,
presumably in ceaseless motion round their common center of gravity,
Herschel discovered a canopy of discrete nebulous masses, such as those
from the condensation of which he supposed the whole stellar universe to
be formed."
In the theory of the evolution of the heavenly bodies, as set forth by Kant,
Laplace, and Herschel, it was assumed that the elements that composed the
earth are also to be found elsewhere throughout the solar system and the
universe. The validity of this assumption was finally established by
spectrum analysis. But this vindication was in part anticipated, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, by the analysis of meteorites. In these
were found large quantities of iron, considerable percentages of nickel, as

well as cobalt, copper, silicon, phosphorus, carbon, magnesium, zinc, and
manganese.

REFERENCES

G. F. Becker, Kant as a Natural Philosopher, American Journal of Science,
vol. v (1898), pp. 97-112.
W. W. Bryant, A History of Astronomy.
Agnes M. Clerke, History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century.
Agnes M. Clerke, The Herschels and Modern Astronomy.
Sir William Herschel, Papers on the Construction of the Heavens
(Philosophical Transactions, 1784, 1811, etc.).
A. R. Hinks, Astronomy (Home University Library).
E. W. Maunders, The Science of the Stars (The People's Books).

CHAPTER XII
THE REIGN OF LAW—DALTON, JOULE

In the middle of the eighteenth century, when Lambert and Kant were
recognizing system and design in the heavens, little progress had been made
toward discovering the constitution of matter or revealing the laws of the
hidden motions of things. Boyle had, indeed, made a beginning, not only by
his study of the elasticity of the air, but by his distinction of the elements
and compounds and his definition of chemistry as the science of the
composition of substances. How little had been accomplished, however, is
evident from the fact that in 1750 the so-called elements—earth, air, fire,
water—which Bacon had marked for examination in 1620, were still
unanalyzed, and that no advance had been made beyond his conception of
the nature of heat, the majority, indeed, of the learned world holding that
heat is a substance (variously identified with sulphur, carbon, or hydrogen)
rather than a mode of motion.
How scientific thought succeeded in bringing order out of confusion and
chaos in the subsequent one hundred years, and especially at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, can well be illustrated by these very matters, the
study of combustion, of heat as a form of energy, of the constituents of the
atmosphere, and of the chemistry of water and of the earth.
Reference has already been made to Black's discovery of carbonic acid, and
of the phenomena which he ascribed to latent heat. The first discovery
(1754) was the result of the preparation of quicklime in the practice of
medicine; the second (1761) involving experiments on the temperatures of
melting ice, boiling water, and steam, stimulated Watt in his improvement
of the steam engine. In 1766 Joseph Priestley began his study of airs, or
gases. In the following year observation of work in a brewery roused his
curiosity in reference to carbonic acid. In 1772 he experimented with nitric
oxide. In the previous century Mayow had obtained nitric oxide by treating
iron with nitric acid. He had then introduced this gas into ordinary air
confined over water, and found that the mixture suffered a reduction of

volume. Priestley applied this process to the analysis of common air, which
he discovered to be complex and not simple. In 1774, by heating red oxide
of mercury by means of a burning-glass, he obtained a gas which supported
combustion better than common air. He inhaled it, and experienced a sense
of exhilaration. "Who can tell," he writes, "but in time this pure air may
become a fashionable article in luxury? Hitherto only two mice and myself
have had the privilege of breathing it."
The Swedish investigator Scheele had, however, discovered this same
constituent of the air before 1773. He thought that the atmosphere must
consist of at least two gases, and he proved that carbonic acid results from
combustion and respiration. In 1772 the great French scientist Lavoisier
found that sulphur, when burned, gains weight instead of losing weight, and
five years later he concluded that air consists of two gases, one capable of
absorption by burning bodies, the other incapable of supporting
combustion. He called the first "oxygen." In his Elements of Chemistry
Lavoisier gave a clear exposition of his system of chemistry and of the
discoveries of other European chemists. After his studies the atmosphere
was no longer regarded as mysterious and chaotic. It was known to consist
largely of oxygen and nitrogen, and to contain in addition aqueous vapor,
carbonic acid, and ammonia which might be brought to earth by rain.
Cavendish obtained nitrogen from air by using nitric oxide to remove the
oxygen, and found that air consists of about seventy-nine per cent nitrogen
and about twenty-one per cent oxygen. He also by use of the electric spark
caused the oxygen and nitrogen of the air to unite to form nitric acid. When
the nitrogen was exhausted and the redundant oxygen removed, "only a
small bubble of air remained unabsorbed." Similarly Cavendish had found
that water results from the combination of oxygen and hydrogen. Watt had
likewise held that water is not an element, but a compound of two
elementary substances. Thus the great masses,—earth, air, fire, water,—
assumed as simple by many philosophers from the earliest times, were
resolving into their constituent parts. At the same time other problems were
demanding solution. What are the laws of chemical combination? What is
the relation of heat to other forms of energy? To the answering of these
questions (as of those from which these grew) the great manufacturing
centers contributed, and no city more potently than Manchester through
Dalton and his pupil and follower Joule.

John Dalton (1766-1844) was born in Cumberland, went to Kendal to teach
school at the age of fifteen, and remained in the Lake District of England
till 1793. In this region, where the annual rainfall exceeds forty inches, and
in some localities is almost tropical, the young student's attention was early
drawn to meteorology. His apparatus consisted of rude home-made rain-
gauges, thermometers, and barometers. His interest in the heat, moisture,
and constituents of the atmosphere continued throughout life, and Dalton
made in all some 200,000 meteorological observations. We gain a clue to
his motive in these studies from a letter written in his twenty-second year,
in which he speaks of the advantages that might accrue to the husbandman,
the mariner, and to mankind in general if we were able to predict the state
of the weather with tolerable precision.
In 1793 Dalton took up his permanent residence in Manchester, and in that
year appeared his first book, Meteorological Observations and Essays. Here
he deals, among other things, with rainfall, the formation of clouds,
evaporation, and the distribution and character of atmospheric moisture. It
seemed to him that aqueous vapor always exists as a distinct fluid
maintaining its identity among the other fluids of the atmosphere. He
thought of atmospheric moisture as consisting of minute drops of water, or
globules among the globules of oxygen and nitrogen. He was a disciple of
Newton's (to whom, indeed, Dalton had some personal likeness), who
looked upon matter as consisting of "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable,
movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties,
and in such proportion, as most conduced to the end for which God formed
them." Dalton was so much under the influence of the idea that the physical
universe is made up of these indivisible particles, or atoms, that his
biographer describes him as thinking corpuscularly. It is probable that his
imagination was of the visualizing type and that he could picture to himself
the arrangement of atoms in elementary and compound substances.
Now Dalton's master had taught that the atoms of matter in a gas (elastic
fluid) repel one another by a force increasing in proportion as their distance
diminishes. How did this teaching apply to the atmosphere, which Priestley
and others had proved to consist of three or more gases? Why does this
mixture appear simple and homogeneous? Why does not the air form strata
with the oxygen below and the nitrogen above? Cavendish had shown, and

Dalton himself later proved, that common air, wherever examined, contains
oxygen and nitrogen in fairly constant proportions.
French chemists had sought to apply the principle of chemical affinity in
explaining the apparent homogeneity of the atmosphere. They supposed that
oxygen and nitrogen entered into chemical union, the one element
dissolving the other. The resultant compound in turn dissolved water; hence
the phenomena of evaporation. Dalton tried in vain to reconcile this
supposition with his belief in the atomic nature of matter. He drew diagrams
combining an atom of oxygen with an atom of nitrogen and an atom of
aqueous vapor. The whole atmosphere could not consist of such groups of
three because the watery particles were but a small portion of the total
atmosphere. He made a diagram in which one atom of oxygen was
combined with one atom of nitrogen, but in this case the oxygen was
insufficient to satisfy all the nitrogen of the atmosphere. If the air was made
up partly of pure nitrogen, partly of a compound of nitrogen and oxygen,
and partly of a compound of nitrogen, oxygen, and aqueous vapor, then the
triple compound, as heaviest, would collect toward the surface of the earth,
and the double compound and the simple substance would form two strata
above. If to the compounds heat were added in the hope of producing an
unstratified mixture, the atmosphere would acquire the specific gravity of
nitrogen gas. "In short," says Dalton, "I was obliged to abandon the
hypothesis of the chemical constitution of the atmosphere altogether as
irreconcilable to the phenomena."
He had to return to the conception of the individual particles of oxygen,
nitrogen, and water, each a center of repulsion. Still he could not explain
why the oxygen did not gravitate to the lowest place, the nitrogen form a
stratum above, and the aqueous vapor swim upon the top. In 1801, however,
Dalton hit upon the idea that gases act as vacua for one another, that it is
only like particles which repel each other, atoms of oxygen repelling atoms
of oxygen and atoms of nitrogen repelling atoms of nitrogen when these
gases are intermingled in the atmosphere just as they would if existing in an
unmixed state. "According to this, we were to suppose that atoms of one
kind did not repel the atoms of another kind, but only those of their own
kind." A mixed atmosphere is as free from stratifications, as though it were
really homogeneous.

In his analyses of air Dalton made use of the old nitric oxide method. In
1802 this led to an interesting discovery. If in a tube .3 of an inch wide he
mixed 100 parts of common air with 36 parts of nitric oxide, the oxygen of
the air combined with the nitric oxide, and a residue of 79 parts of
atmospheric nitrogen remained. And if he mixed 100 parts of common air
with 72 of nitric oxide, but in a wide vessel over water (in which conditions
the combination is more quickly effected), the oxygen of the air again
combined with the nitric oxide and a residue of 79 parts of nitrogen again
resulted. But in the last experiment, if less than 72 parts of nitric oxide be
employed, there will be a residue of oxygen as well as nitrogen; and if more
than 72, there will be a residue of nitric oxide in addition to the nitrogen. In
the words of Dalton, "oxygen may combine with a certain portion of nitrous
gas [as he called nitric oxide], or with twice that portion, but with no
intermediate portion."
Naturally these experimental facts were to be explained in terms of the
ultimate particles of which the various gases are composed. In the following
year Dalton gave graphic representation to his idea of the atomic
constitution of chemical elements and compounds.

Much against Dalton's will his method of indicating chemical elements and
their combinations had to yield to a method introduced by the great
Swedish chemist Berzelius. In 1837 Dalton wrote: "Berzelius's symbols are
horrifying: a young student in chemistry might as soon learn Hebrew as
make himself acquainted with them. They appear like a chaos of atoms ...
and to equally perplex the adepts of science, to discourage the learner, as
well as to cloud the beauty and simplicity of the Atomic Theory."
Meantime Dalton's mind had been turning to the consideration of the
relative sizes and weights of the various elements entering into combination
with one another. He argued that if there be not exactly the same number of
atoms of oxygen in a given volume of air as of nitrogen in the same
volume, then the sizes of the particles of oxygen must be different from
those of nitrogen. His interest in the absorption of gases by water, in the
reciprocal diffusion of gases, as well as in the phenomena of chemical
combination, stimulated Dalton to determine the relative size and weight of
the atoms of the various elements. Dalton said nothing of the absolute
weight of the atom. But on the assumption that when only one compound of
two elements is known to exist, the molecule of the compound consists of
one atom of each of these elements, he proceeded to investigate the relative
weights of equal numbers of the two sorts of atoms. In 1803 he pursued this
investigation with remarkable success, and taking hydrogen (the lightest gas
known to him) as unity, he arrived at a statement of the relative atomic
weights of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. Dalton thus introduced into the
study of chemical combination a very definite idea of quantitative
relationship. By him the atomic theory of the constitution of matter was
made definite and applicable to all the phenomena known to chemistry.

Painting by Ford Madox Brown By permission of the Town Hall
Committee of the Manchester Corporation
JOHN DALTON COLLECTING MARSH GAS
During the following months he returned to the study of those cases in
which the same elements combine to form more than one compound. We
have seen that oxygen unites with nitric oxide to form two compounds, and
that into the one compound twice as much nitric oxide (by weight) enters as
into the other. A like relation was found in the weight of oxygen combining
with carbon in the two compounds carbon monoxide and carbonic acid. In
the summer of 1804 he investigated the composition of two compounds of
hydrogen and carbon, marsh gas (methane) and olefiant gas (ethylene), and
found that the first contained just twice as much hydrogen in relation to the
carbon as the second compound contained. In a series of compounds of the
same two elements one atom of one unites with one, two, three, or more
atoms of the other; that is, a simple ratio exists between the weights in
which the second element enters into combination with the first. This law of
multiple proportions afforded confirmation of Dalton's atomic theory, or
chemical theory of definite proportions.
"Without such a theory," says Sir Henry Roscoe, "modern chemistry would
be a chaos; with it, order reigns supreme, and every apparently
contradictory discovery only marks out more distinctly the value and
importance of Dalton's work." In 1826 Sir Humphry Davy recognized
Dalton's services to science in the following terms: "Finding that in certain
compounds of gaseous bodies the same elements always combined in the

same proportions, and that when there was more than one combination the
quantity of the elements always had a constant relation,—such as 1 to 2, or
1 to 3, or 1 to 4,—he explained this fact on the Newtonian doctrine of
indivisible atoms; and contended that, the relative weight of one atom to
that of any other atom being known, its proportions or weight in all its
combinations might be ascertained, thus making the statics of chemistry
depend upon simple questions in subtraction or multiplication and enabling
the student to deduce an immense number of facts from a few well-
authenticated experimental results. Mr. Dalton's permanent reputation will
rest upon his having discovered a simple principle universally applicable to
the facts of chemistry, in fixing the proportions in which bodies combine,
and thus laying the foundation for future labors respecting the sublime and
transcendental parts of the science of corpuscular motion. His merits in this
respect resemble those of Kepler in astronomy."
In 1808 Dalton's atomic theory received striking confirmation through the
investigations of the French scientist Gay-Lussac, who showed that gases,
under similar circumstances of temperature and pressure, always combine
in simple proportions by volume when they act on one another, and that
when the result of the union is a gas, its volume also is in a simple ratio to
the volumes of its components. One of Dalton's friends summed up the
result of Gay-Lussac's research in this simple fashion: "His paper is on the
combination of gases. He finds that all unite in equal bulks, or two bulks of
one to one of another, or three bulks of one to one of another." When Dalton
had investigated the relative weights with which elements combine, he had
found no simple arithmetical relationship between atomic weight and
atomic weight. When two or more compounds of the same elements are
formed, Dalton found, however, as we have seen, that the proportion of the
element added to form the second or third compound is a multiple by
weight of the first quantity. Gay-Lussac now showed that gases, "in
whatever proportions they may combine, always give rise to compounds
whose elements by volume are multiples of each other."
In 1811 Avogadro, in an essay on the relative masses of atoms, succeeded in
further confirming Dalton's theory and in explaining the atomic basis of
Gay-Lussac's discovery of simple volume relations in the formation of
chemical compounds. According to the Italian scientist the number of
molecules in all gases is always the same for equal volumes, or always

proportional to the volumes, it being taken for granted that the temperature
and pressure are the same for each gas. Dalton had supposed that water is
formed by the union of hydrogen and oxygen, atom for atom. Gay-Lussac
found that two volumes of hydrogen combined with one volume of oxygen
to produce two volumes of water vapor. According to Avogadro the water
vapor contains twice as many atoms of hydrogen as of oxygen. One volume
of hydrogen has the same number of molecules as one volume of oxygen.
When the two volumes combine with one, the combination does not take
place, as Dalton had supposed, atom for atom, but each half-molecule of
oxygen combines with one molecule of hydrogen. The symbol for water is,
therefore, not HO but H2O.

Enough has been said to establish Dalton's claim to be styled a great
lawgiver of chemical science. His influence in further advancing definitely
formulated knowledge of physical phenomena can here be indicated only in
part. In 1800 he wrote a paper On the Heat and Cold produced by the
Mechanical Condensation and Rarefaction of Air. This contains, according
to Dalton's biographer, the first quantitative statement of the heat evolved
by compression and the heat evolved by dilatation. His contribution to the
theory of heat has been stated thus: The volume of a gas under constant
pressure expands when raised to the boiling temperature by the same
fraction of itself, whatever be the nature of the gas. In 1798 Count Rumford
had reported to the Royal Society his Enquiry concerning the Source of
Heat excited by Friction, the data for which had been gathered at Munich.
Interested as he was in the practical problem of providing heat for the
homes of the city poor, Rumford had been struck by the amount of heat
developed in the boring-out of cannon at the arsenal. He concluded that
anything which could be created indefinitely by a process of friction could
not be a substance, such as sulphur or hydrogen, but must be a mode of
motion. In the same year the youthful Davy was following independently
this line of investigation by rubbing two pieces of ice together, by clock-
work, in a vacuum. The friction caused the ice to melt, although the
experiment was undertaken in a temperature of 29° Fahrenheit.
For James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), who came of a family of brewers
and was early engaged himself in the brewing industry, was reserved,
however, the distinction of discovering the exact relation between heat and
mechanical energy. After having studied chemistry under Dalton at

Manchester, he became engrossed in physical experimentation. In 1843 he
prepared a paper On the Calorific Effects of Magneto-Electricity and on the
Mechanical Value of Heat. In this he dealt with the relations between heat
and the ordinary forms of mechanical power, and demonstrated that the
mechanical energy spent "in turning a magneto-electrical machine is
converted into the heat evolved by the passage of the currents of induction
through its coils; and, on the other hand, that the motive power of the
electro-magnetic engine is obtained at the expense of the heat due to the
chemical reactions of the battery by which it is worked." In 1844 he
proceeded to apply the principles maintained in his earlier study to changes
of temperature as related to changes in the density of gases. He was
conscious of the practical, as well as the theoretical, import of his
investigation. Indeed, it was through the determination by this illustrious
pupil of Dalton's of the amount of heat produced by the compression of
gases that one of the greatest improvements of the steam engine was later
effected. Joule felt that his investigation at the same time confirmed the
dynamical theory of heat which originated with Bacon, and had at a
subsequent period been so well supported by the experiments of Rumford,
Davy, and others.
Already, in this paper of June, 1844, Joule had expressed the hope of
ascertaining the mechanical equivalent of heat with the accuracy that its
importance for physical science demanded. He returned to this question
again and again. According to his final result the quantity of heat required
to raise one pound of water in temperature by one degree Fahrenheit is
equivalent to the mechanical energy required to raise 772.55 pounds
through a distance of one foot. Heat was thus demonstrated to be a form of
energy, the relation being constant between it and mechanical energy.
Mechanical energy may be converted into heat; if heat disappears, some
other form of energy, equivalent in amount to the heat lost, must replace it.
The doctrine that a certain quantity of heat is always equivalent to a certain
amount of mechanical energy is only a special case of the Law of the
Conservation of Energy, first clearly enunciated by Joule and Helmholtz in
1847, and generally regarded as the most important scientific discovery of
the nineteenth century.
Roscoe, referring to the two life-sized marble statues which face each other
in the Manchester Town Hall, says with pardonable pride: "Thus honor is

done to Manchester's two greatest sons—to Dalton, the founder of modern
Chemistry and of the Atomic Theory, and the discoverer of the laws of
chemical combining proportions; to Joule, the founder of modern Physics
and the discoverer of the Law of the Conservation of Energy."

REFERENCES

Alembic Club Reprints, Foundations of the Atomic Theory.
Joseph Priestley, Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.
Sir William Ramsay, The Gases of the Atmosphere and the History of their
Discovery.
Sir Henry E. Roscoe, John Dalton.
Sir E. Thorpe, Essays in Historical Chemistry.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SCIENTIST—SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was born in Cornwall, a part of England
known for its very mild climate and the combined beauty and majesty of its
scenery. On either side of the peninsula the Atlantic in varying mood lies
extended in summer sunshine, or from its shroud of mist thunders on the
black cliffs and their time-sculptured sandstones. From the coast inland,
stretch, between flowered lanes and hedges, rolling pasture-lands of rich
green made all the more vivid by the deep reddish tint of the ploughed
fields. In Penzance, then a town of about three thousand inhabitants, and in
its picturesque vicinity, the early years of Davy's life were passed. Across
the bay rose the great vision of the guarded mount (St. Michael's) of which
Milton's verse speaks. Farther to the east lay Lizard Head, the southernmost
promontory of England, and a few miles to the north St. Ives with its sweep
of sandy beach; while not far to the west of Penzance Land's End stood
sentry "'Twixt two unbounded seas." The youthful Davy was keenly alive to
the charms of his early environment, and his genius was susceptible to the
belief in supernatural agencies native to the imaginative Celtic people
among whom he was reared. As a precocious child of five he improvised
rhymes, and as a youth set forth in excellent verse the glories of Mount's
Bay:—

"There did I first rejoice that I was born
Amidst the majesty of azure seas."

Davy received what is usually called a liberal education, putting in nine
years in the Penzance and one year in the Truro Grammar School. His best
exercises were translations from the classics into English verse. He was
rather idle, fond of fishing (an enthusiasm he retained throughout life) and
shooting, and less appreciated and beloved by his masters than by his
school-fellows, who recognized his wonderful abilities, sought his aid in
their Latin compositions (as well as in the writing of letters and valentines),

and listened eagerly to his imaginative tales of wonder and horror. Years
later he wrote to his mother: "After all, the way in which we are taught
Latin and Greek does not much influence the important structure of our
minds. I consider it fortunate that I was left much to myself when a child,
and put upon no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness
at Mr. Coryton's school. I perhaps owe to these circumstances the little
talents that I have and their peculiar application."
When Davy was about sixteen years old, his father died, leaving the widow
and her five children, of whom Humphry was the eldest, with very scanty
provision. The mind of the youth seemed to undergo an immediate change.
He expressed his resolution (which he nobly carried out) to play his part as
son and brother. Within a few weeks he became apprenticed to an
apothecary and surgeon, and, having thus found his vocation, drew up his
own particular plan of self-education, to which he rigidly adhered. His
brother, Dr. John Davy, bears witness that the following is transcribed from
a notebook of Humphry's, bearing the date of the same year as his
apprenticeship (1795):—

1. Theology or Religion Taught by Nature.
-
Ethics or Moral Virtues by Revelation.
2. Geography.
3. My Profession—
1. Botany. 2. Pharmacy. 3. Nosology. 4. Anatomy. 5. Surgery. 6.
Chemistry.
4. Logic.
5. Language, etc.

A series of essays which Davy wrote in pursuing his scheme of self-culture
proves how rapidly his mind drew away from the superstitions which
characterized the masses of the people among whom he lived. He had as a
boy been haunted by the fear of monsters and witches in which the
credulous of all classes then believed. His notebook shows that he was now
subjecting to examination the religious and political opinions of his time.
He composed essays on the immortality and immateriality of the soul, on
governments, on the credulity of mortals, on the dependence of the thinking
powers on the organization of the body, on the ultimate end of being, on

happiness, and on moral obligation. He studied the writings of Locke,
Hartley, Berkeley, Hume, Helvetius, Condorcet, and Reid, and knew
something of German philosophy. It was not till he was nineteen that Davy
entered on the experimental study of chemistry.
Guided by the Elements of Lavoisier, encouraged by the friendship of
Gregory Watt (a son of James Watt) and by another gentleman of university
education, stimulated by contact with the Cornish mining industry, Davy
pursued this new study with zeal, and within a few months had written two
essays full of daring generalizations on the physical sciences. These were
published early in 1799. Partly on the basis of the ingenious experiment
mentioned in the preceding chapter, he came to the conclusion that "Heat,
or that power which prevents the actual contact of the corpuscles of bodies,
and which is the cause of our peculiar sensations of heat and cold, may be
defined as a peculiar motion, probably a vibration, of the corpuscles of
bodies, tending to separate them." Other passages might be quoted from
these essays to show how the gifted youth of nineteen anticipated the
science of subsequent decades, but in the main these early efforts were
characterized by the faults of overwrought speculation and incomplete
verification. He soon regretted the premature publication of his studies.
"When I consider," he wrote, "the variety of theories that may be formed on
the slender foundation of one or two facts, I am convinced that it is the
business of the true philosopher to avoid them altogether. It is more
laborious to accumulate facts than to reason concerning them; but one good
experiment is of more value than the ingenuity of a brain like Newton's."
In the mean time Davy had been chosen superintendent of the Pneumatic
Institution at Bristol by Dr. Beddoes, its founder. It was supported by the
contributions of Thomas Wedgwood and other distinguished persons, and
aimed at discovering by means of experiment the physiological effect of
inhaling different gases, or "factitious airs," as they were called. The
founding of such an establishment has been termed a scientific aberration,
but the use now made in medical practice of oxygen, nitrous oxide,
chloroform, and other inhalations bears witness to the sanity of the sort of
research there set on foot. Even before going to Bristol, Davy had inhaled
small quantities of nitrous oxide mixed with air, in spite of the fact that this
gas had been held by a medical man to be the "principle of contagion." He
now carried on a series of tests, and finally undertook an extended

experiment with the assistance of a doctor. In an air-tight or box-chamber
he inhaled great quantities of the supposedly dangerous gas. After he had
been in the box an hour and a quarter, he respired twenty quarts of pure
nitrous oxide. He described the experience in the following words:—
"A thrilling, extending from the chest to the extremities, was almost
immediately produced. I felt a sense of tangible extension highly
pleasurable in every limb; my visible impressions were dazzling, and
apparently magnified; I heard every sound in the room, and was perfectly
aware of my situation. By degrees, as the pleasurable sensations increased, I
lost all connection with external things; trains of vivid visible images
rapidly passed through my mind, and were connected with words in such a
manner, as to produce perceptions perfectly novel. I existed in a world of
newly connected and newly modified ideas: I theorized, I imagined that I
made discoveries. When I was awakened from this semi-delirious trance by
Dr. Kinglake, who took the bag from my mouth, indignation and pride were
the first feelings produced by the sight of the persons about me. My
emotions were enthusiastic and sublime, and for a minute I walked round
the room perfectly regardless of what was said to me. As I recovered my
former state of mind, I felt an inclination to communicate the discoveries I
had made during the experiment. I endeavored to recall the ideas: they were
feeble and indistinct; one collection of terms, however, presented itself; and
with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I exclaimed to Dr.
Kinglake, 'Nothing exists but thoughts! The universe is composed of
impressions, ideas, pleasures and pains!'"
Davy aroused the admiration and interest of every one who met him. A
literary man to whom he was introduced shortly after his arrival in Bristol
spoke of the intellectual character of the young man's face. His eye was
piercing, and when he was not engaged in conversation, its expression
indicated abstraction, as though his mind were pursuing some severe train
of thought scarcely to be interrupted by external objects; "and," this writer
adds, "his ingenuousness impressed me as much as his mental superiority."
Mrs. Beddoes, a gay, witty, and elegant lady, and an ardent admirer of the
youthful scientist, was a sister of Maria Edgeworth. The novelist's tolerance
of Davy's enthusiasm soon passed into a clear recognition of his
commanding genius. Coleridge, Southey, and other congenial friends,
whom the chemist met under Dr. Beddoes' roof, shared in the general

admiration of his mental and social qualities. Southey spoke of him as a
miraculous young man, at whose talents he could only wonder. Coleridge,
when asked how Davy compared with the cleverest men he had met on a
visit to London, replied expressively: "Why, Davy can eat them all! There is
an energy, an elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on and
analyze all questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences. Every
subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring
up like turf under his feet." He thought that if Davy had not been the first
chemist he would have been the first poet of the age. Their correspondence
attests the intimate interchange of ideas and sentiments between these two
men of genius, so different, yet with so much in common.
In 1801 Davy was appointed assistant lecturer in chemistry at the Royal
Institution (Albemarle Street, London), which had been founded from
philanthropic motives by Count Rumford in 1799. Its aim was to promote
the application of science to the common purposes of life. Its founder
desired while benefiting the poor to enlist the sympathies of the fashionable
world. Davy, with a zeal for the cause of humanity and a clear recognition
of the value of a knowledge of chemistry in technical industries and other
daily occupations, lent himself readily to the founder's plans. His success as
a public expositor of science soon won him promotion to the professorship
of chemistry in the new institution, and through his influence an interest in
scientific investigation became the vogue of London society. His popularity
as a lecturer was so great that his best friends feared that the head of the
brilliant provincial youth of twenty-two might be turned by the adulation of
which he soon became the object. "I have read," writes his brother, "copies
of verses addressed to him then, ... anonymous effusions, some of them
displaying much poetical taste as well as fervor of writing, and all showing
the influence which his appearance and manner had on the more susceptible
of his audience."
His study of the tanning industry (1801-1802) and his lectures on
agricultural chemistry (1803-1813) are indicative of the early purpose of the
Royal Institution and of Davy's lifelong inclination. The focus of his
scientific interest, however, rested on the furtherance of the application of
the electrical studies of Galvani and Volta in chemical analysis. In a letter to
the chairman of managers of the Royal Institution Volta had in 1800
described his voltaic pile made up of a succession of zinc and copper plates

in pairs separated by a moist conductor, and before the end of the same year
Nicholson and Carlisle had employed an electric current, produced by this
newly devised apparatus, in the decomposition of water into its elements.
In the spring of the following year the Philosophical Magazine states: "We
have also to notice a course of lectures, just commenced at the institution,
on a new branch of philosophy—we mean Galvanic Phenomena. On this
interesting branch Mr. Davy (late of Bristol) gave the first lecture on the
25th of April. He began with the history of Galvanism, detailed the
successive discoveries, and described the different methods of accumulating
influence.... He showed the effects of galvanism on the legs of frogs, and
exhibited some interesting experiments on the galvanic effects on the
solutions of metals in acids." In a paper communicated to the Royal Society
in 1806, On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity, Davy put on record the
result of years of experiment. For example, as stated by his biographer, he
had connected a cup of gypsum with one of agate by means of asbestos, and
filling each with purified water, had inserted the negative wire of the battery
in the agate cup, and the positive wire in that of the sulphate of lime. In
about four hours he had found a strong solution of lime in the agate cup,
and sulphuric acid in the cup of gypsum. On his reversing the arrangement,
and carrying on the process for a similar length of time, the sulphuric acid
appeared in the agate cup, and the solution of lime on the opposite side. It
was thus that he studied the transfer of certain of the constituent parts of
bodies by the action of electricity. "It is very natural to suppose," says Davy,
"that the repellent and attractive energies are communicated from one
particle to another particle of the same kind, so as to establish a conducting
chain in the fluid. There may be a succession of decompositions and
recompositions before the electrolysis is complete."
The publication of this paper in 1806 attracted much attention abroad, and
gained for him—in spite of the fact that England and France were then at
war—a medal awarded, under an arrangement instituted by Napoleon a few
years previously, for the best experimental work on the subject of
electricity. "Some people," said Davy, "say I ought not to accept this prize;
and there have been foolish paragraphs in the papers to that effect; but if the
two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That
would, indeed, be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather,

through the instrumentality of men of science, soften the asperities of
national hostility."
In the following year Davy reported other chemical changes produced by
electricity; he had succeeded in decomposing the fixed alkalis and
discovering the elements potassium and sodium. To analyze a small piece of
pure potash slightly moist from the atmosphere, he had placed it on an
insulated platinum disk connected with the negative side of a voltaic
battery. A platinum wire connected with the positive side was brought in
contact with the upper surface of the alkali. "The potash began to fuse at
both its points of electrization." At the lower (negative) surface small
globules having a high metallic luster like quicksilver appeared, some of
which burned with explosion and flame while others remained and became
tarnished. When Davy saw these globules of a hitherto unknown metal, he
danced about the laboratory in ecstasy and for some time was too much
excited to continue his experiments.
After recovering from a very severe illness, owing in the judgment of some
to overapplication to experimental science, and in his own judgment to a
visit to Newgate Prison with the purpose of improving its sanitary
condition, Davy made an investigation of the alkaline earths. He failed in
his endeavor to obtain from these sources pure metals, but he gave names to
barium, strontium, calcium, and magnesium, conjecturing that the alkaline
earths were, like potash and soda, metallic oxides. In addition Davy
anticipated the isolation of silicon, aluminium, and zirconium. No doubt
what gave special zest to his study of the alkalis was the hope of
overthrowing the doctrine of French chemists that oxygen was the essential
element of every acid. Lavoisier had given it, indeed, the name oxygen
(acid-producer) on that supposition. Davy showed, however, that this
element is a constituent of many alkalis.
In 1810 he advanced his controversy by explaining the nature of chlorine.
Discovered long before by the indefatigable Scheele, it bore at the
beginning of the nineteenth century the name oxymuriatic acid. Davy
proved that it contained neither oxygen nor muriatic (hydrochloric) acid
(though, as we know, it forms, with hydrogen, muriatic acid). He gave the
name chlorine because of the color of the gas (χλωρός, pale green). Davy

studied later the compounds of fluorine, and though unable to isolate the
element, conjectured its likeness to chlorine.
He lectured before the Dublin Society in 1810, and again in the following
year; on the occasion of his second visit receiving the degree of LL.D. from
Trinity College. He was knighted in the spring of 1812, and was married to
a handsome, intellectual, and wealthy lady. He was appointed Honorary
Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. His new independence gave
him full liberty to pursue his scientific interests. Toward the close of 1812
he writes to Lady Davy:—
"Yesterday I began some new experiments to which a very interesting
discovery and a slight accident put an end. I made use of a compound more
powerful than gunpowder destined perhaps at some time to change the
nature of war and influence the state of society. An explosion took place
which has done me no other harm than that of preventing me from working
this day and the effects of which will be gone to-morrow and which I
should not mention at all, except that you may hear some foolish
exaggerated account of it, for it really is not worth mentioning...." The
compound on the investigation of which he was then engaged is now
known as the trichloride of nitrogen.
In the autumn of 1813 Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, accompanied by
Michael Faraday, who on Davy's recommendation had in the spring of the
same year received a post at the Royal Institution, set out, in spite of the
continuance of the war, on a Continental tour. At Paris Sir Humphry was
welcomed by the French scientists with every mark of distinction. A
substance which had been found in the ashes of seaweed two years
previously, by a soap-boiler and manufacturer of saltpeter, was submitted to
Davy for chemical examination. Until Davy's arrival in Paris little had been
done to determine its real character. On December 6 Gay-Lussac presented
a brief report on the new substance, which he named iode and considered
analogous to chlorine. Davy, working with almost incredible rapidity in the
presence of his rivals, was able a week later to sketch the chief characters of
this new element, now known by the name he chose for it—iodine.
We have passed over his investigation of boracic acid, ammonium nitrate,
and other compounds; we can merely mention in passing his later studies of

the diamond and other forms of carbon, of the chemical constituents of the
pigments used by the ancients, his investigation of the torpedo fish, and his
anticipation of the arc light.
It seems fitting that Sir Humphry Davy should be popularly remembered for
his invention of the miner's safety-lamp. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century the development of the iron industry, the increasing use of the
steam engine and of machinery in general led to great activity and
enterprise in the working of the coal mines. Colliery explosions of fire-
damp (marsh gas) became alarmingly frequent, especially in the north of
England. The mine-owners in some cases sought to suppress the news of
fatalities. A society, however, was formed to protect the miners from injury
through gas explosions, and Davy was asked for advice. On his return from
the Continent in 1815 he applied himself energetically to the matter. He
visited the mines and analyzed the gas. He found that fire-damp explodes
only at high temperature, and that the flame of this explosive mixture will
not pass through small apertures. A miner's lamp was therefore constructed
with wire gauze about the flame to admit air for combustion. The fire-damp
entering the gauze burned quietly inside, but could not carry a high enough
temperature through the gauze to explode the large quantity outside. To one
of the members of the philanthropic society which had appealed to him
Davy wrote: "I have never received so much pleasure from the result of any
of my chemical labours; for I trust the cause of humanity will gain
something by it."
Davy was elected President of the Royal Society in 1820, and retained that
dignity till he felt compelled by ill health to relinquish it in 1827. "It was his
wish," says his brother, "to have seen the Royal Society an efficient
establishment for all the great practical purposes of science, similar to the
college contemplated by Lord Bacon, and sketched in his New Atlantis;
having subordinate to it the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for
astronomy; the British Museum, for natural history, in its most extensive
acceptation."
Sir Humphry Davy, after a life crowded with splendid achievements, died at
Geneva in 1829 with many of his noblest dreams unfulfilled. Fortunately in
Michael Faraday, who is sometimes referred to as the greatest of his
discoveries, he had a successor who was fully adequate to the task of

furthering the various investigations that his genius had set on foot, and
who, to the majority of men of mature mind, is no less personally
interesting than the Cornish scientist, poet, and philosopher.

REFERENCES

John Davy, Works of Sir Humphry Davy.
John Davy, Fragmentary Remains, literary and scientific, of Sir Humphry
Davy, Bart.
Bence Jones, Life and Letters of Faraday.
John Tyndall, Faraday as a Discoverer.
E. v. Meyer, History of Chemistry.
S. P. Thompson, Michael Faraday; his Life and Work.
Sir Edward Thorpe, Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher.

CHAPTER XIV
SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION—THE DISCOVERY OF
NEPTUNE

Under this heading we have to consider a single illustration—the prediction,
and the discovery, in 1846, of the planet Neptune. This event roused great
enthusiasm among scientists as well as in the popular mind, afforded proof
of the reliability of the Newtonian hypothesis, and demonstrated the
precision to which the calculation of celestial motions had attained.
Scientific law appeared not merely as a formulation and explanation of
observed phenomena but as a means for the discovery of new truths.
"Would it not be admirable," wrote Valz to Arago in 1835, "to arrive thus at
a knowledge of the existence of a body which cannot be perceived?"
The prediction and discovery of Neptune, to which many minds
contributed, and which has been described with a show of justice as a
movement of the times, arose from the previous discovery of the planet
Uranus by Sir William Herschel in 1781. After that event Bode suggested
that it was possible other astronomers had observed Uranus before, without
recognizing it as a planet. By a study of the star catalogues this conjecture
was soon verified. It was found that Flamsteed had made, in 1690, the first
observation of the heavenly body now called Uranus. Ultimately it was
shown that there were at least seventeen similar observations prior to 1781.
It might naturally be supposed that these so-called ancient observations
would lead to a ready determination of the planet's orbit, mass, mean
distance, longitude with reference to the sun, etc. The contrary, however,
seemed to be the case. When Alexis Bouvard, the associate of Laplace,
prepared in 1821 tables of Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn on the principles of
the Mécanique Céleste, he was unable to fix an orbit for Uranus which
would harmonize with the data of ancient and modern observations, that is,
those antecedent and subsequent to Herschel's discovery in 1781. If he
computed an orbit from the two sets of data combined, the requirements of
the earlier observations were fairly well met, but the later observations were

not represented with sufficient precision. If on the other hand only the
modern data were taken into account, tables could be constructed meeting
all the observations subsequent to 1781, but failing to satisfy those prior to
that date. A consistent result could be obtained only by sacrificing the
modern or the ancient observations. "I have thought it preferable," says
Bouvard, "to abide by the second [alternative], as being that which
combines the greater number of probabilities in favor of the truth, and I
leave it to the future to make known whether the difficulty of reconciling
the two systems result from the inaccuracy of ancient observations, or
whether it depend upon some extraneous and unknown influence, which has
acted on the planet." It was not till three years after the death of Alexis
Bouvard that the extraneous influence, of which he thus gave in 1821 some
indication, became fully known.
Almost immediately, however, after the publication of the tables, fresh
discrepancies arose between computation and observation. At the first
meeting of the British Association in 1832 Professor Airy in a paper on the
Progress of Astronomy showed that observational data in reference to the
planet Uranus diverged widely from the tables of 1821. In 1833 through his
influence the "reduction of all the planetary observations made at
Greenwich from 1750" was undertaken. Airy became Astronomer Royal in
1835, and continued to take special interest in Uranus, laying particular
emphasis on the fact that the radius vector assigned in the tables to this
planet was much too small.
In 1834 the Reverend T. J. Hussey, an amateur astronomer, had written to
Airy in reference to the irregularities in the orbit of Uranus: "The apparently
inexplicable discrepancies between the ancient and modern observations
suggested to me the possibility of some disturbing body beyond Uranus, not
taken into account because unknown.... Subsequently, in conversation with
Bouvard, I inquired if the above might not be the case." Bouvard answered
that the idea had occurred to him; indeed, he had had some correspondence
in reference to it in 1829 with Hansen, an authority on planetary
perturbations.
In the following year Nicolai (as well as Valz) was interested in the problem
of an ultra-Uranian planet in connection with the orbit of Halley's comet
(itself the subject of a striking scientific prediction fulfilled in 1758), now

reappearing, and under the disturbing influence of Jupiter. In fact, the
probability of the approaching discovery of a new planet soon found
expression in popular treatises on astronomy. Mrs. Somerville in her book
on The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1836) said that the
discrepancies in the records of Uranus might reveal the existence and even
"the mass and orbit of a body placed for ever beyond the sphere of vision."
Similarly Mädler in his Popular Astronomy (1841) took the view that
Uranus might have been predicted by study of the perturbations it produced
in the orbit of Saturn. Applying this conclusion to a body beyond Uranus
we, he continued, "may, indeed, express the hope that analysis will one day
or other solemnize this, her highest, triumph, making discoveries with the
mind's eye in regions where, in our actual state, we are unable to penetrate."
One should not pass over in this account the labors of Eugène Bouvard, the
nephew of Alexis, who continued to note anomalies in the orbit of Uranus
and to construct new planetary tables till the very eve of the discovery of
Neptune. In 1837 he wrote to Airy that the differences between the
observations of Uranus and the calculation were large and were becoming
continually larger: "Is that owing to a perturbation brought about in this
planet by some body situated beyond it? I don't know, but that's my uncle's
opinion."
In 1840 the distinguished astronomer Bessel declared that attempts to
explain the discrepancies "must be based on the endeavor to discover an
orbit and a mass for some unknown planet, of such a nature, that the
resulting perturbations of Uranus may reconcile the present want of
harmony in the observations." Two years later he undertook researches in
reference to the new planet of whose existence he felt certain. His labors,
however, were interrupted by the death of his assistant Flemming, and by
his own illness, which proved fatal in 1846, a few months before the actual
discovery of Neptune. It is evident that the quest of the new planet had
become general. The error of Uranus still amounted to less than two
minutes. This deviation from the computed place is not appreciable by the
naked eye, yet it was felt, by the scientific world, to challenge the validity
of the Newtonian theory, or to foreshadow the addition of still another
planet to our solar system.

In July, 1841, John Couch Adams, a young undergraduate of St. John's
College, Cambridge, whose interest had been aroused by reading Airy's
paper on the Progress of Astronomy, made note of his resolution to attempt,
after completing his college course, the solution of the problem then
forming in so many minds. After achieving the B.A. as senior wrangler at
the beginning of 1843, Adams undertook to "find the most probable orbit
and mass of the disturbing body which has acted on Uranus." The ordinary
problem in planetary perturbations calls for the determination of the effect
on a known orbit exerted by a body of known mass and motion. This was an
inverse problem; the perturbation being given, it was required to find the
position, mass, and orbit of the disturbing planet. The data were further
equivocal in that the elements of the given planet Uranus were themselves
in doubt; the unreliability of its planetary tables, in fact, being the occasion
of the investigation now undertaken. That thirteen unknown quantities were
involved indicates sufficiently the difficulty of the problem.
Adams started with the assumptions, not improbable, that the orbit of the
unknown planet was a circle, and that its distance from the sun was twice
that of Uranus. This latter assumption was in accord with the so-called
"Bode's Law," which taught that a simple numerical relationship exists
between the planetary distances (4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100, 196), and that the
planets as they lie more remote from the sun tend to be more nearly double
the distance of the next preceding. Adams was encouraged, by his first
attempt, to undertake a more precise determination.
On his behalf Professor Challis of Cambridge applied to Astronomer Royal
Airy, who furnished the Reductions of the Planetary Observations made at
Greenwich from 1750 till 1830. In his second endeavor Adams assumed
that the unknown planet had an elliptical orbit. He approached the solution
gradually, ever taking into account more terms of the perturbations. In
September, 1845, he gave the results to Challis, who wrote to Airy on the
22d of that month that Adams sought an opportunity to submit the solution
personally to the Astronomer Royal. On the 21st of October, 1845, the
young mathematician, twice disappointed in his attempt to meet Airy, left at
the Royal Observatory a paper containing the elements of the new planet.
The position assigned to it was within about one degree of its actual place.

On November 5 Airy wrote to Adams and, among other things, inquired
whether the solution obtained would account for the errors of the radius
vector as well as for those of heliocentric longitude. For Airy this was a
crucial question; but to Adams it seemed unessential, and he failed to reply.
By this time a formidable rival had entered the field. Leverrier at the
request of Arago had undertaken to investigate the irregularities in the
tables of Uranus. In September of the same year Eugène Bouvard had
presented new tables of that planet. Leverrier acted very promptly and
systematically. His first paper on the problem undertaken appeared in the
Comptes Rendus of the Académie des Sciences November 10, 1845. He had
submitted to rigorous examination the data in reference to the disturbing
influence of Jupiter and of Saturn on the orbit of Uranus. In his second
paper, June 1, 1846, Leverrier reviewed the records of the ancient and
modern observations of Uranus (279 in all), subjected Bouvard's tables to
severe criticism, and decided that there existed in the orbit of Uranus
anomalies that could not be accounted due to errors of observation. There
must exist some extraneous influence, hitherto unknown to astronomers.
Some scientists had thought that the law of gravitation did not hold at the
confines of the solar system (others that the attractive force of other systems
might prove a factor), but Leverrier rejected this conception. Other theories
being likewise discarded he asked: "Is it possible that the irregularities of
Uranus are due to the action of a disturbing planet, situated in the ecliptic at
a mean distance double that of Uranus? And if so, at what point is this
planet situated? What is its mass? What are the elements of the orbit which
it describes?" The conclusion reached by the calculations recorded in this
second paper was that all the so-called anomalies in the observations of
Uranus could be explained as the perturbation caused by a planet with a
heliocentric longitude of 252° on January 1, 1800. This would correspond
to 325° on January 1, 1847.
Airy received Leverrier's second paper on June 23, and was struck by the
fact that the French mathematician assigned the same place to the new
planet as had Adams in the preceding October. He wrote to Leverrier in
reference to the errors of the radius vector and received a satisfactory and
sufficiently compliant reply. At one time the Astronomer Royal had felt
very skeptical about the possibility of the discovery which his own labors
had contributed to advance. He had always, to quote his own rather

nebulous statement, considered the correctness of a distant mathematical
result to be the subject of moral rather than of mathematical evidence. Now
that corroboration of Adams's results had arrived, he felt it urgent to make a
telescopic examination of that part of the heavens indicated by the
theoretical findings of Adams and Leverrier. He accordingly wrote to
Professor Challis, July 9, requesting him to employ for the purpose the
great Northumberland equatorial of the Cambridge Observatory.
Professor Challis had felt, to use his own language, that it was so novel a
thing to undertake observations in reliance upon merely theoretical
deductions, that, while much labor was certain, success appeared very
doubtful. Nevertheless, having received fresh instructions from Adams
relative to the theoretical place of the new planet, he began observations
July 29. On August 4 in fixing certain reference points he noted, but
mistook for a star, the new planet. On August 12, having directed the
telescope in accordance with Adams's instructions he again noted the same
heavenly body, as a star. Before Challis had compared the results of the
observation of August 12 with the results of an observation of the same
region made on July 30, and arrived at the inference that the body in
question, being absent in the latter observation, was not a star but a planet,
the prize of discovery had fallen into the hands of another observer.
On August 31 had appeared Leverrier's third paper, in which were stated the
new planet's orbit, mass, distance from the sun, eccentricity, and longitude.
The true heliocentric longitude was given as 326° 32' for January 1, 1847.
This determination placed the planet about 5° to the east of star δ of
Capricorn. Leverrier said it might be recognized by its disk, which,
moreover, would subtend a certain angle.
The systematic and conclusive character of Leverrier's research, submitted
to one of the greatest academies of science, carried conviction to the minds
of astronomers. The learned world felt itself on the eve of a great discovery.
Sir John Herschel, in an address before the British Association on
September 10, said that the year past had given prospect of a new planet.
"We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its
movements have been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our
analysis with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration."

On September 18 Leverrier sent a letter to Dr. Galle, of the Berlin
Observatory, which was provided with a set of star maps, prepared at the
instance of Bessel. Galle replied one week later. "The planet, of the position
of which you gave the indication, really exists. The same day that I received
your letter [September 23] I found a star of the eighth magnitude, which
was not inscribed in the excellent map (prepared by Dr. Bremiker)
belonging to the collection of star maps of the Royal Academy of Berlin.
The observation of the following day showed decisively that it was the
planet sought." It was only 57' from the point predicted.
Arago said that the discovery made by Leverrier was one of the most
brilliant manifestations of the precision of modern astronomic science. It
would encourage the best geometers to seek with renewed ardor the eternal
truths which, in Pliny's phrase, are latent in the majesty of theory.
Professor Challis received Leverrier's third paper on September 29, and in
the evening turned his magnificent refractor to the part of the heavens that
Leverrier had so definitely and so confidently indicated. Among the three
hundred stars observed Challis was struck by the appearance of one which
presented a disk and shone with the brightness of a star of the eighth
magnitude. This proved to be the planet. On October 1 Challis heard that
the German observer had anticipated him.
Arago, while recognizing the excellent work done by Adams in his
calculations, thought that the fact that the young mathematician had failed
to publish his results should deprive him of any share whatever in the glory
of the discovery of the new planet, and that history would confirm this
definite judgment. Arago named the new planet after the French discoverer,
but soon acquiesced in the name Neptune, which has since prevailed.
Airy, in whose possession Adams's results had remained for months
unpublished and unheeded, wrote Leverrier: "You are to be recognized
beyond doubt as the predictor of the planet's place." A vigorous official
himself, Airy was deeply impressed by the calm decisiveness and definite
directions of the French mathematician. "It is here, if I mistake not, that we
see a character far superior to that of the able, or enterprising, or industrious
mathematician; it is here that we see the philosopher." This explains, if

anything could, his view that a distant mathematical result is the subject of
ethical rather than of mathematical evidence.
Adams's friends felt that he had not received from either of the astronomers,
to whom he confided his results, the kind of help or advice he should have
received. Challis was kindly, but wanting in initiative. Although he had
command of the great Northumberland telescope, he had no thought of
commencing the search in 1845, for, without mistrusting the evidence
which the theory gave of the existence of the planet, it might be reasonable
to suppose that its position was determined but roughly, and that a search
for it must necessarily be long and laborious. In the view of Simon
Newcomb,[3] Adams's results, which were delivered at the Greenwich
Observatory October 21, 1845, were so near to the mark that a few hours'
close search could not have failed to make the planet known.
Both Adams and Leverrier had assumed as a rough approximation at
starting that the orbit of the new planet was circular and that, in accordance
with Bode's Law, its distance was twice that of Uranus. S. C. Walker, of the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, was able to determine the elements of
the orbit of Neptune accurately in 1847. In February of that year he had
found (as had Petersen of Altona about the same time) that Lalande had in
May, 1795, observed Neptune and mistaken it for a fixed star. When
Lalande's records in Paris were studied, it was found that he had made two
observations of Neptune on May 8 and 10. Their failure to agree caused the
observer to reject one and mark the other as doubtful. Had he repeated the
observation, he might have noted that the star moved, and was in reality a
planet.
Neptune's orbit is more nearly circular than that of any of the major planets
except Venus. Its distance is thirty times that of the earth from the sun
instead of thirty-nine times, as Bode's Law would require. That
generalization was a presupposition of the calculations leading to the
discovery. It was then rejected like a discredited ladder. Man's conception of
the universe is widened at the thought that the outmost known planet of our
solar system is about 2,796,000,000 miles from the sun and requires about
165 years for one revolution.

Professor Peirce, of Harvard University, pointing to the difference between
the calculations of Leverrier and the facts, put forward the view that the
discovery made by Galle must be regarded as a happy accident. This view,
however, has not been sustained.

REFERENCES

Sir Robert Ball, Neptune's Jubilee Year, Scientific American, Supplement,
Oct. 10, 1896.
Sir Robert Ball, The Story of the Heavens, chap. xv.
B. A. Gould, Report on the History of the Discovery of Neptune,
Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1850.
Robert Grant, History of Physical Astronomy.
Simon Newcomb, Popular Astronomy.
Benjamin Peirce, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, vol. i, pp. 57-68, 144, 285, 338-41, etc.

FOOTNOTES:
[3] See article "Neptune," Encyc. Brit.

CHAPTER XV
SCIENCE AND TRAVEL—THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE

Sir Charles Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, the first edition of which
appeared in 1830-1833, says: "If it be true that delivery be the first, second,
and third requisite in a popular orator, it is no less certain that travel is of
first, second, and third importance to those who desire to originate just and
comprehensive views concerning the structure of our globe." The value of
travel to science in general might very well be illustrated by Lyell's own
career, his study of the mountainous regions of France, his calculation of
the recession of Niagara Falls and of the sedimentary deposits of the
Mississippi, his observations of the coal formations of Nova Scotia, and of
the composition of the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia—suggestive of the
organic origin of the carboniferous rocks.
Although it is not with Lyell that we have here principally to deal, it is not
irrelevant to say that the main purpose of his work was to show that all past
changes in the earth's crust are referable to causes now in operation.
Differing from Hutton as to the part played in those changes by
subterranean heat, Lyell agreed with his forerunner in ascribing geological
transformations to "the slow agency of existing causes." He was, in fact, the
leader of the uniformitarians and opposed those geologists who held that the
contemporary state of the earth's crust was owing to a series of catastrophes,
stupendous exhibitions of natural force to which recent history offered no
parallel. Also enlightened as to the significance of organic remains in
stratified rock, Lyell in 1830 felt the need of further knowledge in reference
to the relation of the plants and animals represented in the fossils to the
fauna and flora now existing.
It is to Lyell's disciple, Charles Darwin, however, that we turn for our main
illustration of the value of travel for comprehensive scientific
generalization. Born, like another great liberator, on February 12, 1809,
Darwin was only twenty-two years old when he received appointment as
naturalist on H.M.S. Beagle, about to sail from Devonport on a voyage

around the world. The main purpose of the expedition, under command of
the youthful Captain Fitzroy, three or four years older than Darwin, was to
make a survey of certain coasts in South America and the Pacific Islands,
and to carry a line of chronometrical measurements about the globe.
Looking back in 1876 on this memorable expedition, the naturalist wrote,
"The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my
life, and has determined my whole career." In spite of the years he had spent
at school and college he regarded this experience as the first real training or
education of his mind.
Darwin had studied medicine at Edinburgh, but found surgery distasteful.
He moved to Cambridge, with the idea of becoming a clergyman of the
Established Church. As a boy he had attended with his mother, daughter of
Josiah Wedgwood, the Unitarian services. At Cambridge he graduated
without distinction at the beginning of 1831. It should be said, however,
that the traditional studies were particularly ill suited to his cast of mind,
that he had not been idle, and had developed particular diligence in different
branches of science, and above all as a collector.
He was six feet tall, fond of shooting and hunting, and able to ride seventy-
five or eighty miles without tiring. He had shown himself at college fond of
company, and a little extravagant. He was, though a sportsman, extremely
humane; had a horror of inflicting pain, and such repugnance at the thought
of slavery that he quarreled violently with Captain Fitzroy when the latter
condoned the abomination. Darwin was not, however, of a turbulent
disposition. Sir James Sulivan, who had accompanied the expedition as
second lieutenant, said many years after: "I can confidently express my
belief that during the five years in the Beagle, he was never known to be out
of temper, or to say one unkind or hasty word of or to any one."
Darwin's father was remarkable for his powers of observation, while the
grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, is well known for his tendency to
speculation. Charles Darwin possessed both these mental characteristics in
an eminent degree. One who has conversed with him reports that what
impressed him most in meeting the great naturalist was his clear blue eyes,
which seemed to possess almost telescopic vision, and that the really
remarkable thing about Darwin was that he saw more than other people. At
the same time it will scarcely be denied that his vision was as much marked

by insight as by careful observation, that his reasoning was logical and
singularly tenacious, and his imagination vivid. It was before this supreme
seer that the panorama of terrestrial creation was displayed during a five
years' voyage.
No one can read Darwin's Journal descriptive of the voyage of the Beagle
and continue to entertain any doubts in reference to his æsthetic sense and
poetic appreciation of the various moods of nature. Throughout the voyage
the scenery was for him the most constant and highest source of enjoyment.
His emotions responded to the glories of tropical vegetation in the Brazilian
forests, and to the sublimity of Patagonian wastes and the forest-clad hills
of Tierra del Fuego. "It is easy," writes the gifted adolescent, "to specify the
individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible
to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and
devotion, which fill and elevate the mind." Similarly, on the heights of the
Andes, listening to the stones borne seaward day and night by the mountain
torrents, Darwin remarked: "The sound spoke eloquently to the geologist;
the thousands and thousands of stones, which striking against each other,
made the one dull uniform sound, were all hurrying in one direction. It was
like thinking on time, where the minute that now glides past is
irrecoverable. So was it with these stones, the ocean is their eternity, and
each note of that wild music told of one more step towards their destiny."
When the Beagle left Devonport, December 27, 1831, the young naturalist
was without any theory, and when the ship entered Falmouth harbor,
October 2, 1836, though he felt the need of a theory in reference to the
relations of the various species of plants and animals, he had not formulated
one. It was not till 1859 that his famous work on the Origin of Species
appeared. He went merely as a collector, and frequently in the course of the
voyage felt a young man's misgivings as to whether his collections would
be of value to his Cambridge professors and other mature scientists.
Professor Henslow, the botanist, through whom Darwin had been offered
the opportunity to accompany the expedition, had presented his pupil with
the first volume of Lyell's Principles of Geology. (Perhaps, after Lyell, the
most potent influence on Darwin's mind at this time was that of Humboldt
and other renowned travelers, whose works he read with avidity.) At the
Cape Verde Islands he made some interesting observations of a white

calcareous stratum which ran for miles along the coast at a height of about
forty-five feet above the water. It rested on volcanic rocks and was itself
covered with basalt, that is, lava which had crystallized under the sea. It
was evident that subsequently to the formation of the basalt that portion of
the coast containing the white stratum had been elevated. The shells in the
stratum were recent, that is, corresponded to those still to be found on the
neighboring coast. It occurred to Darwin that the voyage might afford
material for a book on geology. Later in the voyage, having read portions of
his Journal to Captain Fitzroy, Darwin was encouraged to believe that this
also might prove worthy of publication.
Darwin's account of his adventures and manifold observations is so
informal, so rich in detail, as not to admit of summary. His eye took in the
most diverse phenomena, the color of the sea or of rivers, clouds of
butterflies and of locusts, the cacique with his little boy clinging to the side
of a horse in headlong flight, the great earthquake on the coast of Chile, the
endless variety of plant and animal life, the superstition of savage and
padre, the charms of Tahiti, the unconscious humor of his mountain guides
for whom at an altitude of eleven thousand feet "the cursed pot (which was
a new one) did not choose to boil potatoes"—all found response in Darwin's
open mind; everything was grist to his mill. Any selection from the richness
of the original is almost sure to show a tendency not obvious in the Journal.
On the other hand, it is just such multiplicity of phenomena as the Journal
mirrors that impels every orderly mind to seek for causes, for explanation.
The human intellect cannot rest till law gives form to the wild chaos of fact.
No disciple of Lyell could fail to be convinced of the immeasurable lapse of
time required for the formation of the earth's crust. For this principle
Darwin found abundant evidence during the years spent in South America.
On the heights of the Andes he found marine shell fossils at a height of
fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. That such an elevation of submarine
strata should be achieved by forces still at Nature's command might well
test the faith of the most ardent disciple. Of how great those forces are
Darwin received demonstration on the coast of Chile in 1835. Under date of
February 12, he writes: "This day has been memorable in the annals of
Valdivia for the most severe earthquake experienced by the oldest
inhabitant.... A bad earthquake destroys our oldest associations; the earth,
the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust

over a fluid." He observed that the most remarkable effect of this
earthquake was the permanent elevation of the land. Around the Bay of
Concepcion it was raised two or three feet, while at the island of Santa
Maria the elevation was much greater; "on one part Captain Fitzroy found
beds of putrid mussel shells still adhering to the rocks, ten feet above high-
water mark." On the same day the volcanoes of South America were active.
The area from under which volcanic matter was actually erupted was 720
miles in one line and 400 in another at right angles to it. Great as is the
force at work, ages are required to produce a range of mountains like the
Cordilleras; moreover, progress is not uniform and subsidence may
alternate with elevation. It was on the principle of the gradual subsidence
(and elevation) of the bed of the Pacific Ocean that Darwin accounted for
the formation of coral reefs. Nothing "is so unstable as the level of the crust
of this earth."
Closely associated with the evidence of the immensity of the force of
volcanic action and the infinitude of time elapsed, Darwin had testimony of
the multitude of plant and animal species, some gigantic, others almost
infinitely small, some living, others extinct. We know that his thought was
greatly affected by his discovery in Uruguay and Patagonia of the fossil
remains of extinct mammals, all the more so because they seemed to bear
relationship to particular living species and at the same time to show
likeness to other species. The Toxodon (bow-tooth), for example, was a
gigantic rodent whose fossil remains were discovered in the same region
where Darwin found living the capybara, a rodent as large as a pig; at the
same time the extinct species showed in its structure certain affinities to the
Edentata (sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos). Other fossils represented gigantic
forms distinctly of the edentate order and comparable to the Cape ant-eater
and the Great Armadillo (Dasypus gigas). Again, remains were found of a
thick-skinned non-ruminant with certain structural likeness to the
Camelidæ, to which the living species of South American ruminants, the
guanacos, belong.
Why have certain species ceased to exist? As the individual sickens and
dies, so certain species become rare and extinct. Darwin found in Northern
Patagonia evidence of the Equus curvidens, an extinct species of native
American horse. What had caused this species to die out? Imported horses
were introduced at Buenos Ayres in 1537, and so flourished in the wild state

that in 1580 they were found as far south as the Strait of Magellan. Darwin
was well fitted by the comprehensiveness of his observations to deal with
the various factors of extinction and survival. He studied the species in their
natural setting, the habitat, and range, and habits, and food of the different
varieties. Traveling for three years and a half north and south on the
continent of South America, he noticed one species replacing another,
perhaps closely allied, species. Of the carrion-feeding hawks the condor has
an immense range, but shows a predilection for perpendicular cliffs. If an
animal die on the plain the polyborus has prerogative of feeding first, and is
followed by the turkey buzzard and the gallinazo. European horses and
cattle running wild in the Falkland Islands are somewhat modified; the
horse as a species degenerating, the cattle increasing in size and tending to
form varieties of different color. The soil being soft the hoofs of the horse
grow long and produce lameness. Again, on the mainland, the niata, a breed
of cattle supposed to have originated among the Indians south of the Plata,
are, on account of the projection of the lower jaw, unable to browse as
effectually as other breeds. This renders them liable to destruction in times
of drought. A similar variation in structure had characterized a species of
extinct ruminant in India.
How disastrous a great drought might prove to the cattle of the Pampas is
shown by the records of 1825 and of 1830. So little rain fell that there was a
complete failure of vegetation. The loss of cattle in one province alone was
estimated at one million. Of one particular herd of twenty thousand not a
single one survived. Darwin had many other instances of nature's
devastations. After the Beagle sailed from the Plata, December 6, 1833, vast
numbers of butterflies were seen as far as the eye could range in bands of
countless myriads. "Before sunset a strong breeze sprung up from the north,
and this must have caused tens of thousands of the butterflies and other
insects to perish." Two or three months before this he had ocular proof of
the effect of a hailstorm, which in a very limited area killed twenty deer,
fifteen ostriches, numbers of ducks, hawks, and partridges. In the war of
extermination that was ever before the great naturalist's eye in South
America, what is it that favors a species' survival or determines its
extinction?
Not only is the struggle between the animals and inanimate nature, the
plants and inanimate nature, plant and animal, rival animals, and rival

plants; it goes on between man and his environment, and, very fiercely,
between man and man. Darwin was moved by intense indignation at the
slavery on the east coast and the cruel oppression of the laborer on the west
coast. He was in close contact with the sanguinary political struggles of
South America, and with a war of attempted extermination against the
Indian. He refers to the shocking but "unquestionable fact, that [in the latter
struggle] all the women who appear above twenty years old are massacred
in cold blood! When I exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman, he [the
informant] answered, 'Why, what can be done? they breed so!'"
In all his travels nothing that Darwin beheld made a deeper impression on
his sensitive mind than primitive man. "Of individual objects, perhaps
nothing is more certain to create astonishment than the first sight in his
native haunt of a barbarian—of man in his lowest and most savage state.
One's mind hurries back over past centuries, and then asks, could our
progenitors have been men like these?... I do not believe it is possible to
describe or paint the difference between savage and civilized man." It was
at Tierra del Fuego that he was particularly shocked. He admired the
Tahitians; he pitied the natives of Tasmania, corralled like wild animals and
forced to migrate; he thought the black aborigines of Australia had been
underestimated and remarked with regret that their numbers were
decreasing through their association with civilized man, the introduction of
spirits, the increased difficulty of procuring food, and contact with
European diseases. In this last cause tending to bring about extinction there
was a mysterious element. In Chile his scientific acumen had been baffled
in the attempt to explain the invasion of the strange and dreadful disease
hydrophobia. In Australia the problem of the transmission to the natives of
various diseases, even by Europeans in apparent health, confronted his
intelligence. "The varieties of man seem to act on each other in the same
way as different specimens of animals—the stronger always extirpating the
weaker."
It was at Wollaston Island, near Cape Horn, however, that Darwin saw
savage men held in extremity by the hard conditions of life, and at bay.
They had neither food, nor shelter, nor clothing. They stood absolutely
naked as the sleet fell on them and melted. At night, "naked and scarcely
protected from the wind and rain of this tempestuous climate," they slept on
the wet ground coiled up like animals. They subsisted on shell fish, putrid

whale's blubber, or a few tasteless berries and fungi. At war, the different
tribes are cannibals. Darwin writes, "It is certainly true, that when pressed
in winter by hunger, they kill and devour their old women before they kill
their dogs." A native boy, when asked by a traveler why they do this, had
answered, "Doggies catch otters, old women no." In such hard conditions
what are the characteristics that would determine the survival of individual
or tribe? One might be tempted to lay almost exclusive emphasis on
physical strength, but Darwin was too wise ultimately to answer thus the
question that for six or seven years was forming in his accurate and
discriminating mind.
On its way west in the Pacific the Beagle spent a month at the Galapagos
Archipelago, which lies under the equator five or six hundred miles from
the mainland. "Most of the organic productions are aboriginal creations,
found nowhere else; there is even a difference between the inhabitants of
the different islands; yet all show a marked relationship with those of
America." Why should the plants and animals of the islands resemble those
of the mainland, or the inhabitants of one island differ from those of a
neighboring island? Darwin had always held that species were created
immutable, and that it was impossible for one species to give rise to
another.
In the Galapagos Archipelago he found only one species of terrestrial
mammal, a new species of mouse, and that only on the most easterly island
of the group. On the South American continent there were at least forty
species of mice, those east of the Andes being distinct from those on the
west coast. Of land-birds he obtained twenty-six kinds, twenty-five of
which were to be found nowhere else. Among these, a hawk seemed in
structure intermediate between the buzzard and polyborus, as though it had
been modified and induced to take over the functions of the South
American carrion-hawk. There were three species of mocking-thrush, two
of them confined to one island each. There were thirteen species of finches,
all peculiar to the archipelago. In the different species of geospiza there is a
perfect gradation in the size of the beaks, only to be appreciated by seeing
the specimens or their illustrations.
Few of the birds were of brilliant coloration. The same was true of the
plants and insects. Darwin looked in vain for one brilliant flower. This was

in marked contrast to the fauna and flora of the South American tropics. The
coloration of the species suggested comparison with that of the plants and
animals of Patagonia. Amid brilliant tropical plants brilliant plumage may
afford means of concealment, as well as being a factor in the securing of
mates.
Darwin found the reptiles the most striking feature of the zoölogy of the
islands. They seem to take the place of the herbivorous mammalia. The
huge tortoise (Testudo nigra) native in the archipelago is so heavy as to be
lifted only by six or eight men. (The young naturalist frequently got on the
back of a tortoise, but as it moved forward under his encouragement, he
found it very difficult to keep his balance.) Different varieties, if not
species, characterize the different islands. Of the other reptilia should be
noted two species of lizard of a genus (Amblyrhynchus) confined to the
Galapagos Islands. One, aquatic, a yard long, fifteen pounds in weight, with
"limbs and strong claws admirably adapted for crawling over the rugged
and fissured masses of lava," feeds on seaweed. When frightened it
instinctively shuns the water, as though it feared especially its aquatic
enemies. The terrestrial species is confined to the central part of the group;
it is smaller than the aquatic species, and feeds on cactus, leaves of trees,
and berries.
Fifteen new species of sea-fish were obtained, distributed in twelve genera.
The archipelago, though not rich in insects, afforded several new genera,
each island with its distinct kinds. The flora of the Galapagos Islands
proved equally distinctive. More than half of the flowering plants are
native, and the species of the different islands show wonderful differences.
For example, of seventy-one species found on James Island thirty-eight are
confined to the archipelago and thirty to this one island.
In October the Beagle sailed west to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia,
Keeling or Cocos Islands, Mauritius, St. Helena, Ascension; arrived at
Bahia, Brazil, August 1, 1836; and finally proceeded from Brazil to
England. Among his many observations, Darwin noted the peculiar animals
of Australia, the kangaroo-rat, and "several of the famous Ornithorhynchus
paradoxus," or duckbill. On the Keeling or Cocos Islands the chief
vegetable production is the cocoanut. Here Darwin observed crabs of
monstrous size, with a structure which enabled them to open the cocoanuts.

They thus secured their food, and accumulated "surprising quantities of the
picked fibres of the cocoanut husk, on which they rest as a bed."
In preparing his Journal for publication in the autumn of 1836 the young
naturalist saw how many facts pointed to the common descent of species.
He thought that by collecting all facts that bore on the variation of plants
and animals, wild or domesticated, light might be thrown on the whole
subject. "I worked on true Baconian principles, and, without any theory,
collected facts on a wholesale scale." He saw that pigeon-fanciers and
stock-breeders develop certain types by preserving those variations that
have the desired characteristics. This is a process of artificial selection.
How is selection made by Nature?
In 1838 he read Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, which
showed how great and rapid, without checks like war and disease, the
increase in number of the human race would be. He had seen something in
his travels of rivalry for the means of subsistence. He now perceived "that
under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved,
and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the
formation of a new species." As special breeds are developed by artificial
selection, so new species evolve by a process of natural selection. Those
genera survive which give rise to species adapted to new conditions of
existence.
In 1858, before Darwin had published his theory, he received from another
great traveler, Alfred Russel Wallace, then at Ternate in the Moluccas, a
manuscript essay, setting forth an almost identical view of the development
of new species through the survival of the fittest in the struggle for
existence.

REFERENCES

Charles Darwin, A Naturalist's Journal.
Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.
W. A. Locy, Biology and its Makers (third revised edition), chap. xix.
G. J. Romanes, Darwin and After Darwin, vol. i.

A. R. Wallace, Darwinism.
See also John W. Judd, The Coming of Evolution (The Cambridge Manuals
of Science and Literature).

CHAPTER XVI
SCIENCE AND WAR—PASTEUR, LISTER

In the history of science war is no mere interruption, but a great stimulating
influence, promoting directly or indirectly the liberties of the people, calling
into play the energy of artisan and manufacturer, and increasing the demand
for useful and practical studies. In the activities of naval and military
equipment and organization this influence is obvious enough; it is no less
real in the reaction from war which impels all to turn with new zest to the
arts and industries of peace and to cherish whatever may tend to culture and
civil progress. Not infrequently war gives rise, not only to new educational
ideals, but to new institutions and to new types of institution favorable to
the advancement of science. As we have already seen, the Royal Society
and Milton's Academies owed their origin to the Great Rebellion. Similarly
the Ecole Polytechnique, mother of many scientific discoveries, rose in
answer to the needs of the French Revolution. No less noteworthy was the
reconstruction of education under the practical genius of Napoleon I, the
division of France into académies, the founding of the lycées, the
reëstablishment of the great Ecole Normale, and the organization of the
Imperial University with new science courses and new provincial Faculties
at Rennes, Lille, and elsewhere. With all these different forms in which the
influence of war makes itself felt in the progress of science the life and
career of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), the founder of bacteriology, stood
intimately associated.
He was born at Dôle, but the family a few years later settled at Arbois. For
three generations the Pasteurs had been tanners in the Jura, and they
naturally adhered to that portion of the population which hailed the
Revolution as a deliverance. The great-grandfather was the first freeman of
Pasteur's forbears, having purchased with money his emancipation from
serfdom. The father in 1811, at the age of twenty, was one of Napoleon's
conscripts, and in 1814 received from the Emperor, for valor and fidelity,
the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The directness and endurance of the
influence of this trained veteran on his gifted son a hundred fine incidents

attest. In 1848—year of revolt in the monarchies of Europe—the young
scientist enrolled himself in the National Guard, and, seeing one day in the
Place du Panthéon a structure inscribed with the words autel de la patrie, he
placed upon it all the humble means—one hundred and fifty francs—then at
his disposal.
It was in that same year that Pasteur put on record his discovery of the
nature of racemic acid, his first great service to science, from which all his
other services were to proceed. As a boy he had attended the collège at
Arbois where his teacher had inspired him with an ambition to enter the
great Ecole Normale. Before reaching that goal he took his bachelor's
degree in science as well as in arts at the Besançon college. At Paris he
came in contact with the leaders of the scientific world—Claude Bernard,
Balard, Dumas, Biot.
J. B. Biot had entered the ranks of science by way of the Ecole
Polytechnique and the artillery service. In 1819 he had announced that the
plane of polarized light—for example, a ray passed through Iceland spar—
is deflected to right or left by various chemical substances. Among these is
common tartaric acid—the acid of grape-juice, obtained from wine lees.
Racemic acid, however, which is identical with tartaric acid in its chemical
constituents, is optically inactive, rotating the plane of polarized light
neither to the right nor the left. This substance Pasteur subjected to special
investigation. He scrutinized the crystals of sodium ammonium racemate
obtained from aqueous solution. These he observed to be of two kinds
differing in form as a right glove from a left, or as an object from its mirror-
image. Separating the crystals according to the difference of form, he made
a solution from each group. One solution, tested in the polarized-light
apparatus, turned the plane to the right; the other solution turned it to the
left. He had made a capital discovery of far-reaching importance, namely,
that racemic acid is composite, consisting of dextro-tartaric and lævo-
tartaric acids. Biot hesitated to credit a mere tyro with such an achievement.
The experiment was repeated in his presence. Convinced by ocular
demonstration, he was almost overcome with emotion. "My dear boy," he
exclaimed, "I have loved the sciences so much my life through that that
makes my heart jump."

Pasteur began his regular professional experience as a teacher of physics in
the Dijon lycée, but he was soon transferred to the University of Strasburg
(1849). There he married the daughter of the rector of the académie, and
three years later became Professor of Chemistry. In 1854 he was appointed
Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Lille, a town then officially described as
the richest center of industrial activity in the north of France. In his opening
address he showed the value and attractiveness of practical studies. He
believed as an educator in the close alliance of laboratory and factory.
Application should always be the aim, but resting on the severe and solid
basis of scientific principles; for it is theory alone which can bring forth and
develop the spirit of invention.
His own study of racemic acid, begun in the laboratories of Paris, and
followed up in the factories of Leipzig, Prag, and Vienna, had led to his
theory of molecular dissymmetry, the starting point of modern stereo-
chemistry. It now gave rise on Pasteur's part to new studies and to new
applications to the industries. He tried an experiment which seems almost
whimsical, placing ammonium racemate in the ordinary conditions of
fermentation, and observed that only one part—the dextro-rotatory—
ferments or putrefies. Why? "Because the ferments of that fermentation
feed more easily on the right hand than on the left hand molecules." He
succeeded in keeping alive one of the commonest moulds on the surface of
ashes and racemic acid, and saw the lævo-tartaric acid appear. It was thus
that he passed from the study of crystals to the study of ferments.
In the middle of the nineteenth century little was known of the nature of
fermentation, though some sought to explain by this ill-understood process
the origin of various diseases and of putrefaction. Why does fruit-juice
produce alcohol, wine turn to vinegar, milk become sour, and butter rancid?
Pasteur's interest in these problems of fermentation was stimulated by one
of the industries of Lille. He was accustomed to visit with his students the
factories of that place as well as those of neighboring French and Belgian
cities. The father of one of his students was engaged in the manufacture of
alcohol from beetroot sugar, and Pasteur came to be consulted when
difficulties arose in the manufacturing process. He discovered a relationship
between the development of the yeast and the success or failure of the
fermentation, the yeast globules as seen under the microscope showing an
alteration of form when the fermentation was not proceeding satisfactorily.

In 1857 Pasteur on the basis of this study was able to demonstrate that
alcoholic fermentation, that is, the conversion of sugar into alcohol,
carbonic acid, and other compounds, depends on the action of yeast, the
cells of which are widely disseminated in the atmosphere.
In this year of his second great triumph Pasteur was appointed director of
science studies in the Ecole Normale, from which he had graduated in 1847.
Two years later the loss of his daughter by a communicable disease—
typhoid fever—had a great effect on his sensitive and profound mind. Many
of his opponents, it is true, found Pasteur implacable in controversy.
Undoubtedly he had the courage of his convictions, and his belief that, for
the sake of human welfare, right views—his views won by tireless
experiment—must prevail, gained him the name of a fighter. But in all the
intimate relations of life his essential tenderness was manifest. Like Darwin
he had a horror of inflicting pain, and always insisted, when operations on
animals were necessary in the laboratory, on the use of anæsthetics (our
command of which had been greatly advanced by Simpson in 1847). Emile
Roux said that Pasteur's agitation at witnessing the slightest exhibition of
pain would have been ludicrous if, in so great a man, it had not been
touching.
A few months after his daughter's death Pasteur wrote to one of his friends:
"I am pursuing as best I can these studies on fermentation, which are of
great interest, connected as they are with the impenetrable mystery of life
and death. I am hoping to make a decisive advance very soon, by solving
without the least lack of clearness the famous question of spontaneous
generation." Two years previously a scientist had claimed that animals and
plants could be generated in a medium of artificial air or oxygen, from
which all atmospheric air and all germs of organized bodies had been
precluded. Pasteur now filtered atmospheric air through a plug of cotton or
asbestos (a procedure which had been followed by others in 1854), and
proved that in air thus treated no fermentation takes place. Nothing in the
atmosphere causes life except the micro-organisms it contains. He even
demonstrated that a putrescible fluid like blood will remain unchanged in an
open vessel so constructed as to exclude atmospheric dust.
Pasteur's critics maintained that if putrefaction and fermentation be caused
solely by microscopic organisms, then these must be found everywhere and

in such quantities as to encumber the air. He replied that they were less
numerous in some parts of the atmosphere than in others. To prove his
contention he set out for Arbois with a large number of glass bulbs each half
filled with a putrescible liquid. The necks of the bulbs had been drawn out
and hermetically sealed after the contents had been boiled. In case the necks
were broken (to be again sealed immediately), the air would rush in, and (if
it held the requisite micro-organisms) furnish the conditions for
putrefaction. It was found that in every trial the contents of a certain
number of the bulbs always escaped alteration. Twenty were opened in the
country near Arbois free from human habitations. Eight out of the twenty
showed signs of putrefaction. Twenty were exposed to the air on the heights
of the Jura at an altitude of eight hundred and fifty meters above sea-level;
the contents of five of these subsequently putrefied. Twenty others were
opened near Mont Blanc at an altitude of two thousand meters and while a
wind was blowing from the Mer de Glace; in this case the contents of only
one of the bulbs became putrefied.
While his opponents still professed to believe in the creation of organized
beings lacking parents, Pasteur was under the influence of the theory of "the
slow and progressive transformation of one species into another," and was
becoming aware of phases of the struggle for existence hitherto shrouded in
mystery. He wished he said to push these studies far enough to prepare the
way for a serious investigation of the origin of disease.
He returned to the study of lactic fermentation, showed that butyric
fermentation may be caused by organisms which live in the absence of
oxygen, while vinegar is produced from wine through the agency of
bacteria freely supplied with the oxygen of the air. Pasteur was seeing ever
more clearly the part played by the infinitesimally small in the economy of
nature. Without these microscopic beings life would become impossible,
because death would be incomplete. On the basis of Pasteur's study of
fermentation, his demonstration that decomposition is owing to living
organisms and that minute forms of life spring from parents like
themselves, his disciple Joseph Lister began in 1864 to develop antiseptic
surgery.
Pasteur's attention was next directed to the wine industry, which then had an
annual value to France of 500,000,000 francs. Might not the acidity,

bitterness, defective flavor, which were threatening the foreign sale of
French wines, be owing to ferments? He discovered that this was, indeed,
the case, and that the diseases of wine could be cured by the simple
expedient of heating the liquor for a few moments to a temperature of 50°
to 60° C. Tests on a considerable scale were made by order of the naval
authorities. The ship Jean Bart before starting on a voyage took on board
five hundred liters of wine, half of which had been heated under Pasteur's
directions. At the end of ten months the pasteurized wine was mellow and
of good color, while the wine which had not been heated had an astringent,
almost bitter, taste. A more extensive test—seven hundred hectoliters, of
which six hundred and fifty had been pasteurized—was carried out on the
frigate la Sibylle with satisfactory results. Previously wines had been
preserved by the addition of alcohol, which made them both dearer and
more detrimental to health.
In 1865 Pasteur was called upon to exercise his scientific acumen on behalf
of the silk industry. A disease—pébrine—had appeared among silkworms in
1845. In 1849 the effect on the French industry was disastrous. In the single
arrondissement of Alais an annual income of 120,000,000 francs was lost
for the subsequent fifteen years. The mulberry plantations of the Cévennes
were abandoned and the whole region was desolate. Pasteur, at the
instigation of the Minister of Agriculture, undertook an investigation. After
four or five years, in spite of repeated domestic afflictions and the
breakdown of his own health, he arrived at a successful conclusion.
Pébrine, due to "corpuscles" readily detected under the microscope, could
be recognized at the moment of the moth's formation. A second disease,
flacherie, was due to a micro-organism found in the digestive cavity of the
moth. Measures were taken to select the seed of the healthy moths and to
destroy the others. These investigations revealed the infinitesimally small as
disorganizers of living tissue, and brought Pasteur nearer his purpose "of
arriving," as he had expressed it to Napoleon III in 1863, "at the knowledge
of the causes of putrid and contagious diseases."
Returning in July, 1870, from a visit to Liebig at Munich, Pasteur heard at
Strasburg of the imminence of war. All his dreams of conquest over disease
and death seemed to vanish. He hurried to Paris. His son, eighteen years of
age, set out with the army. Every student of the Ecole Normale enlisted.
Pasteur's laboratory was used to house soldiers. He himself wished to be

enrolled in the National Guard, and had to be told that a half-paralyzed man
could not render military service. He was obsessed with horror of wanton
bloodshed and with indignation at the insolence of armed injustice. Trained
to serve his country only in one way he tried, but in vain, to resume his
researches. He retired to the old home town of Arbois, and sought to distract
his mind from the contemplation of human baseness. Arbois was entered by
the enemy in January with the usual atrocities of war. Pasteur accompanied
by wife and daughter had gone in search of his son, sick at Pontarlier. The
boy was restored to health and returned to his regiment the following
month.
During this crisis Pasteur and his friends felt, as many English scientists
feel in 1917, in reference to ignorance in high places. "We are paying the
penalty," he said, "of fifty years' forgetfulness of science, and of its
conditions of development." Again he speaks, as Englishmen to-day very
well might, of the neglect, disdain even, of the country for great intellectual
men, especially in the realm of exact science. In the same strain his friend
Bertin said that after the war everything would have to be rebuilt from the
top to the bottom, the top especially. Pasteur recalled the period of 1792
when Lavoisier, Berthollet, Monge, Fourcroy, Guyton de Morveau, Chaptal,
Clouet, and other scientists had furnished France with gunpowder, steel,
cannon, fortifications, balloons, leather, and other means to repel unjust
invasion.
On the day after Sedan the Quaker surgeon Lister had published directions
for the use of aqueous solutions of carbolic acid to destroy septic particles
in wounds, and of oily solutions "to prevent putrefactive fermentation from
without." He recognized that the earlier the case comes from the field the
greater the prospect of success. Sédillot (the originator of the term
"microbe"), at the head of an ambulance corps in Alsace, was a pioneer in
the rapid transport of wounded from the field of battle. He knew the horrors
of purulent infection in military hospitals, and regretted that the principles
of Pasteur and Lister were not more fully applied.
After the war was over, Pasteur kept repeating his life-long exhortation: We
must work—"Travaillez, travaillez toujours!" He applied himself to a study
of the brewing industry. He did not believe in spontaneous alterations, but
found that every marked change in the quality of beer coincides with the

development of micro-organisms. He was able to tell the English brewers
the defects in their output by a microscopic examination of their yeast. ("We
must make some friends for our beloved France," he said.) Bottled beer
could be pasteurized by bringing it to a temperature of 50° to 55° C.
Whenever beer contains no ferments it is unalterable. His scrupulous mind
was coming ever closer to the goal of his ambition. This study of the
diseases of beer led him nearer to a knowledge of infections. Many micro-
organisms may, must, be detrimental to the health of man and animals.
In 1874 the Government conferred upon Pasteur a life annuity of twelve
thousand francs, an equivalent of his salary as Professor of Chemistry at the
Sorbonne. (He had received appointment in 1867, but had been compelled
by ill-health to relinquish his academic functions.) The grant was in all
respects wise. Huxley remarked that Pasteur's discoveries alone would
suffice to cover the war indemnity of five milliards paid by France to
Germany in 1871. Moreover, all his activities were dictated by patriotic
motives. He felt that science is of no country and that its conquests belong
to mankind, but that the scientist must be a patriot in the service of his
native land.
Pasteur now applied his energies to the study of virulent diseases, following
the principles of his earlier investigations. He opposed those physicians
who believed in the spontaneity of disease, and he wished to wage a war of
extermination against all injurious organisms. As early as 1850 Davaine and
Rayer had shown that a rod-like micro-organism was always present in the
blood of animals dying of anthrax, a disease which was destroying the
flocks and herds of France. Dr. Koch, who had served in the Franco-
Prussian War, succeeded in 1876 in obtaining pure cultures of this bacillus
and in defining its relation to the disease. Pasteur took up the study of
anthrax in 1877, verified previous discoveries, and, as we shall see, sought
means for the prevention of this pest. He discovered (with Joubert and
Chamberland) the bacillus of malignant edema. He applied the principles of
bacteriology to the treatment of puerperal fever, which in 1864 had
rendered fatal 310 cases out of 1350 confinements in the Maternité in Paris.
Here he had to fight against conservatism in the medical profession, and he
fought strenuously, one of his disciples remarking that it is characteristic of
lofty minds to put passion into ideas. Swine plague, which in the United

States in 1879 destroyed over a million hogs, and chicken cholera, also
engaged his attention.
Cultures of chicken cholera virus kept for some time became less active. A
hen that chanced to be inoculated with the weakened virus developed the
disease, but, after a time, recovered (much as patients after the old-time
smallpox inoculations). It was then inoculated with a fresh culture supposed
sufficient to cause death. It again recovered. The use of the weakened
inoculation had developed its resistance to infection. A weakened virus
recovered its strength when passed through a number of sparrows, the
second being inoculated with virus from the first, the third from the second,
and so on (this species being subject to the disease). Hens that had not had
chicken cholera could be rendered immune by a series of attenuated
inoculations gradually increasing in strength. In the case of anthrax the
virus could be weakened by keeping it at a certain temperature, while it
could be strengthened by passage through a succession of guinea-pigs.
There are of course many instances where pathogenic bacteria lose
virulence in passing from one animal to another, the human smallpox virus,
for example, producing typical cowpox in an inoculated heifer. These facts
help to explain why certain infections have grown less virulent in the course
of history, and why infections of which civilized man has become tolerant
prove fatal when imparted to the primitive peoples of Australia.
Pasteur's preventive inoculation for anthrax was tested under dramatic
circumstances at Melun in June, 1881. Sixty sheep and a number of cows
were subjected to experiment. None of the sheep that had been given the
preventive treatment died from the crucial inoculation; while all those
succumbed which had not received previous treatment. The test for the
cows was likewise successful. Pasteur thought that in places where sheep
dead of anthrax had been buried, the microbes were brought to the surface
in the castings of earthworms. Hence he issued certain directions to prevent
the transmission of the disease. He also aided agriculture by discovering a
vaccine for swine plague.
When Pasteur at the age of fifteen was in Paris, overcome with
homesickness, he had exclaimed, "If I could only get a whiff of the old
tannery yard, I feel I should be cured." Certainly every time he came in
contact with the industries—silk, wine, beer, wool—his scientific insight,

Antæus-like, seemed to revive. All his life he had preached the doctrine of
interchange of service between theory and practice, science and the
occupations. What he did is more eloquent than words. His theory of
molecular dissymmetry, that the atoms in a molecule may be arranged in
left-hand and right-hand spirals or other tridimensional figures
corresponding to asymmetrical crystals, touches the abstruse question of the
constitution of matter. His preventive treatment breathes new life into the
old dictum similia similibus curantur. The view he adopted of the gradual
transformation of species offers a new interpretation of the speculations of
philosophy in reference to being and becoming and the relation of the real
to the concrete. Yet Pasteur felt he could learn much of value from the
simplest shepherd or vine-dresser.
He was complete in the simplicity of his affections, in his compassion for
all suffering, in the warmth of his religious faith, and in his devotion to his
country. He thought France was to regain her place in the world's esteem
through scientific progress. He was therefore especially gratified in August,
1881, at the thunders of applause which greeted his appearance at the
International Medical Congress in London. There he was introduced to the
Prince of Wales (fondateur de l'Entente Cordiale), "to whom I bowed,
saying that I was happy to salute a friend of France."
Pasteur's investigation of rabies began in this same year. Difficulty was
found in isolating the microbe of the rabic virus, but an inoculation from the
medulla oblongata of a mad dog injected into one of the brain membranes
(dura mater) of another dog invariably brought on the symptoms of rabies.
To obtain attenuation of the virus it was sufficient to dry the medulla taken
from an infected rabbit. The weakened virus increased in strength when
cultivated in a series of rabbits. Pasteur obtained in inoculations of graded
virulence, which could be administered hypodermically, a means of
prophylaxis after bites. He conjectured that in vaccinal immunity the virus
is accompanied by a substance which makes the nervous tissue unfavorable
for the development of the microbe.
It was not till 1885 that he ventured to use his discovery to prevent
hydrophobia. On July 6 a little boy, Joseph Meister, from a small place in
Alsace was brought by his mother to Paris for treatment. He had been
severely bitten by a mad dog. Pasteur, with great trepidation, but moved by

his usual compassion, undertook the case. The inoculations of the
attenuated virus began at once. The boy suffered little inconvenience,
playing about the laboratory during the ten days the treatment lasted.
Pasteur was racked with fears alternating with hopes, his anxiety growing
more intense as the virulence of the inoculations increased. On August 20,
however, even he was convinced that the treatment was a complete success.
In October a shepherd lad, who, though badly bitten himself, had saved
some other children from the attack of a rabid dog, was the second one to
benefit by the great discovery. Pasteur's exchange of letters with these boys
after they had returned to their homes reveals the kindliness of his
disposition. His sentiment toward children had regard both to what they
were and to what they might become. One patient, brought to him thirty-
seven days after being bitten, he failed to save. By March 1 Pasteur reported
that three hundred and fifty cases had been treated with only one death.
When subscriptions were opened for the erection and endowment of the
Pasteur Institute, a sum of 2,586,680 francs was received in contributions
from many different parts of the world. Noteworthy among the contributors
were the Emperor of Brazil, the Czar of Russia, the Sultan of Turkey, and
the peasants of Alsace. On November 14, 1888, President Carnot opened
the institution, which was soon to witness the triumphs of Roux, Yersin,
Metchnikoff, and other disciples of Pasteur. In the address prepared for this
occasion the veteran scientist wrote:—
"If I might be allowed, M. le Président, to conclude by a philosophical
remark, inspired by your presence in this home of work, I should say that
two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with each other at the present time;
the one a law of blood and death, ever devising new means of destruction
and forcing nations to be constantly ready for the battlefield—the other, a
law of peace, work, and health, ever developing new means of delivering
man from the scourges which beset him.
"The one seeks violent conquests, the other the relief of humanity. The
latter places one human life above any victory; while the former would
sacrifice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambition of one. The law of
which we are the instruments seeks, even in the midst of carnage, to cure
the sanguinary ills of the law of war; the treatment inspired by our
antiseptic methods may preserve thousands of soldiers. Which of these two

laws will ultimately prevail God alone knows. But we may assert that
French science will have tried, by obeying the law of humanity, to extend
the frontiers of life."

REFERENCES

W. W. Ford, The Life and Work of Robert Koch, Bulletin of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital, Dec. 1911, vol. 22.
C. A. Herter, The Influence of Pasteur on Medical Science, Bulletin of the
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dec. 1903, vol. 14.
E. O. Jordan, General Bacteriology (fourth edition, 1915).
Charles C. W. Judd, The Life and Work of Lister, Bulletin of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital, Oct. 1910, vol. 21.
Stephen Paget, Pasteur and After Pasteur.
W. T. Sedgwick, Principles of Sanitary Science.
René Vallery-Radot, Life of Pasteur.

CHAPTER XVII
SCIENCE AND INVENTION—LANGLEY'S AEROPLANE

In his laudation of the nineteenth century Alfred Russel Wallace ventured to
enumerate the chief inventions of that period: (1) Railways; (2) steam
navigation; (3) electric telegraphs; (4) the telephone; (5) friction matches;
(6) gas-lighting; (7) electric-lighting; (8) photography; (9) the phonograph;
(10) electric transmission of power; (11) Röntgen rays; (12) spectrum
analysis; (13) anæsthetics; (14) antiseptic surgery. All preceding centuries—
less glorious than the nineteenth—can claim but seven or eight capital
inventions: (1) Alphabetic writing; (2) Arabic numerals; (3) the mariner's
compass; (4) printing; (5) the telescope; (6) the barometer and thermometer;
(7) the steam engine. Similarly, to the nineteenth century thirteen important
theoretical discoveries are ascribed, to the eighteenth only two, and to the
seventeenth five.
Of course the very purpose of these lists—namely, to compare the
achievements of one century with those of other centuries—inclines us to
view each invention as an isolated phenomenon, disregarding its
antecedents and its relation to contemporary inventions. Studied in its
development, steam navigation is but an application of one kind of steam
engine, and, moreover, must be viewed as a phase in the evolution of
navigation since the earliest times. Like considerations would apply to
railways, antiseptic surgery, or friction matches. The nineteenth-century
inventor of the friction match was certainly no more ingenious (considering
the means that chemistry had put at his disposal) than many of the savages
who contributed by their intelligence to methods of producing, maintaining,
and using fire. In fact, as we approach the consideration of prehistoric times
it becomes difficult to distinguish inventions from the slow results of
development—in metallurgy, tool-making, building, pottery, war-gear,
weaving, cooking, the domestication of animals, the selection and
cultivation of plants. Moreover, it is scarcely in the category of invention
that the acquisition of alphabetic writing or the use of Arabic numerals
properly belongs.

These and other objections, such as the omission of explosives, firearms,
paper, will readily occur to the reader. Nevertheless, these lists, placed side
by side with the record of theoretic discoveries, encourage the belief that,
more and more, sound theory is productive of useful inventions, and that
henceforth it must fall to scientific endeavor rather than to lucky accident to
strengthen man's control over Nature. Even as late as the middle of the
nineteenth century accident and not science was regarded as the fountain-
head of invention, and the view that a knowledge of the causes and secret
motions of things would lead to "the enlarging of the bounds of human
empire to the effecting of all things possible" was scouted as the idle dream
of a doctrinaire.
In the year 1896 three important advances were made in man's mastery of
his environment. These are associated with the names of Marconi,
Becquerel, and Langley. It was in this year that the last-named, long known
to the scientific world for his discoveries in solar physics, demonstrated in
the judgment of competent witnesses the practicability of mechanical flight.
This was the result of nine years' experimentation. It was followed by
several more years of fruitful investigation, leading to that ultimate triumph
which it was given to Samuel Pierpont Langley to see only with the eye of
faith.
The English language has need of a new word ("plane") to signify the
floating of a bird upon the wing with slight, or no, apparent motion of the
wings (planer, schweben). To hover has other connotations, while to soar is
properly to fly upward, and not to hang poised upon the air. The miracle of
a bird's flight, that steady and almost effortless motion, had interested
Langley intensely—as had also the sun's radiation—from the years of his
childhood. The phenomenon (the way of an eagle in the air) has always,
indeed, fascinated the human imagination and at the same time baffled the
comprehension. The skater on smooth ice, the ship riding at sea, or even the
fish floating in water, offers only an incomplete analogy; for the fish has
approximately the same weight as the water it displaces, while a turkey
buzzard of two or three pounds' weight will circle by the half-hour on
motionless wing upheld only by the thin medium of the air.
In 1887, prior to his removal to Washington as Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, Langley began his experiments in aerodynamics at the old

observatory in Allegheny—now a part of the city of Pittsburgh. His chief
apparatus was a whirling table, sixty feet in diameter, and with an outside
speed of seventy miles an hour. This was at first driven by a gas engine,—
ironically named "Automatic,"—for which a steam engine was substituted
in the following year. By means of the whirling table and a resistance-gauge
(dynamometer chronograph) Langley studied the effect of the air on planes
of varying lengths and breadths, set at varying angles, and borne
horizontally at different velocities. At times he substituted stuffed birds for
the metal planes, on the action of which under air pressure his scientific
deductions were based. In 1891 he published the results of his experiments.
These proved—in opposition to the teaching of some very distinguished
scientists—that the force required to sustain inclined planes in horizontal
locomotion through the air diminishes with increased velocity (at least
within the limits of the experiment). Here a marked contrast is shown
between aerial locomotion on the one hand, and land and water locomotion
on the other; "whereas in land or marine transport increased speed is
maintained only by a disproportionate expenditure of power, within the
limits of experiment in such aerial horizontal transport, the higher speeds
are more economical of power than the lower ones." Again, the experiments
demonstrated that the force necessary to maintain at high velocity an
apparatus consisting of planes and motors could be produced by means
already available. It was found, for example, that one horse-power rightly
applied is sufficient to maintain a plane of two hundred pounds in
horizontal flight at a rate of about forty-five miles an hour. Langley had in
fact furnished experimental proof that the aerial locomotion of bodies many
times heavier than air was possible. He reserved for further experimentation
the question of aerodromics, the form, ascent, maintenance in horizontal
position, and descent of an aerodrome (ἀεροδρόμος, traversing the air), as
he called the prospective flying machine. He believed, however, that the
time had come for seriously considering these things, and intelligent
physicists, who before the publication of Langley's experiments had
regarded all plans of aerial navigation as utopian, soon came to share his
belief. According to Octave Chanute there was in Europe in 1889 utter
disagreement and confusion in reference to fundamental questions of
aerodynamics. He thought Langley had given firm ground to stand upon
concerning air resistances and reactions, and that the beginning of the

solution of the problem of aerial navigation would date from the American
scientist's experiments in aerodynamics.
Very early in his investigations Langley thought he received through
watching the anemometer a clue to the mystery of flight. Observations,
begun at Pittsburgh in 1887 and continued at Washington in 1893,
convinced him that the course of the wind is "a series of complex and little-
known phenomena," and that a wind to which we may assign a mean
velocity of twenty or thirty miles an hour, even disregarding the question of
strata and currents, is far from being a mere mass movement, and consists
of pulsations varying both in rate and direction from second to second. If
this complexity is revealed by the stationary anemometer—which may
register a momentary calm in the midst of a gale—how great a diversity of
pressure must exist in a large extent of atmosphere. This internal work of
the wind will lift the soaring bird at times to higher levels, from which
without special movement of the wings it may descend in the very face of
the wind's general course.
From the beginning, however, of his experiments Langley had sought to
devise a successful flying machine. In 1887 and the following years he
constructed about forty rubber-driven models, all of which were submitted
to trial and modification. From these tests he felt that he learned much
about the conditions of flight in free air which could not be learned from the
more definitely controlled tests with simple planes on the whirling table.
His essential object was, of course, to reduce the principles of equilibrium
to practice. Besides different forms and sizes he tried various materials of
construction, and ultimately various means of propulsion. Before he could
test his larger steam-driven models, made for the most part of steel and
weighing about one thousand times as much as the air displaced, Langley
spent many months contriving and constructing suitable launching
apparatus. The solution of the problem of safe descent after flight he in a
sense postponed, conducting his experiments from a house-boat on the
Potomac, where the model might come down without serious damage.

THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL HEAVIER-THAN-AIR
FLYING MACHINE
A photograph taken at the moment of launching
Langley's aerodrome May 6, 1896
It was on May 6, 1896 (the anniversary of which date is now celebrated as
Langley Day), that the success was achieved which all who witnessed it
considered decisive of the future of mechanical flight. The whole apparatus
—steel frame, miniature steam engine, smoke stack, condensed-air
chamber, gasoline tank, wooden propellers, wings—weighed about twenty-
four pounds. There was developed a steam pressure of about 115 pounds,

and the actual power was nearly one horse-power. At a given signal the
aeroplane was released from the overhead launching apparatus on the upper
deck of the house-boat. It rose steadily to an ultimate height of from
seventy to a hundred feet. It circled (owing to the guys of one wing being
loose) to the right, completing two circles and beginning a third as it
advanced; so that the whole course had the form of a spiral. At the end of
one minute and twenty seconds the propellers began to slow down owing to
the exhaustion of fuel. The aeroplane descended slowly and gracefully,
appearing to settle on the water. It seemed to Alexander Graham Bell that
no one could witness this interesting spectacle, of a flying machine in
perfect equilibrium, without being convinced that the possibility of aerial
flight by mechanical means had been demonstrated. On the very day of the
test he wrote to the Académie des Sciences that there had never before been
constructed, so far as he knew, a heavier-than-air flying machine, or
aerodrome, which could by its own power maintain itself in the air for more
than a few seconds.
Langley felt that he had now completed the work in this field which
properly belonged to him as a scientist—"the demonstration of the
practicability of mechanical flight"—and that the public might look to
others for its development and commercial exploitation. Like Franklin and
Davy he declined to take out patents, or in any way to make money from
scientific discovery; and like Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution (to whom the early development of electro-magnetic machines
was due), he preferred to be known as a scientist rather than as an inventor.
Nevertheless, Langley's desire to construct a large, man-carrying aeroplane
ultimately became irresistible. Just before the outbreak of the Spanish War
in 1898 he felt that such a machine might be of service to his country in the
event of hostilities that seemed to him imminent. The attention of President
McKinley was called to the matter, and a joint commission of Army and
Navy officers was appointed to make investigation of the results of
Professor Langley's experiments in aerial navigation. A favorable report
having been made by that body, the Board of Ordnance and Fortification
recommended a grant of fifty thousand dollars to defray the expenses of
further research. Langley was requested to undertake the construction of a
machine which might lead to the development of an engine of war, and in
December, 1898, he formally agreed to go on with the work.

He hoped at first to obtain from manufacturers a gasoline engine
sufficiently light and sufficiently powerful for a man-carrying machine.
After several disappointments, the automobile industry being then in its
infancy, he succeeded in constructing a five-cylinder gasoline motor of
fifty-two horse-power and weighing only about a hundred and twenty
pounds. He also constructed new launching apparatus. After tests with
superposed sustaining surfaces, he adhered to the "single-tier plan." There is
interesting evidence that in 1900 Langley renewed his study of the flight of
soaring birds, the area of their extended wing surface in relation to weight,
and the vertical distance between the center of pressure and the center of
gravity in gulls and different species of buzzards. He noted among other
things that the tilting of a wing was sufficient to bring about a complete
change of direction.
By the summer of 1903 two new machines were ready for field trials, which
were undertaken from a large house-boat, especially constructed for the
purpose and then moored in the mid-stream of the Potomac about forty
miles below Washington. The larger of these two machines weighed seven
hundred and five pounds and was designed to carry an engineer to control
the motor and direct the flight. The motive power was supplied by the light
and powerful gasoline engine already referred to. The smaller aeroplane
was a quarter-size model of the larger one. It weighed fifty-eight pounds,
had an engine of between two and a half and three horse-power, and a
sustaining surface of sixty-six square feet.
This smaller machine was tested August 8, 1903, the same launching
apparatus being employed as with the steam-driven models of 1896. In spite
of the fact that one of the mechanics failed to withdraw a certain pin at the
moment of launching, and that some breakage of the apparatus
consequently occurred, the aeroplane made a good start, and fulfilled the
main purpose of the test by maintaining a perfect equilibrium. After moving
about three hundred and fifty feet in a straight course it wheeled a quarter-
circle to the right, at the same time descending slightly, the engine slowing
down. Then it began to rise, moving straight ahead again for three or four
hundred feet, the propellers picking up their former rate. Once more the
engine slackened, but, before the aeroplane reached the water, seemed to
regain its normal speed. For a third time the engine slowed down, and,
before it recovered, the aeroplane had touched the water. It had traversed a

distance of one thousand feet in twenty-seven seconds. One of the workmen
confessed that he had poured into the tank too much gasoline. This had
caused an overflow into the intake pipe, which in turn interfered with the
action of a valve.
The larger aeroplane with the engineer Manly on board was first tested on
October 7 of the same year, but the front guy post caught in the launching
car and the machine plunged into the water a few feet from the house-boat.
In spite of this discouraging mishap the engineers and others present felt
confidence in the aeroplane's power to fly. What would to-day be regarded
by an aeronaut as a slight setback seemed at that moment like a tragic
failure. The fifty thousand dollars had been exhausted nearly two years
previously; Professor Langley had made as full use as seemed to him
advisable of the resources put at his disposal by the Smithsonian Institution;
the young men of the press, for whom the supposed aberration of a great
scientist furnished excellent copy, were virulent in their criticisms. Manly
made one more heroic attempt under very unfavorable conditions at the
close of a winter's day (December 8, 1903). Again difficulty occurred with
the launching gear, the rear wings and rudder being wrecked before the
aeroplane was clear of the ways. The experiments were now definitely
abandoned, and the inventor was overwhelmed by the sense of failure, and
still more by the skepticism with which the public had regarded his
endeavors.
In 1905 an account of Langley's aeroplane appeared in the Bulletin of the
Italian Aeronautical Society. Two years later this same publication in an
article on a new Blériot aeroplane said: "The Blériot IV in the form of a bird
... does not appear to give good results, perhaps on account of the lack of
stability, and Blériot, instead of trying some new modification which might
remedy such a grave fault, laid it aside and at once began the construction
of a new type, No. V, adopting purely and simply the arrangement of the
American, Langley, which offers a good stability." In the summer of 1907
Blériot obtained striking results with this machine, the launching problem
having been solved in the previous year—the year of Langley's death—by
the use of wheels which permitted the aeroplane to get under way by
running along the ground under its own driving power. The early flights
with No. V were made at a few feet from the ground, and the clever French
aviator could affect the direction of the machine by slightly shifting his

position, and even had skill to bring it down by simply leaning forward. By
the use of the steering apparatus he circled to the right or to the left with the
grace of a bird on the wing. When, on July 25, 1909, Blériot crossed the
English Channel in his monoplane, all the world knew that man's conquest
of the air was a fait accompli.
About three years after Langley's death the Board of Regents of the
Smithsonian Institution established the Langley Medal for investigations in
aerodromics in its application to aviation. The first award went (1909) to
Wilbur and Orville Wright, the second (1913) to Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss and
M. Gustave Eiffel. On the occasion of the presentation of the medals of the
second award—May 6, 1913—the Langley Memorial Tablet, erected in the
main vestibule of the Smithsonian building, was unveiled by the scientist's
old friend, Dr. John A. Brashear. In the words of the present Secretary of the
Institution, the tablet represents Mr. Langley seated on a terrace where he
has a clear view of the heavens, and, in a meditative mood, is observing the
flight of birds, while in his mind he sees his aerodrome soaring above them.
The lettering of the tablet is as follows:—
SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY
1834-1906
SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
1887-1906

DISCOVERED THE RELATIONS OF SPEED
AND ANGLE OF INCLINATION TO THE
LIFTING POWER OF SURFACES WHEN
MOVING IN AIR

"I have brought to a close the portion of the work which seemed to be
especially mine, the demonstration of the practicability of mechanical

flight."
"The great universal highway overhead is now soon to be opened."—
Langley, 1897.

A still more fitting tribute to the memory of the great inventor came two
years later from a successful aviator. In the spring of 1914 Mr. Glenn H.
Curtiss was invited to send apparatus to Washington for the Langley Day
Celebration. He expressed the desire to put the Langley aeroplane itself in
the air. The machine was taken to the Curtiss Aviation Field at Keuka Lake,
New York. Langley's method of launching had been proved practical, but
Curtiss finally decided to start from the water, and accordingly fitted the
aeroplane with hydroaeroplane floats. In spite of the great increase in
weight involved by this addition, the Langley aeroplane, under its own
power plant, skimmed over the wavelets, rose from the lake, and soared
gracefully in the air, maintaining its equilibrium, on May 28, 1914, over
eight years after the death of its designer. When furnished with an eighty
horse-power motor, more suited to its increased weight, the aerodrome
planed easily over the water in more prolonged flight. In the periodical
publications of June, 1914, may be read the eloquent announcement:
"Langley's Folly Flies."

REFERENCES

Alexander Graham Bell, Experiments in Mechanical Flight, Nature, May
28, 1896.
Alexander Graham Bell, The Pioneer Aerial Flight, Scientific American,
Supplement, Feb. 26, 1910.
S. P. Langley, Experiments in Aerodynamics.
S. P. Langley, The "Flying Machine," McClure's, June, 1897 (illustrated).
Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, Smithsonian Contributions to
Knowledge, vol. 27, no. 3 (illustrated).
Scientific American, Jan. 13, 1912, A Memorial Honor to a Pioneer
Inventor.

The Smithsonian Institution 1846-1896. The History of its First Half-
Century, edited by G. B. Goode.
A. F. Zahm, The First Man-carrying Aeroplane capable of Sustained Free
Flight, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1914
(illustrated).

CHAPTER XVIII
SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS—RADIOACTIVE
SUBSTANCES

The untrained mind, reliant on so-called facts and distrustful of mere theory,
inclines to think of truth as fixed rather than progressive, static rather than
dynamic. It longs for certainty and repose, and has little patience for any
authority that does not claim absolute infallibility. Many a man of the world
is bewildered to find Newton's disciples building upon or refuting the
teachings of the master, or to learn that Darwin's doctrine is itself subject to
the universal law of change and development. Though in ethics and religion
the older order changes yielding place to new, and the dispensation of an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth finds its fulfilment and culmination in
a dispensation of forbearance and non-resistance of evil, still many look
upon the overthrow of any scientific theory not as a sign of vitality and
advance, but as a symptom of the early dissolution or at least of the
bankruptcy of science. It is not surprising, therefore, that the public regard
the scientific hypothesis with a kind of contempt; for a hypothesis
(ὑπόθεσις, foundation, supposition) is necessarily ephemeral. When
disproved, it is shown to have been a false supposition; when proved, it is
no longer hypothetic.
Yet a page from the history of science should indicate that hypotheses play
a rôle in experimental science and lead to results that no devotee of facts
and scorner of mere theory can well ignore.
In 1895 Sir William Ramsay, who in the previous year had discovered an
inert gas, argon, in the atmosphere, identified a second inert gas (obtained
from minerals containing uranium and thorium) as helium (ἥλιος, sun), an
element previously revealed by spectrum analysis as a constituent of the
sun. In the same year Röntgen, while experimenting with the rays that
stream from the cathode in a vacuum tube, discovered new rays (which he
called X-rays) possessed of wonderful photographic power. At the
beginning of 1896 Henri Becquerel, experimenting on the supposition, or

hypothesis, that the emission of rays was associated with phosphorescence,
tested the photographic effects of a number of phosphorescent substances.
He exposed, among other compounds, crystals of the double sulphate of
uranium and potassium to sunlight and then placed upon the crystals a
photographic plate wrapped in two thicknesses of heavy black paper. The
outline of the phosphorescent substance was developed on the plate. An
image of a coin was obtained by placing it between uranic salts and a
photographic plate. Two or three days after reporting this result Becquerel
chanced (the sunlight at the time seeming to him too intermittent for
experimentation) to put away in the same drawer, and in juxtaposition, a
photographic plate and these phosphorescent salts. To his surprise he
obtained a clear image when the plate was developed. He now assumed the
existence of invisible rays similar to X-rays. They proved capable of
passing through sheets of aluminum and of copper, and of discharging
electrified bodies. Days elapsed without any apparent diminution of the
radiation. On the supposition that the rays might resemble light he tried to
refract, reflect, and polarize them; but this hypothesis was by the
experiments of Rutherford, and of Becquerel himself, ultimately
overthrown. In the mean time the French scientist obtained radiations from
metallic uranium and from uranous salts. These, in contrast with the uranic
salts, are non-phosphorescent. Becquerel's original hypothesis was thus
overthrown. Radiation is a property inherent in uranium and independent
both of light and of phosphorescence.
On April 13 and April 23 (1898) respectively Mme. Sklodowska Curie and
G. C. Schmidt published the results of their studies of the radiations of the
salts of thorium. Each of these studies was based on the work of Becquerel.
Mme. Curie examined at the same time the salts of uranium and a number
of uranium ores. Among the latter she made use of the composite mineral
pitchblende from the mines of Joachimsthal and elsewhere, and found that
the radiations from the natural ores are more active than those from pure
uranium. This discovery naturally led to further investigation, on the
assumption that pitchblende contains more than one radioactive substance.
Polonium, named by Mme. Curie in honor of her native country, was the
third radioactive element to be discovered. In the chemical analysis of
pitchblende made by Mme. Curie (assisted by M. Curie) polonium was
found associated with bismuth. Radium, also discovered in this analysis of

1898, was associated with barium. Mme. Curie succeeded in obtaining the
pure chloride of radium and in determining the atomic weight of the new
element. There is (according to Soddy) about one part of radium in five
million parts of the best pitchblende, but the new element is about one
million times more radioactive than uranium. It was calculated by M. Curie
that the energy of one gram of radium would suffice to lift a weight of five
hundred tons to a height of one mile. After discussing the bearing of the
discovery of radioactivity on the threatened exhaustion of the coal supply
Soddy writes enthusiastically: "But the recognition of the boundless and
inexhaustible energy of Nature (and the intellectual gratification it affords)
brightens the whole outlook of the twentieth century." The element yields
spontaneously radium emanation without any apparent diminution of its
own mass. In 1899 Debierne discovered, also in the highly complex
pitchblende, actinium, which has proved considerably less radioactive than
radium. During these investigations M. and Mme. Curie, M. Becquerel, and
those associated with them were influenced by the hypothesis that
radioactivity is an atomic property of radioactive substances. This
hypothesis came to definite expression in 1899 and again in 1902 through
Mme. Curie.
In the latter year the physicist E. Rutherford and the chemist F. Soddy,
while investigating the radioactivity of thorium in the laboratories of
McGill University, Montreal, were forced to recognize that thorium
continuously gives rise to new kinds of radioactive matter differing from
itself in chemical properties, in stability, and in radiant energy. They
concurred in the view held by all the most prominent workers in this
subject, namely, that radioactivity is an atomic phenomenon. It is not
molecular decomposition. They declared that the radioactive substances
must be undergoing a spontaneous transformation. The daring nature of this
hypothesis and its likelihood to revolutionize physical science is brought
home to one by recalling that three decades previously an eminent physicist
had said that "though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and
may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and
new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules [atoms] out of which
these systems are built—the foundation stones of the material universe—
remain unbroken and unworn."

In 1903 Rutherford and Soddy stated definitely their hypothesis, generally
known as the "Transformation Theory," that the atoms of radioactive
substances suffer spontaneous disintegration, a process unaffected by great
changes of temperature (or by physical or chemical changes of any kind at
the disposal of the experimenter) and giving rise to new radioactive
substances differing in chemical (and physical) properties from the parent
elements. The radiations consist of α particles (atoms of helium minus two
negative electrons), β particles, or electrons (charges of negative
electricity), and γ rays, of the nature of Röntgen rays and light but of very
much shorter wave length and of very great penetrating power. It is by the
energy inherent in the atom of the radioactive substance that the radiations
are ejected, sometimes, in the case of the γ rays, with velocity sufficient to
penetrate two feet of lead. It is through these radiations that spontaneous
transformation takes place. After ten years of further investigation
Rutherford stated that this hypothesis affords a satisfactory explanation of
all radioactive phenomena, and gives unity to what without it would seem
disconnected facts. Besides accounting for old experimental results it
suggests new lines of work and even enables one to predict the outcome of
further investigation. It does not really contradict, as some thought might be
the case, the principle of the conservation of energy. The atom, to be sure,
can no longer be considered the smallest unit of matter, as the mass of a β
particle is approximately one seventeen-hundredths that of an atom of
hydrogen. Still the new hypothesis is a modification and not a contradiction
of the atomic theory.
The assumption that the series of radioactive substances is due, not to such
molecular changes as chemistry had made familiar, but to a breakdown of
the atom seemed to Rutherford in 1913 at least justified by the results of the
investigators whose procedure had been dictated by that hypothesis. He set
forth in tables these results (since somewhat modified), indicating after the
name of each radioactive substance the nature of the radiation through the
emission of which the element is transformed into the next-succeeding
member of its series.

List of Radioactive Substances

URANIUM α particles

Uranium X β+γ
Uranium Y β
IONIUM α

RADIUM α + slow β
Emanation α
Radium A α
Radium B β+γ
C1 α + β + γ
Radium C -
C2 β
RADIUM D
- slow β
RADIO-LEAD
Radium E β+γ
Radium F
-α
Polonium

THORIUM α
MESOTHORIUM 1 no rays
Mesothorium 2 β+γ
RADIOTHORIUM α
Thorium X α+β
Emanation α
Thorium A α
Thorium B slow β
C1 α
Thorium C -
C2 α
Thorium D β+γ

ACTINIUM no rays
Radio-actinium α+β

Actinium X α
Emanation α
Actinium A α
Actinium B slow β
Actinium C α
Actinium D α+γ

Even a glance at this long list of new elements reveals certain analogies
between one series of transformations and another. Each series contains an
emanation, or gas, which through the loss of α particles is transformed into
the next following member of the series. Continuing the comparison in
either direction, up or down the lists, one could readily detect other
analogies.
There is some ground for thinking that lead is the end product of the
Uranium series. To reverse the process of the transformation and produce
radium from the base metal lead would be an achievement greater than the
vaunted transmutations of the alchemists. Although that seems beyond the
reach of possibility, the idea has stirred the imagination of more than one
scientist. "The philosopher's stone," writes Soddy, "was accredited the
power not only of transmuting the metals, but of acting as the elixir of life.
Now, whatever the origin of this apparently meaningless jumble of ideas
may have been, it is really a perfect and but very slightly allegorical
expression of the actual present views we hold to-day." Again, it is
conjectured that bismuth is the end-product of the thorium series. The
presence of the results of atomic disintegration (like lead and helium) has
proved of interest to geology and other sciences as affording a clue to the
age of the rocks in which they are found deposited.
Before Rutherford, Mme. Curie, and others especially interested in
radioactive substances, assumed that atoms are far different from the massy,
hard, impenetrable particles that Newton took for granted, Sir J. J. Thomson
and his school were studying the constitution of the atom from another
standpoint but with somewhat similar results. This great physicist had
proved that cathode rays are composed not of negatively charged
molecules, as had been supposed, but of much smaller particles or
corpuscles. Wherever, as in the vacuum tube, these electrons appear, the

presence of positively charged particles can also be demonstrated. It is
manifest that the atom, instead of being the ultimate unit of matter, is a
system of positively and negatively charged particles. Rutherford in the
main concurred in this view, though differing from Sir J. J. Thomson as to
the arrangement of corpuscles within the atom. Let it suffice here to state
that Rutherford assumes that the greater mass of the atom consists of
negatively charged particles rotating about a positive nucleus. The
surrounding electrons render the atom electrically neutral.
This corpuscular theory of matter may throw light on the laws of chemical
combination. The so-called chemical affinity between two atoms of such
and such valencies, which Davy and others since his time had regarded as
essentially an electrical phenomenon, seems now to admit of more definite
interpretation. Each atom is negatively or positively charged according to
the addition or subtraction of electrons. Chemical composition takes place
between atoms the charges of which are of opposite sign, and valency
depends on the number of unit charges of electricity. Moreover, the
electrical theory of matter lends support to the hypothesis that there is a
fundamental unitary element underlying all the so-called elements. The fact
that elements fall into groups and that their chemical properties vary with
their atomic weights long ago suggested this assumption of a primitive
matter, protyl, from which all other substances were derived. In the light of
the corpuscular theory as well as of the transformation theory it seems
possible that the helium atom and the negative corpuscle will offer a clue to
the genesis of the elements.
What is to be learned from this rapid sketch, of the discovery of the
radioactive substances, concerning the nature and value of scientific
hypothesis? For one thing, the scientific hypothesis is necessary to the
experimenter. The mind runs ahead of and guides the experiment. Again,
the hypothesis suggests new lines of research, enables one in some cases to
anticipate the outcome of experiment, and may be abundantly justified by
results. "It is safe to say," writes Rutherford, "that the rapidity of growth of
accurate knowledge of radioactive phenomena has been largely due to the
influence of the disintegration theory." The valid hypothesis serves to
explain facts, leads to discovery, and does not conflict with known facts or
with verified generalizations, though, as we have seen, it may modify other
hypotheses. Those who support a hypothesis should bring it to the test of

rigid verification, avoiding skepticism, shunning credulity. Even a false
assumption, as we have seen, may prove valuable when carefully put to the
proof.
The layman's distrust of the unverified hypothesis is in the main
wholesome. It is a duty not to believe it, not to disbelieve it, but to weigh
judicially the evidence for and against. The fact that assumption plays a
large part in our mental attitude toward practical affairs should make us
wary of contesting the legitimacy of scientific hypotheses.
No one would deny the right of forming a provisional assumption to the
intelligence officer interpreting a cipher, or to the detective unravelling the
mystery of a crime. The first assumes that the message is in a certain
language, and, perhaps, that each symbol employed is the equivalent of a
letter, his assumption is put to the proof of getting a reasonable and
consistent meaning from the cipher. The detective assumes a motive for the
crime, or the employment of certain means of escape; even if his
assumption does not clear up the mystery, it may have value as leading to a
new and more adequate assumption.
Henri Poincaré has pointed out that one of the most dangerous forms of
hypothesis is the unconscious hypothesis. It is difficult to prove or disprove
because it does not come to clear statement. The alleged devotee of facts
and of things as they are, in opposing the assumptions of an up-to-date
science, is often, unknown to himself, standing on a platform of outworn
theory, or of mere vulgar assumption. For example, when Napoleon was
trying to destroy the commercial wealth of England at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, he unconsciously based his procedure on an antiquated
doctrine of political economy. For him the teachings of Adam Smith and
Turgot were idle sophistries. "I seek," he said to his Minister of Finance,
"the good that is practical, not the ideal best: the world is very old, we must
profit by its experience; it teaches that old practices are worth more than
new theories: you are not the only one who knows trade secrets." We are
not here especially concerned with the question of whether Napoleon was
or was not pursuing the best means of breaking down English credit. He did
try to prevent the English from exchanging exports for European gold,
while permitting imports in the hope of depleting England of gold. But in
pursuing this policy he thought he was proceeding on the ground of

immemorial practice, while he was merely pitting the seventeenth-century
doctrine of Locke against the doctrine of Adam Smith which had
superseded it.
According to one scientific hypothesis, "Species originated by means of
natural selection, or, through the preservation of favored races in the
struggle for life." This assumption was rightly subjected to close scrutiny in
1859 and the years following. The ephemeral nature of the vast majority of
hypotheses and the danger to progress of accepting an unverified
assumption justify the demand for demonstrative evidence. The testimony
having been examined, it is our privilege to state and to support the
opposing hypothesis. It was thus that the hypothesis that the planets move
in circular orbits, recommended by its simplicity and æsthetic quality, was
forced to give way to the hypothesis of elliptical orbits. Newton's
hypothesis that light is due to particles emitted by all luminous bodies
yielded, at least for the time, to the theory of light vibrations in an ether
pervading all space. The path of scientific progress is strewn with the ruins
of overthrown hypotheses. Many of the defeated assumptions have been
merely implicit errors of the man in the street, and they are overthrown not
by facts alone, but by new hypotheses verified by facts and leading to fresh
discoveries.
According to John Stuart Mill, "It appears ... to be a condition of a
genuinely scientific hypothesis, that it be not destined always to remain an
hypothesis, but be of such a nature as to be either proved or disproved by
that comparison with observed facts which is termed Verification." This
statement is of value in confirming the general distrust of mere hypothesis,
and in distinguishing between the unverified and unverifiable
presupposition and the legitimate assumption which through verification
may become established doctrine.

REFERENCES

J. Cox, Beyond the Atom, 1913 (Cambridge Manuals of Science and
Literature).
R. K. Duncan, The New Knowledge, 1905.
H. Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis.
E. Rutherford, Radioactive Substances and their Radiations.
F. Soddy, The Interpretation of Radium.
F. Soddy, Matter and Energy (Home University Library).
Sir William A. Tilden, Progress of Scientific Chemistry in our Own Time,
1913.

CHAPTER XIX
THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION

Psychology, or the science of mental life as revealed in behavior, has been
greatly indebted to physiologists and to students of medicine in general.
Any attempt to catalogue the names of those who have approached the
study of the mind from the direction of the natural sciences is liable to
prove unsatisfactory, and a brief list is sure to entail many important
omissions. The mention of Locke, Cheselden, Hartley, Cabanis, Young,
Weber, Gall, Müller, Du Bois-Reymond, Bell, Magendie, Helmholtz,
Darwin, Lotze, Ferrier, Goltz, Munk, Mosso, Maudsley, Carpenter, Galton,
Hering, Clouston, James, Janet, Kraepelin, Flechsig, and Wundt will,
however, serve to remind us of the richness of the contribution of the
natural sciences to the so-called mental science. Indeed, physiology would
be incomplete unless it took account of the functions of the sense organs, of
the sensory and motor nerves, of the brain with its association areas, as well
as the expression of the emotions, and the changes of function
accompanying the development of the nervous system, from the formation
of the embryo till physical dissolution, and from species of the simplest to
those of the most complex organization.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the French physician Cabanis
was disposed to identify human personality with mere nervous organization
reacting to physical impressions, and to look upon the brain as the organ for
the production of mind. He soon, however, withdrew from this extreme
position and expressed his conviction of the existence of an immortal spirit
apart from the body. One might say that the brain is the instrument through
which the mind manifests itself rather than the organ by which mind is
excreted. Even so, it must be agreed that the relation between the psychic
agent and the physical instrument is so close that physiology must take heed
of mental phenomena and that psychology must not ignore the physical
concomitants of mental processes. Hence arises a new branch of natural
science, physiological psychology, or, as Fechner (1860), the disciple of
Weber, called it, psycho-physics.

Through this alliance between the study of the mind and the study of bodily
functions the intelligence of the lower animals and its survival value, the
mental growth of the child, mental deterioration in age and disease, and the
psychological endowments of special classes or of individuals, became
subjects for investigation. Now human psychology is recognized as
contributing to various branches of anthropology, or the general study of
man.
Wilhelm Wundt, who, as already implied, had approached the study of the
mind from the side of the natural sciences, established in 1875 at the
University of Leipzig the first psycho-physical institute for the experimental
study of mental phenomena. His express purpose was to analyze the content
of consciousness into its elements, to examine these elements in their
qualitative and quantitative differences, and to determine with precision the
conditions of their existence and succession. Thus science after
contemplating a wide range of outer phenomena—plants, animals, earth's
crust, heavenly bodies, molecules and atoms—turns its attention with keen
scrutiny inward on the thinking mind, the subjective process by which man
becomes cognizant of all objective things.
The need of expert study of the human mind as the instrument of scientific
discovery might have been inferred from the fact that the physicist Tyndall
read before the British Association in 1870 a paper on the Scientific Use of
the Imagination, in which he spoke of the imagination as the architect of
physical theory, cited Newton, Dalton, Davy, and Faraday as affording
examples of the just use of this creative power of the mind, and quoted a
distinguished chemist as identifying the mental process of scientific
discovery with that of artistic production. Tyndall even chased the
psychologists in their own field and stated that it was only by the exercise
of the imagination that we could ascribe the possession of mental powers to
our fellow creatures. "You believe that in society you are surrounded by
reasonable beings like yourself.... What is your warrant for this conviction?
Simply and solely this: your fellow-creatures behave as if they were
reasonable."
On the traces of this brilliant incursion of the natural philosopher into the
realm of mental science, later psychologists must follow but haltingly. Just
as in the history of physics a long series of studies intervened between

Bacon's hypothesis that heat is a kind of motion (1620) and Tyndall's own
work, Heat as a Mode of Motion (1863), so must many psychological
investigations be made before an adequate psychology of scientific
discovery can be formulated. It may ultimately prove that the passages in
which Tyndall and other scientists speak of scientific imagination would
read as well if for this term, intuition, inspiration, unconscious cerebration,
or even reason were substituted.
At first glance it would seem that the study of the sensory elements of
consciousness, motor, tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, thermal,
internal, pursued for the last half century by the experimental method,
would furnish a clue to the nature of the imagination. A visual image, or
mental picture, is popularly taken as characteristic of the imaginative
process. In fact, the distinguished psychologist William James devotes the
whole of his interesting chapter on the imagination to the discussion of
different types of imagery. The sensory elements of consciousness are
involved, however, in perception, memory, volition, reason, and sentiment,
as they are in imagination. They have been recognized as fundamental from
antiquity. Nothing is in the intellect which was not previously in the senses.
To be out of one's senses is to lack the purposive guidance of the
intelligence.
The psychology of individuals and groups shows startling differences in the
kind and vividness of imagery. Many cases are on record where the mental
life is almost exclusively in visual, in auditory, or in motor terms. One
student learns a foreign language by writing out every word and sentence;
another is wholly dependent on hearing them spoken; a third can recall the
printed page with an almost photographic vividness. The history of
literature and art furnishes us with illustrations of remarkable powers of
visualization. Blake and Fromentin were able to reproduce in pictures
scenes long retained in memory. The latter recognized that his painting was
not an exact reproduction of what he had seen, but that it was none the less
artistic because of the selective influence that his mind had exerted on the
memory image. Wordsworth at times postponed the description of a scene
that appealed to his poetic fancy with the express purpose of blurring the
outlines, but enhancing the personal factor. Goethe had the power to call up
at will the form of a flower, to make it change from one color to another and
to unfold before his mind's eye. Professor Dilthey has collected many other

records of the hallucinatory clearness of the visual imagery of literary
artists.
On the other hand, Galton, after his classical study of mental imagery
(1883), stated that scientific men, as a class, have feeble powers of visual
representation. He had appealed for evidence of visual recall to
distinguished scientists because he thought them more capable than others
of accurately stating the results of their introspection. He had recourse not
only to English but to foreign scientists, including members of the French
Institute. "To my astonishment," he writes, "I found that the great majority
of men of science to whom I first applied protested that mental imagery was
unknown to them, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in
supposing that the words 'mental imagery' really expressed what I believed
everybody supposed them to mean. They had no more notion of its true
nature than a color-blind man, who has not discerned his defect, has of the
nature of color." One scientist confessed that it was only by a figure of
speech that he could describe his recollection of a scene as a mental image
to be perceived with the mind's eye.
When Galton questioned persons whom he met in general society he found
"an entirely different disposition to prevail. Many men and a yet larger
number of women, and many boys and girls, declared that they habitually
saw mental imagery, and that it was perfectly distinct to them and full of
color." The evidence of this difference between the psychology of the
average distinguished scientist and the average member of general society
was greatly strengthened upon cross-examination. Galton attributed the
difference to the scientist's "habits of highly generalized and abstract
thought, especially when the steps of reasoning are carried on by words
[employed] as symbols."
It is only by the use of words as symbols that scientific thought is possible.
It is through coöperation in work that mankind has imposed its will upon
the creation, and coöperation could not have been carried far without the
development of language as a means of communication. Were it not for the
help of words we should be dependent, like the lower animals, on the
fleeting images of things. We should be bound to the world of sense and not
have range in the world of ideas. Words are a free medium for thought, for
the very reason that they are capable of shifting their meaning and taking on

greater extension or intension. For example, we may say that the apple falls
because it is heavy, or we may substitute synonymous phraseology that
helps us to view the falling apple in its universal aspects. The mind acquires
through language a field of activity independent of the objective world. We
have seen in an earlier chapter that geometry developed as a science is
becoming gradually weaned from the art of surveying. Triangles and
rectangles cease to suggest meadows, or vineyards, or any definite imagery
of that sort, and are discussed in their abstract relationship. Science
demands the conceptual rather than the merely sensory. The invisible real
world of atoms and corpuscles has its beginning in the reason, the word. To
formulate new truths in the world of ideas is the prerogative of minds gifted
with exceptional reason.
To be sure, language itself may be regarded as imagery. Some persons
visualize every word spoken as though it were seen on the printed page;
others cannot recall a literary passage without motor imagery of the speech
organs or even incipient speech; while others again experience motor
imagery of the writing hand. With many, in all forms of word-
consciousness, the auditory image is predominant. In the sense of being
accompanied by imagery all thinking is imaginative. But it is the use of
words that permits us to escape most completely from the more primitive
forms of intelligence. So directly does the printed word convey its meaning
to the trained mind that to regard it as so much black on white rather than as
a symbol is a rare and rather upsetting mental experience. Words differ
among themselves in their power to suggest images of the thing
symbolized. The word "existence" is less image-producing than "flower,"
and "flower" than "red rose." It is characteristic of the language of science
to substitute the abstract or general expression for the concrete and
picturesque.
When, therefore, we are told that the imagination has been at the bottom of
all great scientific discoveries, that the discovery of law is the peculiar
function of the creative imagination, and that all great scientists have, in a
certain sense, been great artists, we are confronted with a paradox. In what
department of thought is imagination more strictly subordinated than in
science? Genetic psychology attempts to trace the development of mind as a
means of adjustment. It examines the instincts that serve so wonderfully the
survival of various species of insects. It studies the more easily modified

instinct of birds, and notes their ability to make intelligent choice on the
basis of experience. Does the bird's ability to recognize imply the
possession of memory, or imagery? Increased intelligence assures
perpetuation of other species in novel and unforeseen conditions. The more
tenacious the memory, the richer the supply of images, the greater the
powers of adaptation and survival. We know something concerning the
motor memory of rodents and horses, and its biological value. The child
inherits less definitely organized instincts, but greater plasticity, than the
lower animals. Its mental life is a chaos of images. It is the work of
education to discipline as well as to nourish the senses, to teach form as
well as color, to impart the clarifying sense of number, weight, and
measurement, to help distinguish between the dream and the reality, to
teach language, the treasure-house of our traditional wisdom, and logic, so
closely related to the right use of language. The facts of abnormal, as well
as those of animal and child psychology, prove that the subordination of the
imagination and fancy to reason and understanding is an essential factor in
intellectual development.
No one, of course, will claim that the mental activity of the scientific
discoverer is wholly unlike that of any other class of man; but it leads only
to confusion to seek to identify processes so unlike as scientific
generalization and artistic production. The artist's purpose is the
conveyance of a mood. The author of Macbeth employs every device to
impart to the auditor the sense of blood-guiltiness; every lurid scene, every
somber phrase, serves to enhance the sentiment. A certain picture by Dürer,
a certain poem of Browning's, convey in every detail the feeling of
dauntless resolution. Again, a landscape painter, recognizing that his
satisfaction in a certain scene depends upon a stretch of blue water with a
yellow strand and old-gold foliage, proceeds to rearrange nature for the
benefit of the mood he desires to enliven and perpetuate. It is surely a far
cry from the attitude of these artists manipulating impressions in order to
impart to others an individual mood, to that of the scientific discoverer
formulating a law valid for all intellects.
In the psychology of the present day there is much that is reminiscent of the
biological psychology of Aristotle. From the primitive or nutrient soul
which has to do with the vital functions of growth and reproduction, is
developed the sentient soul, concerned with movement and sensibility.

Finally emerges the intellectual and reasoning soul. These three parts are
not mutually exclusive, but the lower foreshadow the higher and are
subsumed in it. Aristotle, however, interpreted the lower by the higher and
not vice versa. It is no compliment to the scientific discoverer to say that his
loftiest intellectual achievement is closely akin to fiction, or is the result of
a mere brooding on facts, or is accompanied by emotional excitement, or is
the work of blind instinct.
It will be found that scientific discovery, while predominantly an
intellectual process, varies with the nature of the phenomena of the different
sciences and the individual mental differences of the discoverers. As stated
at the outset the psychology of scientific discovery must be the subject of
prolonged investigation, but some data are already available. One great
mathematician, Poincaré, attributes his discoveries to intuition. The
essential idea comes with a sense of illumination. It is characterized by
suddenness, conciseness, and immediate certainty. It may come unheralded,
as he is crossing the street, walking on the cliffs, or stepping into a carriage.
There may have intervened a considerable period of time free from
conscious effort on the special question involved in the discovery. Poincaré
is inclined to account for these sudden solutions of theoretical difficulties
on the assumption of long periods of previous unconscious work.
There are many such records from men of genius. At the moment the
inventor obtains the solution of his problem his mind may seem to be least
engaged with it. The long-sought-for idea comes like an inspiration,
something freely imparted rather than voluntarily acquired. No mental
process is more worthy to command respect; but it may not lie beyond the
possibility of explanation. Like ethical insight, or spiritual illumination, the
scientific idea comes to those who have striven for it. The door may open
after we have ceased to knock, or the response come when we have
forgotten that we sent in a call; but the discovery comes only after
conscious work. The whole history of science shows that it is to the worker
that the inspiration comes, and that new ideas develop from old ideas.
It may detract still further from the mysteriousness of the discovery-process
to add that the illuminating idea may come in the midst of conscious work,
and that then also it may appear as a sudden gift rather than the legitimate
outcome of mental effort. The spontaneity of wit may afford another clue to

the mystery of scientific discovery. The utterer of a witticism is frequently
as much surprised by it as the auditors, probably because the idea comes as
verbal imagery, and the full realization of their significance is grasped only
with the actual utterance of the words. The fact that to the scientific
discoverer the solution of his problem arrives at the moment when it is least
sought is analogous to the common experience that the effort to recall a
name may inhibit the natural association.
The tendency to emphasize unduly the rôle played by the scientific
imagination springs probably from the misconception that the imagination
is a psychological superfluity, one of the luxuries of the mental life, which
should not be withheld from those who deserve the best. The view lingers
with regard to the æsthetic imagination. James could not understand the
biological function of the æsthetic faculty. On the alleged uselessness of
this phase of the human mind A. J. Balfour has recently based an argument
for the immortality of the soul. This view is strikingly at variance with that
which inclines to identify it with that mental process which creates
scientific theories and thus paves the way for the adjustment of posterity to
earthly conditions.

REFERENCES

Baldwin, J. M., History of Psychology, 1913. 2 vols.
Dessoir, Max, Outlines of the History of Psychology, 1912.
Klemm, Otto, A History of Psychology, 1914.
Merz, J. T., History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii,
chap. xii, On the Psycho-physical View of Nature.
Rand, Benjamin, The Classical Psychologists, 1912.
Ribot, T. A., English Psychology, 1889.
Ribot, T. A., German Psychology of To-day, 1886.

CHAPTER XX
SCIENCE AND DEMOCRATIC CULTURE

Education is the oversight and guidance of the development of the
immature with certain ethical and social ends in view. Pedagogy, therefore,
is based partly on psychology—which, as we have seen in the preceding
chapter, is closely related to the biological sciences—and partly on ethics,
or the study of morals, closely related to the social sciences. These two
aspects of education, the psychological and the sociological, were treated
respectively in Rousseau's Emile and Plato's Republic. The former ill-
understood work, definitely referring its readers to the latter for the social
aspect of education, applies itself as exclusively as possible to the study of
the physical and mental development of the individual child. Rousseau
consciously set aside the problem of nationality or citizenship; he was
cosmopolitan, and explicitly renounced the idea of planning the education
of a Frenchman or a Swiss. Neither did he desire to set forth the education
of a wild man, free and unrestrained. He wished rather to depict the
development of a natural man in a state of society; but he emphasized the
native hereditary endowment, while expressing his admiration for Plato's
Republic as the great classic of social pedagogy. The titles of the two works,
one from the name of an individual child, the other from a form of
government, should serve to remind us of the purpose and limitations of
each.
Plato's thought was centered on the educational and moral needs of the city-
state of Athens. He was apprehensive that the city was becoming corrupted
through the wantonness and lack of principle of the Athenian youth. He
strove to rebuild on reasoned foundations the sense of social obligation and
responsibility which had in the earlier days of Athens rested upon faith in
the existence of the gods. As a conservative he hoped to restore the ancient
Athenian feeling for duty and moral worth, and he even envied some of the
educational practices of the rival city-state Sparta, by which the citizen was
subordinated to the state. The novel feature of Plato's pedagogy was the
plan to educate the directing classes, men disciplined in his own

philosophical and ethical conceptions. He was, in fact, an intellectual
aristocrat, and spoke of democracy in very ironical terms, as the following
sentences will show:—
"And thus democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their
opponents.... And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a
government have they? For as the government is, such will be the man.... In
the first place, are they not free? and the city is full of freedom and
frankness—a man may do as he likes.... And where freedom is, the
individual is clearly able to order his own life as he pleases?... Then in this
kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures?... This
then will be the fairest of States, and will appear the fairest, being spangled
with the manners and characters of mankind, like an embroidered robe
which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and
children think variety charming, so there are many men who will deem this
to be the fairest of States.... And is not the equanimity of the condemned
often charming? Under such a government there are men who, when they
have been sentenced to death or exile, stay where they are and walk about
the world; the gentleman [convict] parades like a hero, as though nobody
saw or cared.... See too ... the forgiving spirit of democracy and the 'don't
care' about trifles, and the disregard of all the fine principles which we
solemnly affirmed ... how grandly does she trample our words under her
feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and
promoting to honor anyone who professes to be the people's friend.... These
and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a
charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing
equality to equals and unequals alike.... Consider now ... what manner of
man the individual is ... he lives through the day indulging the appetite of
the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then
he is for total abstinence, and tries to get thin; then, again, he is at
gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more
living the life of a philosopher; often he is in politics, and starts to his feet
and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of
anyone who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business,
once more in that. His life has neither order nor law; so he goes on
continually, and he terms this joy and freedom and happiness. Yes, his life is
all liberty and equality. Yes, ... and multiform, and full of the most various

characters; ... he answers to the State, which we described as fair and
spangled.... Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be
called the democratic man."
In spite of the satirical tone of this passage much of it may be accepted as
the unwilling tribute of a hostile critic. Democracy is the triumph of the
masses over the oligarchs. It is merciful in the administration of justice. It
shows a magnanimous spirit and does not magnify the importance of trifles.
It prefers the rule of its friends to the rule of a despot. Under its government
people feel themselves blessed by happiness, liberty, and equality. The
culture of the democratic man is above all characterized by adaptability.
In the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold, the apostle of culture, discussing
the civilization of a democratic nation of many millions, unconsciously
confirmed the views of Plato in some respects, while showing interesting
points of difference. He expressed his admiration of the institutions, solid
social conditions, freedom and equality, power, energy, and wealth of the
people of the United States. In the daintiness of American house-
architecture, and in the natural manners of the free and happy American
women he saw a real note of civilization. He felt that his own country had a
good deal to learn from America, though he did not close his eyes to the
real dangers to which all democratic nations are exposed. Arnold failed in
his analysis of American civilization to confirm Plato's judgment
concerning the variety of natures to be found in the democratic State, as
well as the Greek philosopher's censure that democracy shows disregard of
ethical principles. In fact, Arnold considered the people of the United States
singularly homogeneous, singularly free from the distinctions of class; "we
[the English] are so little homogeneous, we are living with a system of
classes so intense, that the whole action of our minds is hampered and
falsened by it; we are in consequence wanting in lucidity, we do not see
clear or think straight, and the Americans have here much the advantage of
us." As for the second point of difference between Arnold and Plato, the
English critic recognized that the American people belonged to the great
class in society in which the sense of conduct and regard for ethical
principles are particularly developed.
Nearly all the old charges against American democracy can be summarized
in one general censure,—the lack of calm and reasoned self-criticism,—and

this general defect is rapidly being made good. It is partly owing to charity
and good-will, and it includes the toleration of the mediocre or inferior, as,
for example, in the theater; the failure to recognize distinction, and to pay
deference to things deserving it; the glorification of the average man, and
the hustler, and the lack of special educational opportunities for the
exceptionally gifted child. That criticism as an art is still somewhat
behindhand in America seems to be confirmed by comparing French and
American literary criticism. In France it is a profession practiced by a corps
of experts; in America only a very few of the best periodicals can be relied
on to give reviews based on critical principles, of works in verse or prose.
(One American reviewer confesses that in a single day he has written
notices of twenty new works of fiction, his work bringing him, as
remuneration, seventy-five cents a volume.)
There is no evidence, however, that Americans as individuals are wanting in
the self-critical spirit. And for Arnold this is vital, seeing that the
watchword of the culture he proclaims is Know Thyself. It is not a question
of gaining a social advantage by a smattering of foreign languages. It is
more than intellectual curiosity. "Culture is more properly described as
having its origin in the love of perfection. It moves by the force, not merely
or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but also of the
passion for doing good." Human perfection, the essence of culture, is an
internal condition, but the will to do good must be guided by the knowledge
of what is good to do; "acting and instituting are of little use unless we
know how and what we ought to act and institute." Moreover, "because men
are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy which is human
nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to the rest, the expansion
of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be
a general expansion."
For Arnold's contemporary Nietzsche, the German exponent of Aristocracy,
the expansion of education entailed its diminution. For him ancient Greece
was the only home of culture, and such culture was not for all comers. The
rights of genius are not to be democratized; not the education of the masses,
but rather the education of a few picked men must be the aim. The one
purpose which education should most zealously strive to achieve is the
suppression of all ridiculous claims to independent judgment, and the
inculcation upon young men of obedience to the scepter of genius. The

scientific man and the cultured man belong to two different spheres which,
though coming together at times in the same individual, are never fully
reconciled.
In order to appreciate the full perverseness, from the democratic standpoint,
of Nietzsche's view of culture, it is necessary to glance at his political ideals
as explained by one of his sponsors. Nietzsche repudiates the usual
conception of morality, which he calls slave-morality, in favor of a morality
of masters. The former according to him encourages the deterioration of
humanity; the latter promotes advancement. He favors a true aristocracy as
the best means of producing a race of supermen. "Instead of advocating
'equal and inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' for
which there is at present such an outcry (a régime which necessarily
elevates fools and knaves, and lowers the honest and intelligent), Nietzsche
advocates simple justice—to individuals and families according to their
merits, according to their worth to society; not equal rights, therefore, but
unequal rights, and inequality in advantages generally, approximately
proportionate to deserts; consequently, therefore, a genuinely superior
ruling class at one end of the social scale, and an actually inferior ruled
class, with slaves at its basis, at the opposite social extreme."
Since it is the view of this aristocratic philosopher that science is the ally of
democracy—a view that every chapter of the history of science serves to
demonstrate—it is of interest to review his opinion of the character of the
scientist. For Nietzsche the scientist is not a heroic superman, but a
commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues. He lacks
domination, authority, self-sufficiency; he is rather in need of recognition
from others and is characterized by the self-distrust innate in all dependent
men and gregarious animals. He is industrious, patiently adaptable to rank
and file, equable and moderate in capacity and requirement. He has a
natural feeling for people like himself, and for that which they require: A
fair competence and the green meadow without which there is no rest from
labor. The scientist shows no rapture for exalted views; in fact, with an
instinct for mediocrity, he is envious and strives for the destruction of the
exceptional man.
A training in natural science tends to make one objective. But the objective
man, in Nietzsche's opinion, distrusts his own personality and regards it as

something to be set aside as accidental, and a detriment to calm judgment.
The temperamental philosopher thinks the scientist serene, but that his
serenity springs not from lack of trouble, but from incapacity to grasp and
deal with his own private grief. His is merely disinterested knowledge,
according to Nietzsche. The scientist is emotionally impoverished. His love
is constrained, and his hatred artificial; he is less interesting to women than
the warrior. "His mirroring and externally self-polished soul no longer
knows how to affirm, no longer how to deny; he does not command; neither
does he destroy." As we see in the case of Leibnitz, the scientist contemns
scarcely anything (Je ne méprise presque rien). The scientist is an
instrument, but not a goal; he is something of a slave, nothing in himself—
presque rien! There is in the scientist nothing bold, powerful, self-centered,
that wants to be master. He is for the most part a man without content and
definite outline, a selfless man.
This educational product, which the builders of modern aristocracy reject,
and describe after their fashion, we accept as the ally of the masses of the
people, and we term it democratic culture.
The objective man, at the same time, may find even in the vehement pages
of Nietzsche warnings and criticisms which the friends of democracy
should not disregard. Extreme, almost insane, as his doctrine undoubtedly
is, it may have value as a corrective influence, an antidote for other extreme
views. It serves to remind us that democracy may be misled by feelings in
themselves noble, and may, by grasping what seems good, miss what is
best. For example, there are in the United States about three hundred
thousand persons, defective or subnormal mentally; there is a smaller
number of persons exceptionally gifted mentally. It is a poor form of social
service that would exhaust the resources of science and philanthropy to care
for the former without making any special provision for the latter. Genius is
too great an asset to be wasted or misapplied. All culture would have
suffered if Newton had been held, in his early life, to exacting
administrative work; or if Darwin had devoted his years to alleviating the
conditions of the miners of Peru whose misery touched him so profoundly;
or if Pasteur had been taken from the laboratory and pure science to make a
country doctor. Nor can democracy rest satisfied with any substitute for
culture which would disregard what is great in literature, in art, and in

philosophy, or which would ignore history, and the languages and
civilizations of the past, as if culture had its beginning yesterday.
In this chapter we have considered democracy and democratic culture from
the standpoint of three writers on education, a Greek aristocrat, a German
advocate of the domination of the classes over the masses, and an Oxford
professor, all by training and temperament more or less hostile critics. A
more direct procedure might have been employed to establish the claim of
science to afford a basis of intellectual and social homogeneity. A brilliant
literary man of the present day considers that places in the first ranks of
literature are reserved for the doctrinally heterodox. None of the great
writers of Europe, he asserts, have been the adherents of the traditional
faith. (He makes an exception in favor of Racine: but this is a needless
concession, for Racine owed his early education to the Port Royalists,
became alienated from them and wrote under the inspiration of the idea of
the moral sufficiency of worldly honor; then, after an experience that shook
his faith in his own code, he returned to the early religious influences in his
life and composed his Esther and Athalie.) But, unlike literature, the study
of science is not exclusive. In the front ranks of science stand the devout
Roman Catholic Pasteur, the Anglican Darwin, the Unitarian Priestley, the
Calvinist Faraday, the Quakers Dalton, Young, and Lister, Huxley the
Agnostic, and Aristotle the pagan biologist. Science has no Test Acts.
That the cultivation of the sciences tends to promote a type of culture that is
democratic rather than aristocratic, sympathetic rather than austere,
inclusive rather than exclusive, is further witnessed by the fact that the
tradesman and artisan, as well as the dissenter, play a large part in their
development. We have seen that Pasteur was the son of a tanner, Priestley
of a cloth-maker, Dalton of a weaver, Lambert of a tailor, Kant of a saddler,
Watt of a shipbuilder, Smith of a farmer. John Ray was, like Faraday, the
son of a blacksmith. Joule was a brewer. Davy, Scheele, Dumas, Balard,
Liebig, Wöhler, and a number of other distinguished chemists, were
apothecaries' apprentices. Franklin was a printer. At the same time other
ranks of society are represented in the history of science by Boyle,
Cavendish, Lavoisier. The physicians and the sons of physicians have borne
a particularly honorable part in the advancement of physical as well as
mental science. The instinctive craving for power, the will to dominate, of
which Nietzsche was the lyricist, was in these men subdued to patience,

industry, and philanthropy. The beneficent effect of their activities on the
health and general welfare of the masses of the people bears witness to the
sanity and worth of the culture that prompted these activities.
As was stated at the outset of this chapter, education is the oversight and
guidance of the development of the immature with certain ethical and social
ends in view. The material of instruction, the method of instruction, and the
type of educational institution, will vary with the hereditary endowment,
age, and probable social destiny of the child. In a democratic country likely
to become more, rather than less, democratic, those subjects will naturally
be taught which have vital connection with the people's welfare and
progress in civilization. At the same time the method of instruction will be
less dogmatic and more inclined (under a free than under an absolute
government) to evoke the child's powers of individual judgment; arbitrary
discipline must yield gradually to self-discipline. The changes here
indicated as desirable are already well under way in America. As regards
types of educational institution, it is significant that America about the
middle of the eighteenth century introduced the Miltonic, nonconformist
Academy, with its science curriculum, in place of the traditional Latin
grammar school. Later the American high school, institutions of which type
now have over a million pupils, and teach science by the heuristic
laboratory method, became the popular form of secondary school. It is,
likewise, not without social significance that the Kindergarten was
suppressed in Prussia after the revolt of the people in the middle of the
nineteenth century, and that it found a more congenial home in a democratic
country. Its educational ideal of developing self-activity without losing
sight of the need of social adaptation finds its corollary in systematic
teaching of the sciences in relation both to the daily work and to their
historical and cultural antecedents.

REFERENCES

Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, and Culture and Anarchy.
Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Future of our Educational Institutions, vol. vi.
of the Complete Works; translation edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, vol. v, chap. vi. of the
Complete Works.
Plato, Republic, Book viii; vol. iii. of Benjamin Jowett's translation of the
Dialogues of Plato, 1875.

INDEX
Académie des Sciences, 111, 112.
Academy, at Athens, 19;
Milton's plan, 102;
Defoe's, 116;
Franklin's, 125;
type of secondary school, 282.
Adams, John Couch, 188 et seq.
Aerodynamics, 233.
Agricola, George, 129.
Agriculture, 12, 38, 107, 126, 137.
Air, 157.
Air craft, 71, 126, 231 et seq.
Air-pump, 96.
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 113.
Albertus Magnus, 53.
Alchemy, 50, 252.
Alcuin, 52.
Alexandria, 19, 44 et seq.
Algebra, 49.
Alkaline earths, 179.
American Philosophical Society, 121.
Anatomy, 6, 8, 38, 50, 78.
Anemometer, 107, 235.
Anthrax, 224 et seq.

Antipodes, 37, 48.
Antiseptic surgery, 220, 231.
Application, 30 et seq.
Aqua regia, 51, 132.
Aqueducts, 33.
Aqueous vapor, 157 et seq.
Arago, 184.
Archimedes, 27.
Architecture, 30 et seq.
Archytas, 18.
Aristotle, 20 et seq., 49, 51, 53, 266.
Arithmetic, 6, 11, 48.
Arnold, Matthew, 273.
Astrology, 10.
Astronomy, (Egyptian and Babylonian) 2 et seq.;
(Greek) 16;
(Roman) 34;
(Alexandrian) 45;
(Hindu) 48;
(Arabian) 49, 50;
(Copernican) 55;
(Tycho Brahe and Kepler) 87 et seq.;
(Newton) 110 et seq.;
(nebular hypothesis) 142 et seq.;
(discovery of Neptune) 184 et seq.
Atmosphere, 157.
Atomic Theory, 158 et seq., 250.
Atoms, 17, 148, 158, 253.
Augustus Cæsar, 36.

Averroës, 51 et seq.
Avicenna, 51.
Avogadro, 165.

Babylonia, 1 et seq.
Bacon, Francis, 57 et seq., 80 et seq., 105;
Baconian principles, 211.
Bacon, Roger, 54.
Bacteria, 93.
Bacteriology, 213 et seq.
Bagdad, 49.
Barbarians, 46.
Barometer, 94 et seq.
Basalt, 131, 132, 136, 137, 201.
Becquerel, 233, 246 et seq.
Beddoes, 173.
Beer, 223, 226.
Berzelius, 162.
Bessel, 187.
Biology, 6, 7, 23 et seq., 37, 53, 78, 109, 197 et seq., 213.
Biot, 215 et seq.
Black, 129, 133.
Bode's Law, 189.
Botany, 6, 26, 37, 39, 53, 231 et seq.
Bouvard, Alexis, 185.
Bouvard, Eugène, 187.
Boyle, 96, 107.

Buffon, 130, 135.
Building material, 32.

Cabanis, 258.
Cairo, 49.
Calendar, 9, 36.
Carbonic acid, 138, 155, 157, 217.
Carlisle, 177.
Cato, 35, 38.
Challis, 189.
Charlemagne, 52.
Charles II, 105.
Chemical affinity, 159, 253.
Chemistry, 6, 8, 50, 51, 155 et seq., 170 et seq., 245 et seq.
Chicken cholera, 225.
Chlorine, 180.
Clocks, 89, 94.
Collinson, 123.
Columbus, 26, 54.
Columella, 38.
Comenius, 100.
Comets, 10, 40, 149.
Conservation of energy, 168.
Constantine, 37.
Copernicus, 55.
Coral reefs, 203.
Cordova, 50.

Counting, 6, 11, 34, 49, 86.
Cowley, 104 et seq.
Cronstedt, 130.
Curie, P. and S., 247 et seq.

D'Alembert, 58.
Dalton, 155, 157 et seq.
Darwin, Charles, 198 et seq.
Darwin, Erasmus, 199.
Davy, 122, 163, 170 et seq.
Deduction, 82.
Defoe, 116.
Democratic culture, 44, 270 et seq.
Democritus, 17, 48, 148.
Descartes, 57, 72, 82 et seq.
Desmarest, 132.
Dialogues of Plato, 19.
Diderot, 58.
Dioscorides, 39.
Dyes, 24, 33, 71, 181.

Earthquakes, 40, 137.
Ebers papyrus, 7.
Eclipses, 10, 16, 49.
Education, 19, 35, 36, 40, 44, 52, 53, 100 et seq., 116, 122, 123, 171-
72, 198, 213, 214, 216, 270 et seq.
Egypt, 1 et seq.
Electricity, 75, 123 et seq., 177, 231.

Electrolysis, 178.
Elements, 17, 20, 22, 155.
Ellipse, 20.
Embalmers, 7.
Empedocles, 17, 40.
Encyclopaedia, 58.
Ethics, 21, 40, 41.
Euclid, 18, 19.
Evelyn, 109.
Experiment, 72 et seq.
Extinction, 206.

Faraday, 181.
Fermentation, 216 et seq.
Fitzroy, 198.
Flacherie, 221.
Flamsteed, 110, 111, 184.
Fossils, 140.
Franklin, 15, 114.

Galen, 38, 79.
Galileo, 75 et seq., 95.
Galapagos Archipelago, 208 et seq.
Galle, 193.
Galton, 258.
Galvani, 177.
Gascoigne, 93.

Gassendi, 99.
Gay-Lussac, 164, 181.
Geber, 177.
Geology, 129 et seq.
Geometry, 4, 15, 18, 19, 84, 264.
Gerbert, 53.
Gilbert, 72, 74, 76.
Glen Tilt, 136.
Gnomon, 13, 33.
Granite, 131.
Graunt, 105, 109.
Gravity, 110 et seq.
Greece, 15 et seq.
Gresham College, 101, 106.
Grew, 109.
Guericke, 96.

Hall, Sir James, 129, 137 et seq.
Halley, 110, 112, 186.
Hammurabi, 12.
Hartley, 172, 258.
Hartlib, 99.
Harun Al-Rashid, 48.
Heat, 82, 155, 156, 166, 168, 173.
Heliacal rising, 4.
Helmholtz, 168, 258.
Henry, 238.

Heraclitus, 17.
Herschel, Sir John, 192.
Herschel, Sir William, 152 et seq., 184.
Hindu arithmetic and astronomy, 48, 49.
Hipparchus, 27, 45.
Hippocrates, 27.
Hobbes, 99.
Homology, 26.
Hooke, 107, 109.
Hope, 138.
Horrocks, 109.
Horse, 204.
Horticulture, 40.
Hugo of St. Victor, 60.
Humboldt, 131, 201.
Hussey, 186.
Hutton, 132 et seq.
Huygens, 94, 111.
Hydrophobia, 207, 227 et seq.
Hypatia, 46, 48.
Hypothesis, 147, 150, 245 et seq.

I-em-hetep, 6.
Ilu-bani, 12.
Induction, 81, 177.
Industries, 8, 27, 68 et seq., 173, 182, 220, 223, 226.
Inoculation, 126.

Inventions, 107, 233 et seq.
Invisible College, 103.
Iodine, 181.
Iron, 8, 13, 182.
Isidore of Seville, 60.

James, William, 258, 261, 268.
Joule, 155, 167 et seq.
Julius Cæsar, 36.

Kant, 142, 145 et seq.
Kepler, 90 et seq., 110.
Kindergarten, 281.
Kircher, 93.

Lactantius, 48.
Lambert, 142, 149 et seq.
Langley, 231 et seq.
Laplace, 112, 150 et seq.
Laurium, 27.
Lava, 138.
Lavoisier, 156, 172.
Leeuwenhoek, 93.
Leibnitz, 106, 112, 277.
Lenses, 40, 50.
Leonardo da Vinci, 72.
Leverrier, 190 et seq.
Libraries, 46, 48, 121.

Lincoln, 43 et seq.
Linnæus, 130.
Lippershey, 92.
Lister, 213, 220, 223.
Locke, 116, 172, 258.
Logarithms, 91.
Logic, 21, 53.
Lucretius, 40.
Lyell, 197, 201.

Magnetism, 75, 127.
Magnifiers, 40.
Malpighi, 93, 106, 109.
Malthus, 121, 211.
Manchester, 157.
Marble, 139.
Mars, 10, 91.
Marsh gas, 126, 163, 182.
Materia medica, 39, 51.
Mathematics, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 34, 48, 49, 55, 87 et seq.,
110 et seq., 184 et seq., 264.
Maupertuis, 145.
Mayow, 156.
Measuring, 5, 10, 86 et seq.
Mechanics, 18, 77, 231 et seq.
Medicine, 6, 11, 27, 34, 126, 173 et seq., 207, 216 et seq.
Mensuration, 5, 92.

Mental imagery, 263.
Mercury, 50, 51, 156.
Mersenne, 99, 112.
Metallurgy, 8, 13, 23, 50.
Meteorology, 122, 133, 158.
Microscope, 93.
Milky Way, 144.
Mill, John Stuart, 256.
Milton, 102, 213.
Mineralogy, 130.
Minute and second, 46.
Monochord, 17.
Monte Cassino, 52.
Moray, 104, 112.
Murex, 24, 33.

Napier, 91.
Napoleon I, 151, 177, 214.
Napoleon III, 221.
Natural history, 23, 37, 52, 61.
Navigation, 3, 16, 26, 54, 126, 231.
Nebular hypothesis, 147, 150.
Neptune, 184 et seq.
Neptunist, 131.
New Atlantis, 71, 100, 183.
Newton, 110, 135, 158.
Nicholson, 177.

Nietzsche, 277 et seq.
Nitric oxide, 156, 161.
Nitrous oxide, 174.
Novum Organum, 70, 72.
Numerals, 6, 11, 34, 49, 87, 231.

Observatories, 4, 49.
Occupations, 12, 51, 58, 68 et seq., 107.
Optics, 50, 54, 93.
Organic remains, 126, 140.
Origin of the sciences, 1 et seq.
Origin of Species, 201.

Pansophy, 100.
Pascal, 95, 117.
Pasteur, 213 et seq.
Pearson, Karl, 60.
Peirce, 195.
Pepys, 110.
Petty, 103, 122.
Peurbach, 55.
Philosophical Transactions, 109.
Philosophy, 15 et seq., 134.
Physics, 21, 28, 31, 32, 50, 54, 74 et seq., 94 et seq., 110 et seq., 128,
155 et seq., 170 et seq., 231 et seq., 245 et seq.
Physiology, 6, 21, 38, 78, 173 et seq., 225 et seq.
Picard, 111.
Plato, 18, 270 et seq.

Playfair, 133, 137.
Pliny, 37.
Pneumatic Institution, 173.
Poincaré, Henri, 255, 267.
Port Royal, 116, 279.
Potash, 23, 51, 179.
Potassium, 179.
Precession of the equinoxes, 10, 112.
Priestley, 126, 156.
Primitive man, 206.
Principia, 110, 114.
Prism, 40.
Protyl, 254.
Psychology, 23, 256 et seq.
Ptolemy, 45, 55.
Pythagoras, 17.

Quadrants, 50, 86.
Quintilian, 39.

Rabies, 227 et seq.
Racemic acid, 215.
Radioactivity, 245 et seq.
Ramsay, 246.
Ray, 110.
Regiomontanus, 55.
Religion, 3, 8, 10, 40, 43 et seq., 142 et seq.

Rey, 94.
Rhind papyrus, 6.
Röntgen rays, 231.
Rousseau, 270.
Royal Institution, 176.
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 133.
Royal Society of London, 99 et seq.
Rumford, 166.
Rutherford, 247 et seq.

St. Benedict, 52.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 53.
Saturn, 2, 92, 145.
Saussure, 133.
Scheele, 156, 180.
Scientific apparatus, 17, 49, 86 et seq.
Scotus Erigena, 53.
Seneca, 40.
Shaftesbury, 117.
Signs of zodiac, 9, 33.
Silkworm, 109, 221 et seq.
Siphon, 95.
Sirius, 4.
Smith, Adam, 121, 133, 256.
Smith, William, 139 et seq.
Smithsonian Institution, 195, 233, 238.
Socrates, 44, 117.

Soda, 8, 51, 179.
Soddy, 248 et seq.
Sodium, 179.
Sosigenes, 36.
Sound, 33.
Species, 24, 197 et seq.
Specific gravity, 28, 36, 50.
Spectrum analysis, 153, 231.
Sphericity of the earth, 26, 37.
Spontaneous generation, 25, 218.
Sprat, 105, 109.
Steel, 8, 23.
Sundial, 13.
Survival, 206.
Syntaxis, 45.

Tables, astronomical, 49, 50, 91, 185 et seq.
Tanning, 177.
Technology, 5, 16, 20, 27, 30 et seq., 50, 68 et seq., 86 et seq., 103,
107, 126, 129, 130, 139-41, 156, 160, 167, 177, 182, 231.
Thales, 15.
Theology, 47, 62, 172.
Theon, 46.
Theophrastus, 26, 39.
Theory, 30, 41; T. of the Earth, 133.
Tides, 38, 112.
Torricelli, 95.

Trade and trades, 12, 51, 68 et seq., 107, 115, 118.
Transformation Theory, 249 et seq.
Trigonometry, 46, 49, 55.
Turgot, 121.
Tycho Brahe, 87 et seq.
Tyndall, 260-61.

Uranus, 184 et seq.

Vacuum, 95.
Varro, 38.
Vesalius, 78.
Vitruvius, 30 et seq.
Viviani, 94.
Vivisection, 38, 71, 80.
Volcanoes, 40, 136.
Volta, 177.
Vulcanist, 131, 137.

Wadham College, 104.
Walker, 195.
Wallace, 211, 231.
Wallis, 103.
War, 46, 178, 213 et seq.
War-engines, 28, 34.
Watch, 94.
Water, 157, 177.
Water-clocks, 13, 94.

Watt, Gregory, 172.
Watt, James, 133, 156, 157.
Wedgwoods, 138, 173, 199.
Weighing, 7, 10, 86.
Werner, 129 et seq.
Wilkins, 101, 104.
Willis, 104.
Willughby, 109, 110.
Wine, 220, 226.
Wollaston, 119.
Wool, 226.
Wren, 104, 107.
Wright, 143 et seq.
Wundt, 258, 259.

Xenophon, 117.

Young, 258, 279.

Zacharias, 92.
Zodiac, 9, 33.
Zoölogy, 7, 12, 21, 24, 25, 37, 53, 66, 109, 110, 197 et seq.

Transcriber's note:
The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the
second the corrected one.
parabola, hyperbola--play a large part in the subsequent
parabola, the hyperbola--play a large part in the subsequent
Seneca, Physcial Science; translated by John Clarke.
Seneca, Physical Science; translated by John Clarke.
College by 1558 it was the custom to remain for discussion
College by 1658 it was the custom to remain for discussion
slowly with the result that it had a stony, rather a
slowly with the result that it had a stony, rather than a
This would correspond to 325° January 1, 1847.
This would correspond to 325° on January 1, 1847.
sometimes, in the case of the γ rays with velocity
sometimes, in the case of the γ rays, with velocity
positively and negatively chasged particles. Rutherford
positively and negatively charged particles. Rutherford

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