238 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



English re- 

 ito 

 bage,&c. 



plies to 

 Babba 



The answers to the challenges of Babbage and the 

 Edinburgh Keviewer given by English writers them- 

 selves cannot on the whole be said to be very reassur- 

 ing. One of them counts the scientific periodicals in 

 England and in France, but omits to weigh the merit 

 of their respective contributions. Another points to the 

 ' Ladies' Diary,' in which many curious mathematical 

 problems, far beyond the mere elements of science, are 

 often to be met with. A third, whilst in general admit- 

 ting the correctness of Babbage 's strictures, draws attention 

 to the ' Penny Magazine ' and the ' Cabinet Cyclopaedia ' as 

 counterparts in England of the Reports of Cuvier and 

 9. Berzelius abroad. The true position was probably recog- 



Foundation tint PI ii 



of the Brit- msed by the founders of the British Association for the 



ish Associ- 

 ation. Advancement of Science about 1830, 1 who saw that, be- 



most useful applications, is far less 

 diffused in France than in England " 

 (p. 12). "The principle of the 

 division of labour [in science] is 

 more acted upon in France than in 

 England " (p. 14). 



1 The movement, which origi- 

 nated in the circle to which Bab- 

 bage belonged, was as stated 

 above, p. 42 to some extent 

 copied from the German Associa- 

 tion founded by Oken in 1822. The 

 latter acquired a kind of European 

 renown through the exertions of 

 Humboldt in 1828, who succeeded 

 in attracting a considerable number 

 of celebrities such as Gauss, Ber- 

 zelius, Oersted t, who for them- 

 selves preferred a solitary to a " gre- 

 garious " mode of science. Babbage 

 was a guest at this meeting at Ber- 

 lin, and gave an account of it in an 

 appendix to the 'Decline of Science.' 

 A good account of the character 

 and gradually declining influence 

 of these German meetings will be 

 found in Bruhns' ' Life of Hum- 



boldt' (vol. ii. p. 127, &c., transla- 

 tion). They " degenerated after the 

 usual German fashion into the un- 

 intellectual form of feasting." The. 

 British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, founded shortly 

 afterwards on the 27th September 

 1831 at York, was the immediate 

 outcome of a suggestion thrown 

 out by Brewster at the end of a 

 review in the ' Quarterly ' of Bab- 

 bage's 'Decline of Science.' He 

 fully endorsed the latter's opinion, 

 and was even more severe upon the 

 universities, maintaining " that the 

 great inventions and discoveries 

 which have been made in England 

 during the last century have been 

 made without the precincts of our 

 universities. In proof of this we 

 have only to recall the labours of 

 Bradley, Dollond, Priestley, Caven- 

 dish, Maskelyne, Rumford, Watt, 

 Wollaston, Young, Davy, and Che- 

 venix ; and among the living to 

 mention the names of Dalton, Ivory, 

 Brown, Hatchett, Pond, Herschel, 



