240 



♦ KNOWLEDGK ♦ 



[June 1, 1886. 



consider the extraordinarily delicate character of the investi- 

 gation. Moreover, Professors Newcomb and Michelson in 

 the course of their most recent series of observations, were 

 enabled to set at rest a curious discussion started in 1880-81 

 by Professors Young and Forbes ; who, employing a modi- 

 fication of Fizeau's toothed-wheeled apparatus, got the fancy 

 into their heads that light of different refrangibilities (or 

 colours) travelled at different rates. Were this true, of 

 course a star like Algol would show marked chromatic 

 phenomena during its increase and decrense, which it 

 notoriously does not. Also a well marked iridescence of 

 the edges of the return image of the slit must be perceptible 

 in the apparatus which we have been endeavouring to 

 describe ; while as a matter of fact, though most carefully 

 looked for, nothing whatever of the kind could ever be 

 perceived. 



SCIENCE AND POLITICS. 



pANY daily papers were indignant with Pro- 

 fessor Huxley for expressing an opinion 

 about the Irish question and politics 

 generally. Other papers in which views 

 akin to those adopted by Huxley have been 

 expressed found his support encouraging, 

 and therefore regai'ded his expression of 

 opinion witli approval. It might be interesting to inquire 

 whether the former really objected to a student of science 

 expressing an opinion at all, or only to the fact that the 

 opinion about the Irish question which this jiarticular 

 student of science had expressed chanced to be adverse to 

 that adopted in their columns. Be this as it may, they 

 definitely Laid down the opinion that a student of science is 

 "oing " outside his depth " in talking about such matters 

 at all. 



Let us consider if there are any valid reasons for thus 

 putting the student of science outside the pale of politics. 



In our country we have in theory democratic government. 

 In practice the theory may be a little diluted. Yet even in 

 practice we find all classes possessing influence, almost every 

 man who has any stake whatever voting, all men free to 

 express their views as loudly as they please. We find our 

 House of Commons composed of men of all orders in the 

 community, except clergymen, who are manifestly not well 

 fitted for political life. If a man who has passed all his life 

 in banking business, or in legal practice, or in manufacture, 

 trade, or commerce, takes it into his head to seek for admis- 

 sion into Parliament, no one proclaims that he is " out of his 

 depth " in talking about political matters, though mere elec- 

 tion to the House of Commons is not an equivalent for 

 political education. But outside Parliament, men whose 

 lives have been passed in pursuits in no way connected with 

 politics are listened to with attention. Is there anything 

 in the study of science which should prevent a man from 

 forming a just opinion on political matters, any more than 

 there is in the study of the money market and City intelli- 

 gence 1 



It may be urged, perhaps, that men of science are very 

 apt to be, or to appear, so engrossed in their own special aud 

 appropriate jiursuits, that they seem to care little about 

 political matters. But it ought to be regarded as at least 

 possible that in this customary silence about matters in 

 regard to which the most ignorant and foolish are always 

 ready to proclaim their contradictory notions, the student of 

 science shows not only more sense, but even that he has 

 studied political matters more closely than the noisy herd 

 who are always talking about them. 



As a mere matter of fact, nothing seems to the student 



of science much more absurd than the careless haste with 

 which the average mind proclaims its views on matters of 

 the profoundest difliculty. It appears to matter nothing to 

 Tom, Dick, and Harry that they know nothing or less than 

 nothing (for wrong ideas are worse than none) about a 

 political question which troubles the country and perplexes 

 the most thoughtful minds and the most carefully trained 

 politicians. Tom is not concerned because Dick differs 

 from him, or because Harry agrees with neither. Nor are 

 any of the three, or the classes they represent, troubled 

 because in former times they expressed quite different views, 

 or because their actual views, the product of a day, are 

 likely to last but for an hour. They are as dogmatic and as 

 positive as if they had absolute certainty, where in reality 

 their ideas have no more stability than the waves of a 

 storm-tossed sea. 



And this applies to the average body in Parliament as 

 well as to the average body in the community. It appears 

 to outsiders as if members of Parliament were devoting so 

 much time and attention to legislative and political matters 

 that they must necessarily be titter to decide about matters 

 aftecting the community and the nation than those who 

 elected them and sent them to work for them (as they 

 suppose). But about the only matters in which the average 

 member of Parliament is more experienced than the average 

 merchant or tradesman are those relating to Parliamentary 

 procedure, and there is nothing in these by which statesman- 

 ship or legislative skill may be fostered. Indeed, it is com- 

 monly noted that those members of Parliament who are 

 sharpest about matters of procedure are the least capable in 

 regard to higher matters. 



Now, the student of science has at least one immense 

 advantage over average men whose avocations are un- 

 scientific. His training requires that he should constantly 

 consider cause and eflect, the action and operation of law. 

 It is here that your average politician, and many, indeed, 

 who are somewhat above the average, are weakest. They 

 are always being led astray by the mistake of confound- 

 ing mere sequence with causal influence, or, in technical 

 terms, they are constantly misled by the post hoc eryo 

 propter hoc fallacy. Nine-tenths of the legislation of the 

 present reign, for instance, has been affected by this fallacy, 

 as its consequences have shown. The very multiplicity of 

 the law-making experiences of our Parliaments attests the 

 blundering capabilities of our legislators ; for nine-tenths of 

 their work is directed to the repairing of previous mistakes. 

 Then, again, there is another most important advantage 

 which the mind trained in scientific pursuits has over 

 minds otherwise exercised. The student of science is con- 

 stantly taught the necessity of cautious and repeated in- 

 quiries into the validity of evidence or of reasoning which 

 to the unscientific mind would appear absolutely and over- 

 whelmingly decisive. We have only to compare the student 

 of science of to-day with his predecessor in past ages to see 

 how wonderfully scientific caution has developed, even 

 while scientific daring has increased in as marvellous degree. 

 In old times men calmly advanced such ex[)lanations as 

 the more obvious evidence seemed to them to suggest, and 

 seem never to have been troubled with a trace of doubt. If 

 rain fell, " the floodgates of heaven " had been " opened " ; 

 if the sun rules the seasons, and the moon measures time, 

 the sun and moon were made— and the stars also — to he 

 for signs and seasons, and for days and years ; if the hare 

 seems to work its lips like a ruminating animal, the hare is 

 immediately classed among creatures which chew the cud ; 

 and so with a hundred seemingly obvious facts which are 

 now known to be perfectly obvious blunders. But now 

 the student of science — who, if ho is wise, no longer calls 

 himself a man of science — questions all that seems most 



