NATURE 



401 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER i, 1881 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



THE Fifty-first Annual Meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation was opened yesterday under the presidency 

 of Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., at York, the 

 birthplace of the Association fifty years ago (September 

 27, 1831). Almost as easily might we compare the first 

 meetirig of the Accademia del Cimento when Roberval 

 and Mersennus and Torricelli discussed the nature of the 

 vacuum with the last meeting of the Nuovo Cimento, as 

 compare the meeting of the British Association of 1831 

 with that of 1881. Railways, telegraphs, telephones, and 

 electric lighting were unknown ; the doctrines of evolution 

 and the conservation of energy had not been developed ; 

 geology, pateontology, and petrology were in their in- 

 fancy; the modern applications of spectroscopy were 

 scarcely thought of ; the mechanical equivalent of heat 

 had not been determined. Several sciences, which at that 

 time consisted of a mere collection of ill-arranged facts, 

 have since, by the application of logical methods, had 

 conferred upon them an individuality which they never 

 before possessed. Science schools have arisen in all 

 directions ; the State \ early examines some thousands of 

 its subjects; the Universities have created new professor- 

 ships, have vitalised the old ones, and have placed science 

 scholarships on an equality with those which formerly 

 were only given for classics and mathematics. The Uni- 

 versities having opened their doors to the new culture, and 

 it has become a necessary part of elementary education ; 

 while technical schools in all our large centres instruct 

 thousands of artisans in the rudiments of natural know- 

 ledge. Has the British Association kept pace with this 

 prodigious development ? 



What were the ideas of its founders ? William Vernon 

 Harcourt, "the lawgiver and proper founder of the British 

 Association," said at the opening meeting that its objects 

 should be "to give a stronger impulse and more system- 

 atic direction to scientific inquiry, to obtain a greater 

 degree of national attention to the objects of science, and 

 a removal of those disadvantages which impede its pro- 

 gress, and to promote the intercourse of the cultivators 

 of science with one another and with foreign philoso- 

 phers." By its reports, committees, recommendations, 

 and grants, the Association has to some extent suc- 

 ceeded in each of these objects. But Mr. Vernon 

 Harcourt planned the Association on a wider basis 

 than that upon which it rests. " I propose to you," 

 he said, "to found an association, including all the 

 strength of Great Britain, which shall employ a short 

 period of every year in pointing out the lines of direction 

 in which the researches of science should move ; in indi- 

 cating the particulars which most immediately demand 

 investigation ; in stating problems to be solved and data 

 to be fixed ; in assigninjj to every class of mind a definite 

 task; and suggesting to its members that there is here a 

 shore of which the soundings should be more accurately 

 taken, and there a line of coast along which a voyage of 

 discovery should be made." We venture to think that 

 this course of action might be more closely followed with 

 advantage. It is true that a few committees are ap- 

 VOL. XXIV. — No. 618 



pointed to report upon, and sometimes to experiment 

 upon, certain defined objects, but if each section could 

 give a list of the most important questions awaiting 

 answer in its particular science — somewhat in the form 

 of a modernised Inqiiisitio dc Natura Calidi — energy 

 would less often be expended about the mint, the anise, 

 and the cumin, and more often applied to the weightier 

 matters of the sciences. Men would then more frequently 

 forge connections in themighty chain, in place of separate 

 links which sometimes rust away before a place is found 

 for them. 



The earlier presidents delighted to find in the .Associa- 

 tion the development of Bacon's idea of the " New 

 Atlantis." But we venture with great deference to submit 

 that it never has and never can approach the character of 

 that academy of universal science. A nearer approach to 

 it was to be found in the old Gresham College, and may 

 now be met with in any one of the new colleges of 

 sciences. Bacon's idea was to have a vast inclosure con- 

 taining " elaboratories chymicall and phisicall," ana- 

 tomical and metallurgical, observatories of every kind, 

 botanical gardens, museums, and opcratories for every 

 science. Connected with these there was to be a staff of 

 workers and a staff of thinkers ; also a kind of scientific 

 society, or collection of societies, in which the results 

 should be discussed. There arc a thousand workers 

 in the domains of the sciences now where there was one 

 fifty years ago ; discoveries and inventions multiply, and 

 scientific literature is assuming vast proportions ; but at 

 present we are as far from the lofty and majestic ideal of 

 the New Atlantis as we were in 1831. 



But let us not for a moment underrate the valuable 

 work which the .Association has accomplished. Many of 

 the Reports of committees or individuals are classical, 

 and the suggestions which they furnish have led to con- 

 siderable results. Take one example : the establish- 

 ment of magnetic observatories all over the world 

 is mainly due to the action of the Association. " By 

 no sudden impulse or accidental circumstance," said 

 Prof. Phillips in the Birmingham presidential address 

 in 1865, "rose to its high importance that great system 

 of magnetic observations on which for more than a 

 quarter of a century the British Association and the 

 Royal Society, acting in concert, have been intent. First 

 we had reports on the mathematical theory, and experi- 

 mental researches of magnetism by Christie, 1833 ; 

 Whewell, 1835 ; and Sabine, 1835. Afterwards a mag- 

 netic survey of the British Islands ; then the establish- 

 ment of a complete observatory at Dublin, with newly 

 arranged instruments, by Dr. Lloyd in 1S38. On all this 

 gathered experience we founded a memorial to Her 

 Majesty's Government, made a grant of 400/. from our 

 funds for preliminary expenses, and presented to the 

 meeting of this Association in Birmingham in 1839 a 

 report of progress signed by Herschel and Lloyd. From 

 that time how great the labour, how inestimable the 

 fruits ! Ross sails to the magnetic pole of the south ; 

 America and Russia co-operate with our observers at 

 Kew, Toronto, and St. Helena ; and General Sabine, by 

 combining all this united labour, has the happiness of 

 seeing results established of which no man dreamed — 

 laws of harmonious variation affecting the magnetic 

 elements of the globe, indefinite relation to the earth's 



