NA rURE 



145 



THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1887. 



THE /UBILEE. 



BEFORE our next number appears, most of the cele- 

 brations connected with the fiftieth anniversary of 

 the Queen's accession will have taken place ; and in 

 London, at all events, the gorgeous ceremonials which 

 are now being prepared for next Tuesday will have been 

 the admiration of hundreds of thousands of Her Majesty's 

 loyal subjects. It is therefore quite right and fitting that 

 in a journal devoted to the progress of science, which 

 the history of the last fifty years has shown to be the main 

 basis of modern civilization, we should for a moment turn 

 aside from our true function — that of fostering and re- 

 cording the progress of natural knowledge — and dwell for 

 one moment on the subject now uppermost in all minds, 

 and dear to most British hearts. We know that in loyalty 

 the students of Nature in these islands are second to none ; 

 and their gladness at the happy completion of the fifty 

 years" reign, and their respect for the fifty years' pure and 

 beautiful life, are also, we believe, second to none. But 

 the satisfaction which they feel on these grounds is tem- 

 pered when they consider, as men of science must, all the 

 conditions of the problem. 



The fancy of poets and the necessity of historians have 

 from time to time marked certain ages of the world's 

 history and distinguished them from their fellows. The 

 golden age of the past is now represented by the scien- 

 tific age of the present. Long after the names of all men 

 who have lived on this planet during the Queen's reign, 

 with the exception of such a name as that of Darwin, 

 are forgotten ; when the name of Queen Victoria even has 

 paled ; it will be recognized that in the latter half of the 

 nineteenth century a new era of the world's history com- 

 menced. Whatever progress there has been in the history 

 of any nation during the last fifty years — and this is truer 

 of England than of any other country — the progress has 

 been mainly due to labourers in the field of pure science, 

 and to the applications of the results obtained by them to 

 the purposes of our daily and national life. 



Space utterly forbids that we should attempt to refer 

 to the various memoirs, discoveries, and inventions which 

 at once are suggested to the memory when one throws 

 one's self back fifty years and compares the then condi- 

 tion of England with the present one ; and we do not 

 suppose that the most Philistine member of any com- 

 munity in our land, from the House of Lords downwards, 

 will urge any objection against the statement. 



It is quite true that some men of science take a pride 

 in the fact that all this scientific work has been accom- 

 plished not only with the minimum of aid from the 

 State, but without any sign of sympathy with it on the 

 part of the powers that be. 



We venture to doubt whether this pride is well founded. 

 It is a matter of fact, whatever the origin of the fact may 

 be, that during the Queen's reign, since the death of the 

 lamented Prince Consort, there has been an impassable 

 gulf between the highest culture of the nation and Royalty 

 itself. The brain of the nation has been divorced from 

 the head. 



Literature and science, and we might almost add 

 art, have no access to the throne. Our leaders in 

 Vol. XXXVI. — No. 920. 



science, our leaders in letters,. are personally unknown to 

 Her Most Gracious Majesty. We do not venture to think 

 tor one moment that either Her Majesty or the leaders in 

 question suffer from this condition of things ; but 

 we believe it to be detrimental to the State, inasmuch as 

 it must end by giving a perfectly false perspective ; and 

 to the thoughtless the idea may rise that a great nation 

 has nothing whatever to do either with literature, science, 

 or art— that, in short, culture in its widest sense is a 

 useless excrescence, and properly unrecognized by Royalty 

 on that account, while the true men of the nation are 

 only those who wield the sword, or struggle for bishop- 

 rics, or for place in some political party for pay. 



The worst of such a state of things is that a view which 

 is adopted in high quarters readily meets with general 

 acceptance, and that even some of those who have done 

 good service to the cause of learning are tempted to decry 

 the studies by which their spurs have been won. 



If literature is a " good thing to be left," as Sir G. 

 Trevelyan has told us, if Mr. Morley the politician looks 

 back with a half-contemptuous regret to the days when he 

 occupied a " more humble sphere " as a leader of literature, 

 if students are recommended to cultivate research 

 only " in the seed-sowing time of life ; " are not these 

 things a proof that something is " rotten in the State," 

 even in this Jubilee year ? It surely is well that literature, 

 science, and art should be cultivated by men who are 

 willing to lay aside vulgar ambition of wealth and rank> 

 if only they may add to the stock of knowledge and beauty 

 which the world possesses. It surely is not well that no 

 intellectual pre-eminence should condone for the lack of 

 wealth or political place, and that as far as neglect can do 

 it each scientific and literary man should be urged to 

 leave work, the collective performance of which is never- 

 theless essential to the vitahty of the nation. 



We venture to think that our view has some claims forcon- 

 sideration when we note what happens in other civilized 

 countries. If we take Germany, or France, or Italy, or 

 Austria, we find there that the men of science and litera- 

 ture are recognized as subjects who can do the State some 

 service, and as such are freely welcomed into the councils 

 of the Sovereign. With us it is a matter of course 

 that every Lord Mayor shall, and every President of 

 the Royal Society shall not, be a member of the Privy 

 Council ; and a Brit ish Barnum may pass over a thresh- 

 old which is denied to a Darwin, a Stokes, or a Huxley. 

 Our own impression is that this treatment of men of 

 culture does not depend upon the personal feelings 

 of the noble woman who is now our Queen. We 

 believe that it simply results from the ignorance of those 

 by whom Her Majesty is, by an unfortunate necessity, for 

 the most part surrounded. The courtier class in England 

 is — and it is more its misfortune than its fault — interested 

 in few of those things upon which the greatness of a 

 nation really depends. Literary culture some of them 

 may have obtained at the Universities, but of science or 

 of art, to say nothing of applied science and applied art, 

 they for the most part know nothing ; and to bring the 

 real leaders of England between themselves and the 

 Queen's Majesty would be to commit a biiise for which 

 they would never be forgiven in their favourite coteries. 

 No subject — still less a courtier — should be compelled to 

 demonstrate his own insignificance. That this is the real 



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