NA TURE 



339 



THURSDAY, JANUARY ii, 19 12. 



I 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 

 XXXVII.— Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



IF we endeavour to build up to its highest pinnacle 

 Auguste Comte's pyramid of sciences, in which 

 natural science follows upon mathematics, and is suc- 

 ceeded by physiology, and finally by sociology, we 

 reach as the highest of imaginable sciences the science 

 of Geniology, the science of genius, of the excelling 

 man. That such a science is possible has been known 

 for half a century. The investigations of Sir Francis 

 Gallon in England, of de Candolle in Geneva, and 

 of some recent workers in Germany, have proved to 

 demonstration that even this rare and shining pheno- 

 menon is subject to definite natural laws, discoverable 

 by a careful scrutiny of available facts, laws the 

 significance of which is very great, since the position 

 of anv nation among the nations of the world is 

 determined by the qualities and the efficiency of its 

 men of genius. 



On surveying the life of Sir William Ramsay in 

 the light of this the youngest of the sciences, one is 

 struck by the extraordinary consistency to be found 

 in it, a consistency by virtue of which the rapid suc- 

 cession of astonishing discoveries filling the latter 

 portion of his life appears as the necessary conse- 

 quence of a natural and regular process, and almost 

 resembles the working of a machine. Here we find 

 nothing of the irregular curves with distinct maxima 

 occurring in other types of genius, and usually in the 

 most marked degree in youth, as in the case of Sir 

 Humphry Davy, Sir William Ramsay's fellow- 

 countryman, who resembles him in many respects. 

 Ramsay recalls Davy by the brilliancy and the strik- 

 ing originality of his discoveries, which had no rela- 

 tion with any school or predecessor. In Davy's case 

 these discoveries appear more as disconnected peaks 

 suddenly arising from an average level. In Ramsay's 

 case, on the other hand, we can observe how one 

 discovery foUo'tvs another, how comparatively modest 

 and unobtrusive investigations, which have been 

 accepted in their due place in the great register of 

 the sciences, appear as the necessary foundations for 

 (ruths of such novelty that their possibility was not 

 even conceived before they were scientifically com- 



unicated. 



This natural-law consistency is seen in the first 

 instance in William Ramsay's descent. He has him- 



If explained that his male ancestors for seven genera- 

 ions were dyers, thus handing down to him as a long 



heritance a familiarity with chemical processes and 

 a facility in chemical ways of thinking. On the 

 mother's side, again, a series of physicians have pro- 

 vided the inherited capacity of the great scientific dis- 

 coverer. But of all these men, none even remotely 

 resembles Sir William in his eminence among his 

 ontemporaries, and, in this case, as in all similar 

 ases, the question arises, how it is possible 

 NO. 2202, VOL. 88] 



that such a genius arises from people of good average 

 capacity. 



It has, indeed, been established by Galton that an 

 efficiency exceeding the average, but not amounting 

 to genius, is in some families inherited through a 

 whole series of generations. But here we have to deal 

 with one of those extraordinary cases where an 

 average efficiency was well evidenced through a 

 number of generations, but suddenly made way for 

 an incomparably higher personality, in which indeed 

 the characteristic qualities of previous generations can 

 be recognised, but which far surpasses its progenitors 

 in efficiency. 



If we bear in mind the well-known laws of heredity 

 discovered by Mendel and de Vries, we know that 

 every descendant is a mosaic of those qualities which 

 have been transmitted to him partly by the father 

 and partly by the mother. In the face of this fact 

 the problem arises how such an unusual personality 

 can be descended from parents of average ability, since 

 it is just from these laws of heredity that we should 

 conclude that another average equipment would result. 



The answer which I tentatively should venture as 

 regards this problem is this : The portions of the 

 inheritance constituting a new being probably only on 

 rare occasions fit together or harmonise with each 

 other. The adolescent man then applies the greatest 

 portion of his energy in the task of organising these 

 accidental inheritances for the purpose of common 

 work and harmonious cooperation, and this task uses 

 up the greater part of the available energy, and with- 

 draws it from productive work. It is only in rare 

 cases that the inheritances are so constituted that they 

 fit each other from the beginning, so that the young 

 man has not to expend any energy on the mutual 

 harmonising of his elements, but can immediately set 

 about his creative work. Such a case seems to be 

 that of Sir William Ramsay. On one occasion he 

 described himself as a precocious, dreamy youth, of 

 somewhat unconventional education. The precocious- 

 ness is a practically universal phenomenon of in- 

 cipient genius, and the dreamy quality indicates that 

 original production of thought which lies at the basis 

 of all creative activity. 



His father, being a man of practical pursuits, who, 

 however, in his free time zealously cultivated scien- 

 tific works, such as quat»>rnions and geology, intro- 

 duced young William to the great passion of his life, 

 chemistry, and, as is often the case, an accident was 

 the immediate cause of the new departure. Young 

 William had broken a leg at football, and to ease the 

 tedium of convalescence, his father had given him 

 Graham's 'Chemistry" to study, and also brought 

 him small quantities of many chemicals with which 

 he could carry out the experiments described in the 

 text-book. Sir William himself says that it was chiefly 

 the question how fireworks could be prepared which 

 induced him to study Graham's "Chemistr>-." But 

 very soon the general scientific interest gained the 

 upper hand, and this can very characteristically be 

 gathered from the fact that he persuaded his people to 



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