CHAPTER IX.

SCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC TEXT-BOOKS: A COURSE OF READING.

HE study of science must be included in any scheme of self-culture. The student's work cannot be considered complete until he knows something of the laws of the world in which he lives; something of the conditions that govern life; something of the causes of the phenomena which he sees around him. He must know something of the motions of the stars, and of the relations of the earth to the system of which it is a member; something of the formation of the terrestrial crust; of the changes it has undergone; of the agencies that have built up mountains and scooped out valleys and traced the course of rivers ; something, too, must he know of the constitution of the atmosphere, of water, of fire, of the cloud that flecks the blue of heaven, of the mist that wreathes the lofty hill, of the rainbow that throws its coloured arch in one gigantic span across the sky; something must he know of the formation of bud and leaf, of flower and fruit, of the vital juice that circulates in the tall tree's trunk, of the colouring property that resides in the tissue of the plant. There are familiar wonders, if such an expression be permissible, the secrets of which he must understand-the barometer with its rising and falling column, and the electric wire with its swift current of communication. In a word, science enters so largely into our daily life that we cannot affect to regard it as the peculiar domain of so-called philosophers. Moreover, a scientific training sharpens and disciplines the intellect, inculcating a habit of exact thought and close observation, checking a dangerous tendency to form sudden conclusions, and leading the mind from facts to principles. As Mr. Bain remarks, it is the only perfect embodiment of truth, and of the methods of obtaining truth. "More than anything else does it impress the mind with the nature of evidence, with the labour and precautions necessary to prove a thing. It is the grand corrective of the laxness of the natural man in receiving unaccredited facts and conclusions. It exemplifies the devices for establishing a fact, or a law, under every variety of circumstances; it saps the credit of everything that is affirmed without being properly attested." Much of the hasty generali

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SELF-HELP AND SCIENTIFIC STUDY.

sation and loose reasoning floating about in educated society would be swept away like mists before a strong wind if a scientific training were general. Whether that training be in the abstract or in the applicate and mixed sciences, the gain would be conspicuous and permanent, and not less a moral than an intellectual gain.

But science is a wide term, for it means the reign of law, the ascertainment and definition of the laws of the universe; and the student will shrink, perhaps, from a pursuit which seems to involve an almost endless labour. Geology, Botany, Natural History, Chemistry; Acoustics, Optics, Mechanics, Pneumatics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics; Anatomy, Physiology, Therapeutics; how shall he undertake a study which comprises so many branches, and each branch sufficient in itself to occupy the inquirer's most assiduous mental efforts for a lifetime? I reply that it is quite possible for the intelligent student, with proper industry, to master the elements at least of all these branches of science; to gain such a knowledge as will enable him to understand ordinary allusions in books and conversation to scientific effects. For instance, in astronomy, though he will not succeed in mastering its abstract principles and fundamental truths, nor perhaps its technology, he may learn the laws of the celestial motions, and as much as is known or conjectured of the physical constitution of the sun, planets, satellites, comets, nebulæ, and fixed stars, their magnitudes, distances, and periods. In botany, though he may not conquer its elaborate nomenclature and arbitrary methods of arrangement, he may attain to a knowledge of the phenomena of vegetable life and the different parts of a plant. This elementary knowledge will prove not only entertaining but useful to the student, however much it may be ridiculed by specialists, always provided that it does not tempt him to pretend to a learning which he does not really possess. And when he has acquired such a general acquaintance with scientific facts as I have here indicated ("a smattering," the critics will call it), he can then determine, according as his opportunities admit, upon the thorough pursuit of one or more branches which he finds congenial to his tastes or adapted to his means. If he possess some operative and manipulative skill, he can take up chemistry, and "transmute and smelt and crystallise and sublimate," or trace the affinities of elements in his little laboratory, which, nowadays, may be equipped at small cost. Or if conscious of a faculty of observation, he may turn to botany or astronomy, with the comforting assurance that neither science in its study will make an excessive demand upon limited means. If his bias be " constructive" or "mechanical," he can choose from the various branches of the applicate sciences. He can venture upon electricity and its applications, or he may content himself with the geologist's hammer and knapsack. The world of science is all before him; he is free to select his own

The WorkMAN AND HIS TOOLS.

281

path, his own province; and beginning modestly and tentatively, he may press forward and upward until he scales the heights where the joy of victory becomes possible.

It is said that a good workman never quarrels with his tools. What is certain is that a workman in earnest is never at a loss for tools. I have no opinion of the student who cannot undertake the study of chemistry without an array of costly apparatus, or that of astronomy without a forty-foot telescope; who wants to begin where a Faraday and a Herschel left off. With a good textbook, and a few simple and intelligible lessons, such as are now to be had at almost any Literary Institute, a young man, if he have the real stuff in him, will make his way into the heart of any science, supplying himself as he advances with all the necessary instruments. When you have no diamond to cut your glass, you can do it with a bit of twine! That is the principle I want to impress on the reader's mind. Read the Life of Thomas Edward, the Banff naturalist, and you will see with what sort of tools he worked, and worked successfully too! Why, if you want an electrical machinery, an old wine-bottle will serve your turn! It served Faraday's. Scheele, the great Swedish chemist, discovered several new gases with half-a-dozen pigs' bladders and a few old physic-bottles. Ferguson, the astronomer, made his wooden clock with no other tools than a common penknife. Franklin detected the identity of lightning and electricity with a silk handkerchief stretched like a kite across a couple of sticks. Dr. Black discovered latent heat with a pan of water and a couple of thermometers. I am almost ashamed to cite these well-known instances; but they will prove, I hope, an encouragement and a lesson to the reader. For myself, I have always observed that the men with the costliest tools accomplish the least work. At school the boy with the "best editions" and the finest annotations is always the worst scholar. The moral of all which is, that the reader is not to be deterred from the study of science by an assumed want of adequate materials. Benjamin West's first brush was made out of a cat's tail. Friend! you have always a cat's tail at your disposal! I do not pretend to weigh one science with another, and to say "This or that is the better." As long as scientific training enters into the student's self-culture, I care not whether he decide upon mathematics or mechanics. One hint only will I offer, and that I shall offer in the words of Professor Blackie :-" All the natural sciences are particularly valuable, not only as supplying the mind with the most rich, various, and beautiful furniture, but as teaching people that most useful of all arts, how to use their eyes." It is astonishing how much we all go about with our eyes open and yet seeing nothing. This is because the organ of vision, like other organs, requires training; and by lack of training and the slavish dependence on books, becomes dull and slow, and ultimately incapable of exercising its natural functions. Let those

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CLASSIFICATION OF the sciences.

studies, therefore, both in school and college, be regarded as primary that teach young persons to know what they are seeing, and to see what otherwise they would fail to see. Among the most useful are Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, Geology, Chemistry. Various Classifications of the Sciences have obtained adherents these I shall not attempt to indicate. The method now in general acceptance may be stated as follows:-The primary division is into theoretical and practical, the former including each a distinct and well-defined department of Nature, such as Mathematics, Zoology, Physiology, Chemistry; the latter being the application to some particular end or object of facts, laws, and principles borrowed from one or more of the theoretical sciences; as, for example, Navigation, Mineralogy, Medicine, Mining. Again, the theoretical sciences (which are the true sciences) are capable of obvious subdivisions :

(a) Abstract or fundamental, being those which embrace a knowledge of certain actual forces or powers, namely, Biology (Vegetable and Animal Physiology), Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Sociology.

(8) Concrete or applied, being those which apply the aforesaid forces or powers to regions of concrete phenomena, namely, Astronomy (?), Botany, Geography, Geology, Meteorology, Mineralogy, Zoology.

A definite order or sequence of the abstract sciences is acknowledged, proceeding from the simple to the complex, from the independent to the dependent. The simplest and most general attribute of the universe is quantity; the first place is given, therefore, to the science which treats of it, Mathematics, pure and mixed (or abstract and applied-Arithmetic, Algebra, the Calculus, and Geometry). Next comes the science of Physics, including in one branch Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, Astronomy, which all appertain to movement in mass; and, in another, Heat, Light, and Electricity, relating to movement in the molecule; the first branch being termed molar (moles, a mass), and the second Molecular Physics.1

Based upon the physical laws, Chemistry, next in order, proceeds to investigate the composition and decomposition of bodies so far as they occur in definite proportions and effect a change or modification of properties. Mathematical, physical, and chemical laws are engaged in Biology, or the science of life, which deduces and applies what are called vital laws. Two divisions are generally recognised: Vegetable and Animal Physiology in the one; Anthropology, Botany, and Zoology in the other. Leaving the world

1 The series as arranged by Comte stands thus :-Mathematics (Number, Geometry, Mechanics), Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology. Physics he divides into Barology, Thermology, Acoustics, Optics, d Electrology.

herbert spencer's SYSTEM.

283

of matter for the world of mind, we come to Psychology, which treats of feeling, volition, intellect. And this carries us on to the sixth and last of the primary sciences, one of comparatively recent development, Sociology, the object of which is thus explained by its able prophet, Mr. Herbert Spencer:-"Beginning with types of men who form but small and incoherent social aggregates, such a science has to show in what ways the individual qualities, intellectual and emotional, negative further aggregation. It has to explain how slight modifications of individual nature, arising under modified conditions of life, make somewhat larger aggregates possible. It has to trace out, in aggregates of some size, the genuses of the social relations, regulative and operative, into which the members fall. It has to exhibit the stronger and more prolonged social influences which, by further modifying the characters of the units, facilitate further aggregation with consequent further complexity of social structure. Among societies of all orders and sizes, from the smallest and rudest up to the largest and most civilised, it has to ascertain what traits there are in common, determined by the common traits of human beings; what less general traits, distinguishing certain groups of societies, result from traits distinguishing certain races of men; and what peculiarities in each society are traceable to the peculiarities of its members. In every case it has for its subject-matter the growth, development, structure, and functions of the social aggregate, as brought about by the mutual actions of individuals whose natures are partly like those of all men, partly like those of kindred races, partly distinctive."

To the writer just quoted, Mr. Herbert Spencer, is due a lucid and intelligible "Classification of the Sciences "1 into three divisions, according to their comparative "concreteness." The first division he terms Abstract Science, because it discusses the forms of phenomena apart from their embodiments; it includes the forms of space and time, that is, the sciences of Mathematics and Logic. The second is Abstract Concrete Science, or the analysis of the natural phenomena into their separate elements, gravity and heat, that is, Physics and Chemistry, the two being linked together by that law of correlation or conservation of force which has been so well explained by Sir W. R. Grove and Professor Balfour Stewart. Mr. Spencer's third division is Concrete Science, which applies to natural phenomena in their totalities or as united in actual things, and includes Astronomy, Geology, Botany, Psychology, Biology, Sociology, &c.

The applied or practical sciences are too numerous for classification. Every department of human knowledge that can be regulated by scientific laws, every aim and end of human life that can be promoted by the application of scientific principles, is regarded as a science. Hence we have the sciences of Law Criticised by John Stuart Mill in “Westminster Review,”xxvii. 361 et seq.