NATURE 



141 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1917. 



.1 RETROSPECT OF MODERN BRITISH 



SCIENCE. 

 The Cambridge History of English Literature. 



Edited by Sir A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller. 



\'ol. xiv., The Nineteenth Century. Pp. xii + 



(358. (Cambridg"e : At the University Press, 



1916.) Price 95. net. 



THIS the concluding- volume of the great 

 history of Eng-lish literature produced by 

 the Cambridge University Press, on the "collec- 

 tive responsibility " of the Master of Peterhouse 

 and Mr. A. R. W^aller, of the same college, con- 

 tains a chapter of nearly fifty pages devoted to 

 the literature of science in the eighteenth and 

 nineteenth centuries. For this chapter, science is 

 scheduled in three bibliographies grouped under 

 [physics and mathematics, chemistry, and biology 

 ^respectively. The chapter is accordingly given in 

 sections with those headings. Mr. Rouse Ball con- 

 [tributes the section on physics and mathematics, 

 Mr. Pattison Muir that on chemistry, and Dr. 

 jShipley, Master of Christ's, that on biology. 



The sections on physics and mathernatics and on 

 [chemistry are disappointing, for different reasons 

 in the two cases. The development of physical 

 nence in the nineteenth century, as it appears in 

 :ientific literature, is a most attractive subject 

 an essay. It began with the law of conserva- 

 ^n of matter and the atomic theory ; it found the 

 of conservation of energy in its middle course ; 

 in the end offered us unlimited possibilities for 

 »ew views of the physical universe in the story 

 lat radiation was made to tell, in its many forms, 

 le new, some old. We are carried on to new 

 ias of the constitution of matter and the exploita- 

 pon of the energy of atoms. Mr. Ball does not 

 low us the reflection of this moving picture in 

 English literature of the century. After lead- 

 up to Whewell and the British Association, he 

 ^es us silhouettes of Faraday, de Morgan, Boole, 

 towan Hamilton, Sylvester, Adams, Cayley, 

 tenry Smith, Green, Stokes, Kelvin, and Max- 

 11, with passing shadows of a few other names. 

 lo one would suppose from reading the chapter 

 It the great principle of the conservation of 

 lergy was a subject of lively discussion almost 

 rithin the author's personal experience. 

 Nor among the achievements in physics of the 

 nineteenth century is any place found for solar and 

 stellar physics. Whewell would have taken a 

 wider view of physics because it is still an induc- 

 tive science. Mr. Ball's mental process is plain 

 enough. " Faradav was recognised as an excep- 

 tional genius, and time has strengthened the recog- 

 nition of his claim to distinction ; but, in general, 

 theoretical physics had, by now% become so closely 

 connected with mathematics that it seemed hardly 

 possible for anyone without mathematical know- 

 ledge to make further advances in its problems." 

 It is a very limited science that can live on the 

 *' advancement of its problems." Physics had a 

 very different kind of career in the nineteenth 

 NO. 2504, VOL. 100] 



century. The new problems added by experiment 

 are quite as impressive as the advancement of the 

 old. For some reason not given, " with observa- 

 tional and practical astronomy we are not here 

 concerned," and with astronomy go the other 

 observational branches of physical science. So the 

 name of Sabine does not appear, and Huggins is 

 only accessible to the reader by a reference to 

 Miss A. M. Clerke's books. 



One other of Mr. Ball's sentences must be 

 quoted. " Faraday had been brought up in 

 humble circumstances, and his career is interest- 

 ing as an illustration of the fact that, in England, 

 no door is closed to genius." Surely that is a 

 misreading of history. What one gathers from 

 Faraday's career is that in all England there was 

 just one door open to his genius, and he knocked 

 at the right one. If he had knocked at the Cam- 

 bridge door instead, or at any other door, he would 

 have found thirty-nine articles, at least, in his 

 way. Instead of sunny complacence at the per- 

 fection of our arrangements, the circumstance, 

 seems to suggest a shudder at a very narrow 

 escape. No doubt Adams, Stokes, and Cayley 

 would have gone on the even tenor of their way 

 in any case, but the literature of science might 

 have been quite diff^erent if Faraday had missed 

 the unique opportunity afforded to him by Davy 

 at the Royal Institution. How many Faradays have 

 remained mute and inglorious because doors were 

 closed does not appear in the literature of science. 



The literature of chemistry is also disappointing, 

 but for another reason ; there are great names in 

 the story which is skilfully woven by Mr. Pattison 

 Muir, but how few ! Priestley, Black, Dalton, 

 Cavendish, Davy, Faraday, Alexander William- 

 son, Frankland, Graham. We can add Roscoe, 

 Perkin, and Ramsay, who have passed away more 

 recently. During a hundred and fifty years we 

 seem always to have been able to produce a 

 chemist of the highest distinction, but always in 

 comparative isolation. 



Dr. Shipley's contribution, in a style which is 

 embroidered with gentle gossip, carries us 

 through the botany of the eighteenth century, the 

 establishment of public museums, of scientific 

 societies, including the British Association, and 

 of scientific journals, to the period of scientific ex- 

 ploration which gave Sir Joseph Banks his oppor- 

 tunity and culminated in the Challenger expedi- 

 tion, before he settles down to the biological 

 literature of the nineteenth century. A rapid 

 survey of the work of the leading geologists and 

 zoologists, with a well-merited note on the con- 

 tribution of Sir F. D. Godman, erroneously 

 printed as Goodman, and Osbert Salvin, leads up 

 to the doctrine of evolution, the origin of species, 

 and the work of Darwin and Wallace and Huxley. 

 The more recent developments are only lightly 

 touched upon. 



But there is much more in the volume that will 

 interest men of science than the single chapter 

 which is specifically devoted to the literature of 

 science. The whole volume is full of interest. In 

 Prof. Sorley's chapter on philosophers and in one 



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