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NINETY YEARS OF SCIENCE. 
Most opportunely, the Secretary of the British Association, Mr. O. J. 
R. Howarth, has just prepared a ‘ Retrospect, 1831 — 1921/ which has 
been published by the Association at 7s. 6d. There are over 300 pages, 
in which a fascinating narrative of the Association is given. There are 
several illustrations of the more important scientists who have con- 
tributed to the success of that body. These include : — Sir David Brewster, 
Rev. William Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S., Professor John Phillips, Sir 
Roderick I. Murchison, Bart., Rt. Hon. Professor T. H. Huxley, Professor 
John Tyndall, Rev. Professor Adam Sedgwick, Rev. Professor William 
Whewell, Rt. Hon. Lord Kelvin, Sir William Crookes, and Rt. Hon. 
Lord Rayleigh. 
The British Association for the Advancement of Science was founded 
in 1831. The circumstances of its foundation may briefly be correlated 
with the history of the time. In 1814 the Peninsular War was brought 
to a successful issue. Napoleon abdicated, to return in the following 
year to momentary power, which was finally brought low at Waterloo. 
The war, in England, had been (as in the present generation) the pre- 
occupation of every man ; its aftermath, too, exhibits certain obvious 
parallels with the circumstances of the present day. The period of 
reconstruction was (as it needs must be) protracted, and in England, 
in certain respects at least, more so than elsewhere. The industrial 
revolution had brought with it an independent class sentiment among 
the industrial population on the one hand, and the agricultural and 
landowning classes on the other ; the evils associated with the con- 
centration of large industrial communities were intensified by the 
financial burden and inflation of prices consequent upon the war, and 
superposed on all this was the existence of an unrepresentative parlia- 
mentary system. Already before 1814 the 4 Luddite ” bands of workless 
artisans had attacked factories equipped with labour saving machinery, 
which was regarded as the immediate cause of unemployment, and from 
such incidents alone (apart from other conditions) it may reasonably 
be assumed that neither labour on the one hand nor the Government 
on the other, would be favourably disposed towards the advancement 
of applied science. The prevalent distress germinated in 1819 into the 
cry for parliamentary reform, but thirteen years of struggle passed before 
the Reform Bill became law (1832). 
Class patriotism, then, had succeeded common patriotism — the 
succession was inevitable in these years, no less than a century later— 
and the representatives of science were no doubt inspired (or infected) 
by it. In certain directions, as we have said, reconstruction in England 
lagged behind that in other countries : the advancement of science 
supplied an instance. From about 1826 onward this state of affairs 
began to find loud expression through many eminent scientific men of 
the time. John Herschel and Playfair were among the first to speak 
out ; Sir Humphrey Davy began a book upon the subj ect, but died (1826) 
before completing it. Charles Babbage, however, while Lucasian 
Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, published (1830) his Reflections 
on the Decline of Science in England, and this work was dealt with in the 
Quarterly Review by Sir David Brewster, whose article is not only a 
review of Babbage’s book, but of the whole position of science in this 
country as compared with others. 
Brewster was a man capable of strong sympathies, and (on required 
occasions) an ardent champion ; and the common literary style of the 
period was certainly not a medium for understatement. 4 The return 
of the sword to its scabbard,’ he wrote, 4 seems to have been the signal 
for one universal effort to recruit exhausted resources, to revive industry 
and civilisation, and to direct to their proper objects the genius and 
talent which war had either exhausted in its service or repressed in its 
desolations. In this rivalry of skill, England has alone hesitated to 
1922 Aug.-Sept. 
