5-^S 



NATURE 



[January 14, 19 15 



writing in the Popular Science Montlily (December 

 issue), maintains the thesis that the development 

 of science owes much, if not all, to the stimulus 

 of the demands of Prussian military requirements. 

 Naturally, his examples refer entirely to technical 

 applications of science. And here, again, if they 

 are analysed, it can be shown that the develop- 

 ment of which he boasts is due to concentrated 

 and organised effort; of the starting-points of 

 the manufactures which he cites, few are of 

 German origin. They have been appropriated 

 and worked out, no doubt, in order to place the 

 materials of war at the disposal of the German 

 Army ; but it is not proved that the necessities of 

 peace are not more effective as a stimulus to 

 progress than those of war. To take only one. 

 instance, it is probable that sooner or later all 

 our railways will be electrified; but that would 

 not suit military exigencies ; each train must 

 have an independent motive power; and so long 

 as German militarism persists, we may reckon 

 that German railways, at least, will not be run by 

 the electric current. 



The aims of science are the antitheses of those 

 of war. It is the object of pure science to attempt 

 to know and correlate natural phenomena, and its 

 devotees are inspired by an insatiable curiosity; 

 it is the object of applied science to make use of 

 that knowledge for the benefit of mankind. To 

 degrade its applications to the destruction of life 

 and property is the most unscientific act of which 

 a people, can be guilty. 



LORD AVEBURY: BANKER AND 



NATURALIST. 



Life of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury. By 



H. G. Hutchinson. Two vols. Vol. i. , pp. xiv + 



338. Vol. ii., pp. x + 334. (London: Macmillan 



and Co., Ltd., 1914.) Price 305. net, 2 vols. 



SIR John Lubbock was a notable figure in the 

 period of our scientific history which saw the 

 birth and development of evolutionary theory. If 

 the part he played was not as weighty as that of 

 Lyell, of Huxley, and of Hooker, it was even more 

 effective. For he spoke as a man of affairs and 

 with convinced sincerity; and if he was "a great 

 banker amongst scientists " so much the better. 

 Like Spottiswoode, he could show that a scientific 

 mind was capable of business success ; both, in 

 fact, were members of the X Club, that mysterious 

 body, impossible of successor, which was said " to 

 govern scientific affairs," and "not to do it 

 badly " ; Lubbock was, indeed, its last surviving 

 member. 



Biography is an art in which any great measure 

 x\0. 2359, VOL. 94] 



of success is rare. For it demands that the sub- 

 ject should reveal itself while we remain almost 

 unconscious of the hand of the artist. Mr. 

 Hutchinson is more artless, and rivals Boswell in 

 the feat of giving us himself as well. He could 

 not draw on letters, the biographer's best re- 

 source ; to Lubbock, he explains, " exposure of the 

 holy sanctities of his being would have been 

 impossible." Apology seems unnecessary, then, 

 for Lubbock's "attending the services at the 

 village church " and reading his Bible, though 

 Huxley did the latter and to some purpose. The 

 explanation is found in the belief "that there was 

 some room, after all, among the atoms for the 

 spirits." After this it is pleasant to know that 

 40,000 people attended the last race meeting in his 

 father's park at High Elms; amongst them were 

 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chan- 

 cellor, evidently spirits. Picking holes is rather 

 futile. But two statements, at any rate, catch the 

 eye as perplexing. Sir Gabriel Stokes (i., 85) is 

 made to say that the chance of laying the first 

 Atlantic cable was "only (ir^)20 = '3585, or about 

 2 to I against it " ; obviously this should be 

 (l^)^^, and one wonders who and what was the 

 "Consul D'Etat" (ii., 22,) whom Lubbock went to 

 see in Paris. 



Mr. Hutchinson says reasonably enough that to 

 anyone who did not know Lubbock's " serene, un- 

 ruffled calm " one might easily conceive him as 

 "an animated hurricane." Even to read the life 

 is like travelling in an express train with but a 

 blurred impression of successive landmarks. Only 

 one of his many personalities needs treatment here, 

 and that requires a little more justice than it has 

 always received. 



Lubbock's father was a mathematician of some 

 repute, and treasurer of the Royal Society when 

 the Duke of Sussex was little more than nominal 

 president. His mother notes that at the age of 

 four "His great delight is in insects." He was 

 some four years at Eton, where he was thought 

 "exceedingly inaccurate," but that must be taken 

 in an Etonian sense. "Against the advice of his 

 tutor he read some natural history and geology." 

 At the age of fourteen his father was obliged to 

 make use of him in the bank. " He and I with a 

 w^orthy old clerk carried on the business." Lub- 

 bock thought that "beginning so early gave him 

 an instinct for business," and well it might. At 

 the age of nineteen he made a minute time-table 

 for his day from half-past six to midnight. 

 Science and literature fill the compartments; 9.30 

 to 10 was devoted to "sermons (if I read them 

 any later they invariably send me to sleep)." Such 

 a discipline would have sterilised most men. But 

 his neighbour Darwin gave him a wider training. 



