282 PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



stands nor sympathises with his pursuits, but hinders him 

 in the occupation upon which they depend for support. 



It is noticeable that amongst the long list of names of 

 scientific discoverers there is scarcely the name of a single 

 female ; Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Somerville (who 

 translated and published Laplace's c Mecanique Celeste ') 

 appear to be the greatest exceptions. It is, however, a 

 hopeful sign that women are beginning to feel their con- 

 dition of ignorance of science, and to occupy themselves - 

 in scientific employments. 



Miss Herschel was an assistant to her brother, the 

 eminent astronomer, and with the ( seven-foot Newtonian 

 sweeper ' given to her by him, she discovered first and 

 last no less than eight comets, ' to five of which the pri- 

 ority of her claim over other discoverers is unquestioned.' l 

 She also detected several remarkable nebulae and clusters 

 of stars previously unnoticed. 



'The absence of the investigating spirit in woman,' it 

 has been remarked, ' has very wide and important conse- 

 quences. The first consequence of it is that women do 

 not naturally accumulate accurate knowledge. Left to 

 themselves, they accept various kinds of teaching, but they 

 do not by any analysis of their own either put that teach- 

 ing to any serious intellectual test, or qualify themselves 

 for any extension of it by independent and original dis- 

 covery. We of the male sex are seldom clearly aware how 

 much of our practised force of the force which discovers 

 and originates is due to our common habit of analytical 

 observation ; yet it is scarcely too much to say that most 

 of our inventions have been suggested by actually or 

 intellectually pulling something else in pieces. And such 



1 Life of Caroline Herschel, pp. vii, 79, 144. 



