250 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



24. 



Absence of 

 schools of 

 scientific 

 thought. 



refused to congregate in distinct schools and institutions 

 or to be localised in definite centres. The Royal Society, 

 the Eoyal Institution, the British Association, and many 

 other smaller societies, have all more or less started with 

 the programme of Lord Bacon, and have failed to realise 

 it: everywhere the schemes of co-operation or organised 

 scientific research have encountered the opposition of 

 individual pursuits or of local interests. 



Newton could not secure the use of Flamsteed's obser- 

 vations, which on their part remained uncompleted and 

 unpublished through the want of appreciation of others. 

 Great schemes in practical life have been carried out 

 by the unaided efforts of eminent persons, and great 

 ideas have been put forward with all the power and 

 all the resources of individual genius, 1 but no great 

 master in scientific research in this country can point 

 to a compact following of pupils to a school which 

 undertakes to finish what the master has begun, to carry 

 his ideas into far regions and outlying fields of research, 

 or to draw their remoter consequences. Newtonianisni 

 was a creation of Voltaire ; the school of Locke is to be 

 found in France ; the best realisation of Bacon's schemes 

 are the Encyclopedic, the French Institute, and the 

 foreign Academies. 2 Dr Young's discoveries in optics 



1 See Huxley, ' Lay Sermons, 

 c.,' edition of 1891, p. 43 : "Eng- 

 land can show now, as she has been 

 able to show in every generation 

 since civilisation spread over the 

 West, individual men who hold 

 their own against the world, and 

 keep alive the old tradition of her 

 intellectual eminence. But in the 

 majority of cases these men are 

 what they are in virtue of their 



native intellectual force, and of a 

 strength of character which will 

 not recognise impediments. They 

 are not trained in the courts of 

 the Temple of Science, but storm 

 the walls of that edifice in all sorts 

 of irregular ways, and with much 

 loss of time and power, in order to 

 obtain their legitimate positions." 

 2 See above, pp. 34, 95. 



