374 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT GLASGOW. 



[1855. 



But, as regards both of these great ohjeotS; we must remem- 

 ber that much will depend on the manner in which elementary 

 instruction in science is conducted; on the conception, in fact, 

 which we entertain of what science really is. Nothing can be 

 easier than so to teach science as to feed every mental vice or 

 weakness which obstructs the progress of knowledge, or blinds 

 men to every evidence of new truths, in self-satisfied contem- 

 plation of the few they have already ascertained. May we not 

 illustrate this by the effect which has not seldom been produced 

 by the scientific education of professions ? It is ti-ue, indeed, 

 that professional men have often enlarged the field of science 

 by the discovery of new and important truths. Some of the 

 strongest-armed pioneers of science have been of this class. 

 But how have their discoveries been too often received by their 

 professional brethren ! How many of them have been assailed 

 by every weapon in the extensive armoury of prejudice and 

 bigotry ! How many of them have had their name recognized 

 only after it had been written on the grave ; and over whom 

 we might well repeat the noble lines — 



Now thy brows are cold 



We see thee, what thou art, and know 

 Thy likeness to the wise below. 

 Thy kindred with the great of old ! 



What we want in the teaching of the young is, not so much 

 the mere results, as the methods, and, above all, the history of 

 science. How, and by what steps it has advanced; with what 

 large admixture of error every new truth has been at first sur- 

 rounded ; by what patient watohings and careful reasonings ; 

 by what chance suggestions and happy thoughts; by what 

 docility of mind, and faith in the fulness of Nature's meanings; 

 in short, by what kinds of power and virtue, the great men, 

 aye, and the lesser men of science have each contributed their 

 quota to her progress : this is what we ought to teach, if we 

 desire to see education well conducted to the great ends in 

 view. It is not merely for the sake of investing the abstrac- 

 tions of science with something of a livi g and human interest, 

 that we should recall and revive these passages in her history : 

 nor is it merely to impress her results better on the memory, 

 as we fill up from biographies and other sources of information, 

 the meagre page of the general historian. It is for something 

 more than this. It is both that they may be more encouraged 

 to observe nature, and that they may better understand how to 

 do so with efFeot. It is that they may cultivate that temper of 

 mind to which she most loves to reveal her secrets. And as 

 regards those whose own oi.portunities of observation may be 

 sniall, it is that they may better appreciate the labours of 

 others : and may be enabled to recognize, in the midst, per- 

 haps, of much extravagance, the tokens of real genius, and in 

 the midst of much error the golden sands of truth. 



It is one of the many observations of Sir C. Lyell which have 

 a much wider application than that to which they were speci- 

 ally directed, that the mistake of looking too exclusively to the 

 grand results of geological change, and of referring them too 

 readily to sudden agencies of tremendous activity and power, 

 tended to check the advance of that science, by discouraging 

 habits of watchfulness over those operations which are contem- 

 porary with ourselves, and the secret of whose power is to be 

 found in the lapse of time. An effect precisely analogous is 

 produced on the progress of science as a whole by a similar 

 method of regarding it. And even when the history of that 

 progress is attended to at all, there is a natural disposition to 

 look back to a few great names among the number of its chief 

 promoters, as beings who, by dint only of some unapproachable 

 superiority of intellect, have taught us nil we know. It is 



true, indeed, there have been a few such men ; just as there 

 have been periods of sudden geological operations, which have 

 upheaved at once stupendous and enduring monuments. But 

 even in respect to those great men, it will often be found that 

 at least one great secret of their power has lain in virtues which 

 might be more common than unfortunately they are found to 

 be. That openness and simplicity of mind which is ever ready 

 to entertain a new idea, and not the less willing that it may 

 be suggested by some common and familiar thing, is one of 

 the surest accompaniments of genius. But it is clearly sepa- 

 rable from extraordinary intellectual power, although, where 

 both are found together, the great results produced are too 

 often attributed to the more brilliant faculty alone. Prof. 

 Whewell, in his most interesting "History of the Inductive 

 Sciences,' whilst deprecating the degree of attention which 

 has been paid to the well-known story respecting the origin of 

 Newton's thought on gravitation, has nevertheless stated, with 

 his usual clearness and precision, the essential truth which the 

 traditions of science have done well to cherish. Those who 

 have been competent to judge of the calibre of Newton's mind, 

 of its powers of pure abstract reasoning, have with one voice 

 assigned it the highest place in the records of human intellect. 

 Doubtless, it was those powers which enabled him to provi 

 what otherwise would have remained conjectured. But it is 

 not the less important to observe, that the suggestion on which 

 these powers were called to work was one eminently charac- 

 teristic of a mind where simplicity and greatness were indeed 

 synonymous. That the celestial motions, about which so many 

 wonderful facts were then already known, and which had been 

 referred to so many mysterious and imaginary forces, should 

 be indeed identical in kind with the motions which took place 

 close beside him, and that the same rules should be applicable 

 to each, this was an idea in which, to use Dr. Whewell' s words, 

 "Newton had no forerunner." We do not need to compare 

 the relative importance of those qualities of mind which are 

 indicated in the first conception of such an idea, and of those 

 other qualities which could alone crown it with demonstration 

 and add it to the number of established truths. For the at- 

 tainment, by a single individual, of results so grand and so 

 complete as those which were reached by Newton, each was 

 necessary to the other. But characteristics, which were in 

 him united, have not the less had their separate value when 

 divided in other men ; and it cannot be too often repeated, 

 that habits of wakeful observation on the commonest pheno- 

 mena of nature are often alone enough to yield a rich harvest 

 to the man of science, and to crown his labours with an im- 

 mortal name. This has been a result of contimi.l recurrence 

 in the progress of knowledge. It is the expression and 

 evidence of a truth of equal importance in the moral and the 

 physical world, that the common things which surround us in 

 our daily life, and many of which we do not really see, only 

 because we see them too often and too familiarly, are governed 

 by principles of infiuite interest and value, and whose range of 

 application is wide as the universe oi God. 



And this brings me to say a word on the value of instruction 

 in Physical Science, not merely with a view to its own advance- 

 ment, but as in itself a means of mental training and an 

 instrument for the highest purposes of education. It is in 

 this latter point of view that its claims seem to be least admit- 

 ted or understood. We may bear an exception made in favour 

 of the exact sciences, which involve the application of mathe- 

 matical knowledge, since this has been long recognized as re- 

 cjuiring the highest intellectual exertion ; but with regard to 

 other sciences, how often do we hear them condemned as afford- 



