NATURE 



201 



THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1875 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES 



v.— George Gabriel Stokes 



A GREAT experimental philosopher, of the age just 

 -^^ past, is reported to have said, " Show me the scien- 

 tific man who never made a mistake, and I will show you 

 one who never made a discovery." The implied inference 

 is all but universally correct, but now and then there 

 occur splendid exceptions (such as are commonly said to 

 be requisite to prove a rule), and among these there has 

 been none more notable than the present holder of 

 Newton's chair in Cambridge, George Gabriel Stokes, 

 Secretary of the Royal Society. 



To us, who were mere undergraduates when he was 

 elected to the Lucasian Professorship, but who had with 

 mysterious awe speculated on the relative merits of the 

 men of European fame whom we expected to find com- 

 peting for so high an honour, the election of a young and 

 (to us) unknown candidate was a very startling pheno- 

 menon. But we were still more startled, a few months 

 afterwards, when the new professor gave public notice 

 that he considered it part of the duties of his office to 

 assist any member of the University in difficulties he 

 might encounter in his mathematical studies. Here was, 

 we thought (in the language which Scott puts into the 

 m.outh of Richard Coeur de Lion), " a single knight, fight- 

 ing against the whole jnclee of the tournament." But we 

 soon discovered our mistake, and felt that the under- 

 taking was the effect of an earnest sense of duty on 

 the conscience of a singularly modest, but exceptionally 

 able, and learned man. And, as our own knowledge gra- 

 dually increased, and we became able to understand his 

 numerous original investigations, we saw more and more 

 clearly that the electors had indeed consulted the best 

 interests of the University ; and that the proffer of assist- 

 ance was something whose benefits were as certain to be 

 tangible and real as any that mere human power and 

 knowledge could guarantee. 



And so it has proved. Prof. Stokes may justly be 

 looked upon as in a sense one of the intellectual parents 

 of the present splendid school of Natural Philosophers 

 whom Cambridge has nurtured — the school which num- 

 bers in its ranks Sir William Thomson and Prof, Clerk- 

 Maxwell. 



All of these, and Stokes also, undoubtedly owe much 

 (more perhaps than they can tell) to the late William 

 Hopkins. He was, indeed, one whose memory will ever 

 be cherished with filial affection by all who were fortunate 

 enough to be his pupils. 



But when they were able, as it were, to walk without 

 assistance, they all (more or less wittingly) took Stokes 

 as a model. And the model could not but be a good one : 

 it is all but that of Newton himself. Newton's wonderful 

 combination of mathematical power with experimental 

 skill, without which the Natural Philosopher is but a 

 fragment of what he should be, lives again in his suc- 

 cessor. Stokes has attacked many questions of the 

 gravest order of difficulty in pure mathematics, and has 

 carried out delicate and complex experimental researches 

 of the highest originality, alike with splendid success. But 

 Vol. XII.— No. 298 



several of his greatest triun phs have been won in fields 

 where progress demands that these distinct and rarely 

 associated powers.be brought simultaneously into action. 

 For there the mathematician has not irerely to save the 

 experimenter from the fruitless labour of pushing his 

 inquiries in directions where he can be sure that (by the 

 processes employed) nothing new is to be learned ; he has 

 also to guide him to the exact place at which new know- 

 ledge is felt to be both necessary and attainable. It is 

 on this account that few men have ever had so small a 

 percentage of barren work, whether mathematical or 

 experimental,''as Stokes. 



Like that of the majority of true scientific men, 

 his life has been comparatively uneventful. The honours 

 he has won have been many, but they have never 

 been allowed to disturb the patient labour in which 

 short-sighted Britain has permitted (virtually forced) 

 him to waste much of his energies. He was born on August 

 13, 1819, at Skreen, Co. Sligo, of which parish his father 

 was rector. At the age of 13 years he was sent to Dublin, 

 where he was educated at the school of the Rev. R. H. 

 Wahl, D.D. In 1835 he was removed to Bristol College, 

 of which Dr. Jerrard was principal. He entered Pembroke 

 College, Cambridge, in 1837 ; graduated in 1841 as Senior 

 Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman ; became Fellow 

 of his College in the same year ; and in 1849 was elected 

 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. In 1857 he vacated 

 his fellowship by marriage, but a few years ago was rein- 

 stated under the new statutes of his college. Stokes was 

 elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1851, was awarded 

 the Rumford Medal in 1853, and was elected Secretary of 

 the Society in 1854. 



A really great discoverer in mathematics or physics 

 does not seek the readily-accorded plaudits of the igno- 

 rant masses or of the would-be learned rich. He knows 

 the worthlessness of such verdicts (in any but a possible 

 pecuniary sense) ; his joy is in the conviction that, within 

 a very short time after their publication, his discoveries will 

 be known to all who are really capable of comprehending 

 them ; that his experiments will be repeated, and in many 

 cases even extended, by some of them before he has made 

 further advance. He is a true soldier of science, and fights 

 for her cause, not for his own hand ; he joys quite as much 

 in an advance made by another as in his own. When the 

 army has passed on from the well-fought field, let the 

 camp-followers deck themselves with fripper) from the 

 spoil, and talk pompously of the labours 01 the campaign ! 

 Them the many-headed will applaud, too often even sage 

 rulers will lavishly reward thtm. The true votary of 

 science, in this country at least, rarely meets with State 

 encouragement and support. Mole-eyed State ! Men 

 whose undisturbed leisure would be of incalculable valuf» 

 not only to the instruction but to the material progress 

 of the nation, have to devote the greater part of their 

 priceless intellects and time to work like common hod- 

 men for their children's bread ! It is the long-conse- 

 crated, and still common, custom of our mighty empire to 

 harness Pegasus to the dust-cart ! Ignorance alone is to 

 blame for this, ignorance that cannot distinguish Pegasus 

 from a jackass ! 



Perhaps the simile may be thought exaggerated. But 

 what a comment on things as they are is furnished by the 

 spectacle of genius like that of Stokes' wasted on the 



