236 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



heavens have been peopled by them with planets, with 

 satellites, with unheard-of phenomena; they have counted, 

 so to speak, the stars of the Milky Way : if chemistry has 

 assumed a new aspect, the facts which they have furnished 

 have mainly contributed to this change : inflammable air, 

 pure air, phlogisticated air, are due to them ; they have 

 discovered how to decompose water ; new metals in great 

 number are the outcome of their analysis ; the nature of 

 the fixed alkalis has been demonstrated by none but 

 them ; mechanics at their call have worked miracles, and 

 have placed their country above others in nearly every 

 line^ of manufacture." Another foreigner, Professor Moll 

 of Utrecht, remarked in his reply to Mr Babbage's 

 pamphlet x : "If Mr Herschel and some of his friends 



1 The pamphlet was entitled ' On 

 the alleged Decline of Science in 

 England.' By a Foreigner. Lon- 

 don, 1831. It was by Dr Moll of 

 Utrecht, and was introduced by a 

 few lines from Faraday, who, with- 

 out taking any side in the question, 

 remarked that " all must allow that 

 it is an extraordinary circumstance 

 for English character to be at- 

 tacked by natives and defended by 

 foreigners." In the discussion on 

 the subject by this writer, as also 

 by Babbage, Herschel, Playfair, 

 Whewell pro and con. a good 

 many points of importance are 

 brought out : some of them are 

 still interesting, others refer to 

 defects which have since been 

 remedied. I will mention a few 

 of them. Playfair, in the ' Edin- 

 burgh Review ' (vol. xxxi. p. 393, 

 1819), thinks that the "very ex- 

 tensive dissemination of general 

 knowledge, which is so much the 

 case over the whole of this king- 

 dom," is against the advancement 

 of the higher branches of mathe- 



matics. This refers probably to 

 the absence of periodicals devoted 

 to special sciences, such as the 

 ' Annales de Chimie et de Physique,' 

 published by Arago and Gay-Lussac 

 in France. In the absence of these 

 special organs, memoirs of original 

 value, which marked an era in 

 special researches, were scattered 

 in general literary reviews, as 

 Young's on Light and Hieroglyphics 

 in the ' Quarterly,' Herschel's and 

 Airy's in the ' Encyclopaedia Metro- 

 politana ' ; and much good mathe- 

 matics was buried in the ' Ladies' 

 Diary ' among poetry of the " worst 

 taste" and "childish scraps of litera- 

 ture and philosophy " ('Edin. Rev.,' 

 vol. ii. p. 282, 1808). Another 

 point is that ' ' the researches of 

 English men of science have been 

 too much insulated from each other 

 and from what is doing in other 

 countries " (Whewell to Vernon 

 Harcourt, 1831 ; see Life by Tod- 

 hunter, vol. ii. p. 126). The British 

 Association, which was founded very 

 much as a result of this agitation, 



