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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



" A final lesson of importance is forced 

 upon us by the retrospect of so exceptional 

 a career. We may hear it asked Low, in the 

 face of powers of intellect and capacity for 

 brain-work such as these, it can be pre- 

 tended that the minds of women are essen- 

 tially inferior to those of men. There are, it 

 may be, those among us who would see in 

 this highly-endowed and eloquent expositor 

 of Nature a female Humboldt or Laplace. 

 Far be it from us to speak disparagingly in 

 a case in which the estimate of undoubted 

 merit is enhanced by the sense of recent 

 loss. Still in the balance of truth we must 

 not allow affectionate regard to prevail over 

 judicial candor, or gallantry outweigh criti- 

 cal and sober sense. No one would have 

 been more prompt than Mrs. Somerville 

 herself to disown any idea of intellectual 

 rivalry between the sexes. It was in no 

 sense as a rival to the great discoverers in 

 science, or even as the author or setter-forth 

 of truths novel and original, but simply as 

 the interpreter and expounder in a popular 

 form of what the masters of scientific truth, 

 each in his own province of research, had 

 brought to light, that she set herself her 

 distinctive task. What the laureate has said 

 of the passions of mankind and womankind 

 applies, as experience shows, no less truly 

 to their respective intellects. It is not in- 

 vidious, still less discourteous, in us to say 

 that the one is to the other as moonlight is 

 to sunlight. Eeceptive, bright, and keen, 

 the mind of woman may give back or diffuse 

 the rays of knowledge for the source or 

 emanation of whicli a stronger and more 

 originative power is necessary. The knowl- 

 edge of mathematics displayed in the 

 ' Mechanism of the Heavens ' took the 

 world by surprise because it was that of a 

 woman. Women have made themselves 

 names before now in exact science, even 

 among its higher branches. Maria Agnesi, 

 we cannot forget, was Professor of Mathe- 

 matics at Bologna in the last century, and 

 Sophie Germain, whose works in pure and 

 applied mathematics won her the Academy's 

 medal, excited the esteem and wonder of 

 the leading savants of France. But the high 

 places of science, the seats of supreme 

 authority and prime origination, exalted and 

 few, are for a class apart." 



A writer in the London AtTienmum 

 remarks: 



" It is not too much to say that, the chief 

 value of her version of Laplace's master- 

 piece resides in the fact that the work ex- 

 hibits an unmistakable proof of her mathe- 



matical power. It it difficult to conceive 

 that any student of science could profit by 

 the study of the work. As a first introduc- 

 tion to celestial mechanism it fails, because 

 all the portions which present any difficulty 

 are left uninterpreted : while to the more 

 advanced student the work is useless, be- 

 cause such explanations as are given relate 

 to the simpler parts of the subject. But it 

 is impossible to rise from the perusal of the 

 work without feeling that Mrs. Somerville 

 herself had fully grasped the meaning of 

 the great mathematician, and had followed 

 his reasoning even where it had led him to 

 the highest range of the modern methods of 

 analysis. At the same time, it must be ad- 

 mitted that nothing in this work suggests 

 the idea that Mrs. Somerville possessed in 

 any considerable degree the inventive power 

 which is the distinguishing attribute of great 

 mathematicians. When we consider her 

 work in other branches of science, a similar 

 quality of mind is discernible. We cannot 

 recall any experimental researches of hers 

 which were characteiized by originality, or 

 any passage in her writings suggesting new 

 ideas on the scientific questions which she 

 discussed. She possessed but little power 

 of generalization ; and we believe it is this 

 peculiarity of mind rather than any want of 

 distinctness in expression which has led to 

 the defect characterizing her attempts to 

 popularize science. It is not commonly 

 recognized, but is nevertheless the fact, that 

 the perfect concatenation of ideas through- 

 out a chapter or section of a science treatise 

 is altogether more important than distinct- 

 ness of expression in individual sentences, 

 desirable though the latter quality neces- 

 sarily is. But in Mrs. Somerville's science 

 writings there is a want of sequence ; and 

 this is seen not merely in her general treat- 

 ment of her subjects, but even in paragraphs 

 and sentences. We may take the following 

 sentence from her latest work, 'Molecular 

 and Microscopic Science,' as a noteworthy 

 instance. Endeavoring to prove the eternity 

 of the soul, she says : ' To suppose that 

 the vital spark is evanescent while there is 

 every reason to believe that the atoms of 

 matter are imperishable, is admitting the 

 superiority of mind over matter; an assump- 

 tion altogether at variance with the result 

 of geological sequence ; for Sir Charles Lyell 

 observes that sensation, instinct and sensa- 

 tion of the higher mammalia bordering on 

 reason, and lastly, the improvable reason 

 of man himself, presents us with a picture 

 of the ever-increasing dominion of mind 

 over matter.' The readers whom the popu- 



