248 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



22. 

 Babbage. 



wealthiest of nations has shown to scientific genius is 

 to be found in the history of Babbage's calculating 

 engine. Yet this machine was approved by all experts 

 English and foreign during the inventor's lifetime ; 

 and the Eeport of a Commission of the British Asso- 

 ciation appointed specially to examine into the matter, 

 concluded by stating that the scheme was perfectly feas- 

 ible, and might, if carried out, mark an invention as great 

 probably as that of logarithms. 1 Who among us who 

 has been interested in the promotion of institutions for 

 higher education has not a story to tell of pecuniary 

 troubles, continued through many a long year, whilst 

 the wealth of the country seemed to exert its influence 

 only in the direction of making the demands on a strug- 

 gling establishment more formidable, the expenses more 

 difficult to defray ? 2 



1 On Babbage see p. 233, note 1. 

 The history of the " difference en- 

 gines " and the " analytical engine " 

 is given by Babbage himself in his 

 'Passages from the Life of a Phil- 

 osopher.' See also Weld, ' History 

 of the Royal Society,' vol. ii. p. 

 369, &c. 



2 Like the Royal Society, which 

 for a century had to struggle 

 with poverty, the Royal Institu- 

 tion has a story to tell of want 

 of funds through a long period of 

 its early existence. See Bence 

 Jones, ' The Royal Institution,' 

 London, 1871, pp. 202, 281. The 

 Royal Institution was founded by 

 Benjamin Thomson, Count Rum- 

 ford (1753-1814), and had origin- 

 ally not a scientific, hardly even a 

 higher educational object. The 

 scheme arose in the mind of its 

 founder after he had successfully 

 exerted himself at Munich under 

 the patronage of the Elector of 



Bavaria in founding industrial work- 

 houses, improving the state of the 

 army, and putting down beggary 

 and immorality in the capital and 

 country. His principle was to 

 make " vicious and abandoned 

 people first happy and then virtu- 

 ous" (p. 31). After leaving Mun- 

 ich in 1793 and spending two years 

 in Italy, similarly occupied, he 

 visited London in 1795 in order to 

 publish his Essays, which appeared 

 separately between 1796 and 1802. 

 The first essay contained "a pro- 

 posal for forming in London by 

 private subscription an establish- 

 ment for feeding the poor and giv- 

 ing them useful employment, . . . 

 connected with an institution for 

 introducing and bringing forward 

 into general use new inventions 

 and improvements," &c., &c. (p. 

 44). The first outcome of this was 

 the formation of a society for en- 

 couraging industry and promoting 



