14 SIMON NEWCOMB— CAMPBELL. [MEMOIE [vou T xvit 



One of the books which received Newcomb's attention in his school-teaching days was 

 Say's Political Economy, of which he has written: "It was quite a delight to see human affairs 

 treated by scientific methods." His interest in economic questions seems never to have flagged. 

 His writings on the subject are numerous, and many of them have been accorded high rank by 

 leading economists. They include several volumes and a great many magazine articles on 

 timely subjects. In 1865 appeared his first contribution, a volume of 220 pages, entitled A 

 Critical Examination of our Financial Policy during the Southern Rebellion. The A, B, C of 

 Finance, issued in Harper's Half Hour Series, 115 pages, bears the date 1877. His Principles 

 of Political Economy, an extensive treatise of 54S pages, was published in 1885. A Plain Man's 

 Talk on the Labor Question, 195 pages, came out in 1886. His contributions to the North 

 American Review began in 1866 with a thoughtful article on Our Financial Future; and later 

 articles considered such subjects as the let-alone principle in economics, national debts, the 

 standard of value, the principles of taxation, science and government, our antiquated method 

 of electing a President, etc. Other leading journals contain articles on life insurance, the silver 

 question, the organization of labor, schools of political economy, etc. Newcomb was a lecturer 

 on political economy in Harvard College in 1879-80. He was elected president of the Political 

 Economy Club of America in 1887. The first prize, $150, of two "citizenship prizes" offered 

 by the Anthropological Society of Washington, was awarded to Newcomb in 1894 for his essay 

 on The Elements Which Make Up the Most Useful Citizen of the United States. The indica- 

 tions are that if Newcomb had chosen economics for his chief field of endeavor he would have 

 been in the front rank of modern economists. 



There were many sides and angles to Newcomb's interests. He was the first president of 

 the American Society for Psychical Research, in 1885-S6. His position was not at all that of 

 a believer or devotee, but rather that of the interested observer who wanted to know the truth. 

 His experiences with the American society were apparently in harmony with his opinion of the 

 work of the parent English society: "I could not feel any assurance that the (English) society, 

 with all its diligence, had done more than add to the mass of mistakes, misapprehensions of 

 facts, exaggerations, illusions, tricks, and coincidences, of which human experience is full." 



Newcomb wrote instructively for the public on a great variety of subjects: The Mariner's 

 Compass; Can We Make It Rain? The Outlook for the Flying Machine; The Fairyland of 

 Geometry; Why We Need a National University; On Conditions Which Discourage Scientific 

 Work in America; Law and Design in Nature; Evolution and Theology; Science and Immor- 

 tality; etc. He was inclined to be skeptical as to a practical development of "heavier-than-air" 

 flying machines. He called attention to the fundamental fact that an increase in the dimen- 

 sions of airplanes would increase the dead weight as the cube, whereas the lifting power would 

 increase only as the square, of the dimensions. Success in developing larger and larger air- 

 planes would demand increasing driving power, other factors being equal, and he did not foresee 

 the recent high development of internal-combustion engines which now fulfill this requirement. 



Newcomb also found time to write fiction. He is the author of short stories on The Wreck 

 of the Columbia, and on The End of the World, and of a volume entitled His Wisdom the 

 Defender — a Story, in which airships resembling the Zeppelin type are successfully employed. 

 Newcomb's skepticism as to the airplane did not extend to air vessels involving the balloon 

 principle, in which the lifting power increases as the cube of the dimensions and the resistance 

 increases only as the square. In His Wisdom the Defender, Newcomb makes the hero dominate 

 the earth by means of machines which fly at great heights above the earth and at great speeds, 

 and use his power to disarm the standing armies and navies of the nations. "The greatest 

 day in the history of the world, if I can bring it about, will be that when war shall have ceased 

 forever, armies and navies exist no longer, and universal peace reign over all the nations." 



The commanding position in astronomical science attained by Prof. Newcomb is accurately 

 indicated by the long list of honors conferred upon him. In the number and the character of 

 the learned societies in which he held honorary memberships, and in the number of honorary 

 degrees conferred upon him, Newcomb stood alone in America, and in a very small company 



