1854..] 



LECTURE BY JOHN LANGTON ESQ., M.P.P. 



201 



CANADIAN JOUBNAL 



FOR MARCH, 1854. 



The Importance of Scientific S turtles to Practical Men. 



A Lecture delivered before the Members of the Peterboro' Library Associa- 

 tion, by John Langlon, Esq., M.P.P. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — 



I have been most anxious that the Library Association, which we 

 have been forming in this town, should also embrace a Mechanics' 

 Institute ; because, although a collection of books is an essential part 

 of such an institution, a Library alone does not meet all the objects 

 which I am desirous of promoting. A Public Library is designed to 

 develope a taste for reading, and to afford facilities for the cultivation 

 of literature generally, without a special preference for any particular 

 department: a Mechanics' Institute, on the contrary, may in one sense 

 be said to have a more confined object, being chiefly intended to pro- 

 mote the study of the Physical Sciences ; but in other respects it em- 

 braces a larger field, by enabling its members to prosecute those studies, 

 not from books alone, but by the gradual accumulation of a museum of 

 philosophical apparatus, and more especially by means of the delivery of 

 Lectures. This being the end which I have been endeavoring to attain, I 

 have been induced, with some other gentlemen holding similar views 

 to make a co mm encement with a short series of lectures ; and keeping 

 in mind that, which has been my leading object from the first I have 

 selected for the subject of the present discourse, the Importance of 

 Scientific Studies to Practical Men. 



It would be a waste of time, and almost an insult to your under- 

 standings, to enter into a formal defence of the uses and advantages 

 of scientific knowledge. No such pleading can be required in the mid- 

 dle of the nineteenth century, when the last fifty years have witnessed 

 a crowd of brilliant discoveries which have no parallel in history, except 

 in the equally astonishing intellectual activity which distinguished the 

 seventeenth century. But there are even now prejudices up°on the sub- 

 ject, though of a very different kind from those which the first fathers 

 of science had to combat, and which may deserve a word of comment. 

 Within little more than fifty years from the dawn of modern science,' 

 the only true method of studying Nature was fully and firmly estab- 

 lished, and the foundation of most of the sciences was securely laid 

 The actual knowledge gained was mostly that of correct theory, and 

 the opposition came from the learned, who had to forget their old doc- 

 trines and to begin anew. The practical men hardly meddled at all in 

 the disputes, or were on the side of the new discoveries. Now, on the 

 other hand, the characteristic of the age is the practical application of 

 our knowledge to purposes of immediate and obvious utility ; and yet 

 curiously enough, it is from the practical men that the murmurs are 

 chiefly heard. 



One cause of this is, undoubtedly, the difficulty arising from the lan- 

 guage of science, and the long and hard names which abound in scien- 

 tific books. The very appearance of them repels the student, and he 

 is apt to think that, were it not for the pride of learning, they might 

 as well be translated into his native tongue. The difficulty is, however 

 in a great measure unavoidable. Every trade and craft has its own 

 peculiar technical terms, which are equally unintelligible to the bulk 

 of society. A new fact, a new substance, a new system of classification 

 must have its appropriate name. If you bestow upon it one already in 

 use, and employed to designate something else, instead of rendering 

 yourself more intelligible, you only create confusion. Every accession 

 to our knowledge necessarily requires an addition to our vocabulary 

 and as science is for all nations, the new names are generally taken 

 from those ancient languages which we have all equally inherited 

 Carbon, for instance, is taken from the Latin word for charcoal and 

 the chemist uses it as a name for that substance of which with some 

 trifling impurities, charcoal consists. If you translate it, and call it 

 charcoal, it might seem more intelligible, but would really only lead 

 yoii astray; for charcoal is only one of the forms in which we know 

 carbon. It exists m almost equal purity in coke and in black lead 

 (into the composition of which, by the way, not a particle of lead really 

 enters),_and in an absolutely pure state in the diamond. The element 

 carbon is a new idea, and must have a new name. You cannot say 



with truth, that a diamond consists of charcoal or of black lead, but 

 all three consist of carbon. This new nomenclature may be, and is, 

 perhaps, sometimes carried too far, and in such cases, everything that 

 tends to give science an air of unnecessary profundity and obscurity 

 should undoubtedly be- amended. But, after all, the difficulty is not 

 so formidable as it may appear, and at any rate it is a necessary evil ; 

 for you can no more speak of a science without using its language, than 

 I could converse with a millwright about a saw-mill, without talking of 

 "pitmen," "noddle-pins," "cross-heads," and "dogs," or with a sailor, 

 without using such words as "shrouds," "dead-eyes," and "fids." 



A more formidable prejudice is a sort of contempt which practical 

 men sometimes entertain for theory. It is very common to hear a 

 person spoken of as a theorist, in whom you cannot repose the same 

 confidence as in a practical man ; but we should not forget that a true 

 theory is, as it were, only the essence of practice, or the generalization 

 of a number of facts. And we cannot close our eyes to the numerous 

 instances in which the greatest improvements in practice have origi- 

 nated in theory. Let us take an instance. There is, perhaps, no class 

 more slow to yield an old prejudice than a sailor. Now it has been 

 known, theoretically, for more than two centuries, that, to obtain the 

 greatest advantage from the wind, a sail should exactly divide the angle 

 between the direction of the wind and the ship's course; and it cannot 

 do this unless the sail sits perfectly flat. If the sail forms a curve, 

 only a part of it can be in the required position, and all the rest must 

 be doing nearly as much harm as good. This was all known, but it 

 was considered only theory, and sailmakers insisted that experience 

 had shown that sails must be made to belly out, to catch, they said, 

 and hold the wind. For two hundred years, practice would not listen 

 to theory, till only the other day the prejudice was so far overcome, 

 that the'sails of a yacht were made as flat as canvass could be made to 

 lie, and the consequence was, that the America walked away from all 

 her competitors. Old sailors will no doubt still shake their heads, but 

 in the next generation a "bellying" sail will only be a poetical expres- 

 sion. Theory and practice, in truth, mutually assist each other. They 

 are allies, not rivals ; or you may liken them to a general and his. sol- 

 diers. There were, doubtless, many men at Waterloo who could handle 

 their bayonets, and go through their evolutions better than the Duke 

 could have done ; but they could no more have gained the battle of 

 Waterloo without him to direct and combine, than he could have with- 

 stood a charge of the enemy without their collective strength. 



One other objection to scientific studies I will mention, which always 

 has been, and still is too common, especially among practical men. 

 Where there is an obvious and direct application of some scientific 

 truth or inquiry, the importance of the subject is willingly admitted; 

 but where there appears no immediate prospect of turning it to account, 

 the question is too often asked, What is the use of it? The objection 

 is, in fact, more common now than formerly; for we have been so much 

 accustomed of late years to witness the daily improvements in almost 

 all arts and manufactures, that we are apt to undervalue everything 

 that does not at once come up to our standard of utility. It cannot, 

 however, be too thoroughly impressed upon a student, that no know- 

 ledge is without some use. As we say in common life, keep a thing 

 for seven years, and you will find some purpose for it, so in science, a 

 truth once ascertained is an accession to our knowledge, the import- 

 ance of which can never be known till you can view it in connection 

 with all around it. An anecdote is told of a celebrated sculptor whom 

 a friend visited after the lapse of several days, and found still working 

 at a statue that had appeared almost finished before. The friend won- 

 dered what he could have been doing, and the sculptor pointed out that 

 he had scraped a little here and filed a little there, and brought out 

 some feature more prominently in another place. "But these are onlv 

 trifles," saidhis Mend. " True," replied the sculptor; "but such trifle's 

 make the work perfect, and perfection is no trifle." So in science, a 

 fact known is a stone prepared for the temple of knowledge ; it may 

 appear unimportant, and it may be idle for years, but time will assuredly 

 show its proper place in the structure, and it may prove to be the key-> 

 stone of an arch. 



For instance, more than two thousand years ago the Greek n-eome- 

 tricians made a study of that.particular class of curves which, because 

 they may be obtained by cutting a cone across in different directions, 

 are called conic sections. In those days there was an exactly opposite 

 prejudice from that which prevails at present, and it was thought rather 

 derogatory to the dignity of science to be mixed up with every day life. 

 They studied these curves, therefore, merely as an intellectual exercise, 

 and for two thousand years conic sections continued to be taught as one 

 of the acknowledged branches of pure geometry, without any attempt 

 at a practical application. But the acquaintance already gained with 

 the curious properties of these curves enabled Kepler, when the state 



