548 



NATURE 



\Oct. 7, 1880 



ledge of these languages acquired is not more than sufficient for 

 purely scientific purposes, every Englishman has, in his native 

 toii'^me, an almost perfect instrument of literary expression ; and, 

 in his own literature, models of every kind of literary excel- 

 lence. If an Englishman cannot get literary culture out of his 

 Bible, his Shakspere, his Milton, neither, in my belief, will the 

 profoundest study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace, 

 give it to him. 



Thus, since the constitution of the College makes sufficient 

 provision for literary as well as for scientific education, and since 

 artistic instruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a 

 fairly complete culture is offered to all who are willing to take 

 advantage of it. 



But I am not sure that at this point the "practical" man, 

 scotched but not slain, may ask ^^■hat all this talk about culture 

 has to do with an Institution, the object of which is defined to be 

 "to promote the prosperity of the manufactures and the industry 

 of the country." He may suggest that what is wanted for this 

 end is not culture, nor even a purely scientific discipline, but 

 simply a knowledge of applied science. 



I often wish that this phi'ase, "applied science," had never 

 been invented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific 

 knowledge of direct practical use, ^^■hich can be studied apart 

 from another sort of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical 

 utility, and which is termed "pure science." But there is no 

 more complete fallacy than this. What people call applied 

 science is nothing but the application of pure science to parti- 

 cular classes of problems. It consists of deductions from those 

 general principles, established by reasoning and observation, 

 which constitute pure science. No one can safely make these 

 deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles ; and he 

 can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the pro- 

 cesses of observation and of reasoning on which they are 

 founded. 



Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manu- 

 factures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. 

 In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand 

 them ; and no one has a chance of really understanding them 

 who has not obtained that mastery of principles and that habit 

 of dealing with facts which is given by long-continued and 

 well-directed purely scientific training in the physical and the 

 chemical laboratory. So that there really is no question as to 

 the necessity of purely scientific discipline, even if the work of 

 tlie College were limited by the narrowest interpretation of its 

 stated aims. 



_ And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that 

 yielded by science alone, it is to be recollected that the improve- 

 ment of manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions 

 which contribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a 

 means and not an end ; and mankind work only to get some- 

 thing which tliey want. What that something is depends partly 

 on their innate, and partly on their acquired, desires. 



If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be 

 spent upon tlie gratification of unworthy desires ; if the in 

 creasing perfection of maimfacturing processes is to be accom- 

 panied by an increasing debasement of those who carry them on, 

 I do not see the good of industry and prosperity. 



Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable 

 depend upon their characters ; and that tlie innate proclivities 

 to which we give that name are not touclied by any amount of 

 instruction. But it does not follow that even mere intellectual 

 education may not, to an indefinite extent, modify the practical 

 manifestation of the characters of men in their actions, by 

 supplying them with motives unknown to the ignorant. A 

 pleasure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort ; but, 

 if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not 

 degrade him to those which do. And this choice is offered to 

 every man, who possesses in literary or artistic culture a never- 

 failing source of pleasures, which are neither withered by age, 

 nor staled by custom, nor embittered in the recollection by the 

 pangs of self-reproach. 



If the Institution opened to day fulfils the intention of its 

 fmnder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the popula- 

 tion of this district will pass through it. No child bom in 

 Birmingham, henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by 

 the opportunities offered to him first in the ])rimary and other 

 schools, and afterwards in the Scientific College, need fail to 

 obtain, not merely the instruction, but the culture most appropriate 

 to the conditions of his life. 



Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan 

 may sojourn together for awhile, and carry through all their lives 

 the stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. 

 Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you that the prosperity 

 of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of 

 manufacturing processes, not merely upon tlie ennobling of the 

 individual character, but ttpon a third condition, namely, a clear 

 understanding of the conditions of social life on the part of both 

 the capitalist and the operative, and their agreement upon common 

 principles of social action. They must leavn that social pheno- 

 mena are as much the expression of natural laws as any others ; 

 that no social arrangements can be permanent unless they har- 

 monise with the requirements of social statics and dynamics ; and 

 that, in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisions 

 execute themselves. 



But this knovi'ledge is only to be obtained by the application 

 of the methods of investigation adopted in physical researches to 

 the investigation of the phenomena of society. Hence, I confess, 

 I should like to see one addition made to the excellent scheme of 

 education propounded for the College, in the shape of provision 

 for the teaching of Sociology. For though we are all agreed that 

 party politics are to have no place in the instruction of the 

 College ; yet in this country, practically governed as it is now by 

 universal sufi!'rage, every man who does his duty must exercise 

 political functions. And if the evils which are inseparable from 

 the good of political liberty are to be checked, if the perpetual 

 oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be 

 replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom ; it will 

 be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with 

 political, as they now deal with scientific questions ; to be as 

 ashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice in the one case 

 as in the other ; and to believe that the machinery of society is 

 at least as delicate as thatiof a spinning-jenny, and not more 

 likely to be improved by the meddling of those who have not 

 taken the trouble to master the principles of its action. 



In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouthpiece 

 of all present in offering to the venerable Founder of the Institu- 

 tion, which now commences its beneficent career, our congratu- 

 lations on the completion of his work ; and in expressing the 

 conviction, that the remotest po-terity will point to it as a 

 crucial instance of the wisdom which natural piety leads all men 

 to ascribe to their ancestors. 



ON A SEPTUM PERMEABLE TO WATER, 

 AND IMPERMEABLE TO AIR, WITH AP- 

 PLICA TION TO A NA VI G A TIONAL DEPTH 

 GAUGED 

 A SMALL quantity of water in a capillary tube, with both 

 -^- ends in air acts as a perfectly air-tight plug against differ- 

 ence of pressure of air at its two ends, equal to the hydrostatic 

 pressure corresponding to the height at which water stands in 

 the same capillary tube when it is held upright, with one end 

 under water and the other in air. And if the same capillary 

 tube be held completely under water, it is perfectly permeable to 

 the water, opposing no resistance except that due to viscidity, 

 and permitting a current of water to flow through it with any 

 difference of pressure at its two ends, however small. In passing 

 it may be remarked that the same capillary tube is, when not 

 plugged by liquid, perfectly permeable to air. 



A plate of glass, or other solid, capable of being perfectly wet 

 by water, with a hole bored through it, acts similarly in letting 

 air pass freely through it when there is no water in the hole ; 

 and letting water pass freely through it when it is held under 

 water ; and resisting a difference of air-pressures at the two 

 sides of it when the hole is plugged by water. The difference 

 of air-pressures on the two sides which it resists is equal to the 

 hydrostatic pressure corresponding to the rise of water in a capil- 

 lary titbe of the same diameter as the narrowest part of the hole. 

 Tims a metal plate with a great many fine perforations, like a 

 very fine rose for a watering-can for flowers, fulfils the condi- 

 tions stated in the title to this communication. So does very 

 fine wire cloth. The finer the holes, the greater is the difference 

 of air-pressures balanced, when they are plugged with water. 

 The shorter the length of each hole the less it resists the passage 

 of water when completely submerged ; and the greater the 

 number of holes, the less is the whole resistance to the permeation 

 of \\ aler through the membrane. 



' Paper read at the Britisli Association by Sir William Thomson. 



