The extreme ignorance in this country of the value of scientific research, is also largely due to the narrowness of the "practical" character of the English mind; men cannot perceive the deep-seated and universal sources of their wealth, and they prefer those occupations which yield the most obviously remunerative results. It is also partly due to scientific investigators themselves not having pleaded their own cause; such men have been so absorbed in the more important occupation of discovery, that they have, probably more than any other class of persons, neglected to enforce the just claims of their own subject. It is, however, chiefly caused by the influence of misapplied wealth, operating through the old Universities and large public schools. The sons of the wealthy are most of them educated at those institutions, and according to evidence supplied by University authorities to Royal Commissioners, many persons send their sons to those places for other purposes than to acquire learning, and allow them too much money. The considerable wealth ofthese young men supplies them with attractions which decoy them from industrious study, and the wishes of the parents and students have been largely acquiesced in by the tutors and college authorities. At our old Universities also, physical and chemical knowledge is very much less rewarded than some other subjects, though latterly a considerable improvement has been made in this respect, but even now there is not a University in the kingdom in which a knowledge in scientific research is necessary in order to obtain the highest scientific honour.[8]In these various ways physical and chemical science has been kept very low in our chief seats of learning; and scientific research is greatly neglected by the governing authorities.
It is reasonable to suppose that Universities should be fountains of new theoretical scientific knowledge, as well as be the disseminators of it, and that they (especially the old ones with their rich endowments) would be certain to promote scientific research, as being especially a part of their functions; but such is not the case. Our old Universities have not established any professorships of original research; they make no payment for such labour, nor reimburse any expenditure incurred in such occupation, and afford but little facility for the prosecution of pure scientific inquiry. Further, they discourage scientific discovery by giving the greatest emoluments, and thehighest honours in science they have to bestow, to young men who have never made a single original research, or discovered a new fact in science. The money paid in the form of comparatively sinecure fellowships, or retiring pensions to young men in Oxford alone, "now amounts to about eighty or ninety thousand pounds a year." It may be objected that young men are not capable of doing original research, but as they do it in German Universities, they can also do it in England, if they are properly disciplined, and are not decoyed from industry by the possession or expectation of wealth. A man who has never made a scientific research is not the most worthy recipient of the highest scientific honours, and in Germany it would not be given to him; he is not properly disciplined in the detection of error or the discernment of truth in matters of science; he is deficient in accuracy of scientific judgment, and in the true spirit of scientific inquiry.
It is unnecessary to speak of what has been done during the last few years at our old Universities and great public schools, in the erection of laboratories, and in other ways for the promotion of science, because it has been for the purposes of instruction, and not of original research. No amount of ordinary instruction in science will remedy the evils caused by want of original inquiry, because such instruction does not produce new knowledge, but only disseminates that already possessed.
Many persons in this country think that all scientific men are investigators, and that a portion of the funds of scientific institutions generally are expended upon investigation, but such is rarely the case. Many also consider that those scientific men who are applying new knowledge are discovering new truths. And nearly all persons look upon inventors as the only really practical scientific men, and upon discoverers as unpractical enthusiasts who spend their lives in pursuit of vague theories. But whilst the inventor is a great and useful agent of civilization, there is one behind him who is greater than he, viz., the man who provides him with the new knowledge upon which all his inventions must be based.
The general aspect in which scientific research is viewed by many persons in this country, is that of a refined intellectual pursuit, which may be encouraged and honoured for the purpose of maintaining the tone of society. The question, however, is not whether this nation shall encourage research as a refined intellectual occupation, but whether it will contribute towards its own welfare by aiding scientific discovery.
Many persons also look upon scientific research as a hobby or as unpractical, and upon discoverers as mere accumulators of knowledge, but this is simply in consequence of their ignorance of the subject; if discoveries were commercial commodities, the practical character of research would be within theircomprehension. A man who discovers knowledge for the use of invention is quite as practical a person as he who converts that knowledge into inventions fit for practical uses. The men who thus lead practical men must be practical themselves. Scientific discoverers may be considered the most practical men in existence, because their labours give rise to greater and more numerous practical results than those of any other persons. The discovery of a single substance, such as oil-of-vitriol, or washing-soda, has led to the formation of many valuable inventions, patented or otherwise, and to the establishment of thousands of manufactories. It is well known also that scientific discoverers are ardent lovers of truth, and are therefore very willing to communicate their knowledge for the good of mankind, and that manufacturers, men of business, and others, not unfrequently obtain from them and from their published researches, information of great value to themselves without even expecting to pay for it; forgetting that a scientific man may communicate in a passing remark, information which cost him years of labour to obtain.
Some persons also think that science is changeable and uncertain—that the discoveries of one generation are disproved by those of another, because they occasionally see scientific theories altered and superseded. But the real truth of the case is that the changes in the aspect of science which we continually witness do not often result fromalterationsin ourstock of positive knowledge, but fromadditionsmade to it. Demonstrable truth is imperishable. It is true that many theories have been invented and entertained for a while in the minds of scientific men, and have then passed away, but we must remember that these are only the scaffolding of science, and no part of its real fabric. They consist of ideas which, whilst they assist us in understanding science, and in making discoveries, form no real part of our positive knowledge.
Other persons seem to think that the laws of matter are different in the laboratory from what they are in the workshop; that the principles which regulate a scientific experiment are different from those which govern a large manufacturing process; but this is a wrong idea. The laws of matter are universal, substances have nearly the same properties in all places and in the hands of all men; water boils at the same temperature whether in the retort of a chemist, the saucepan of a kitchenmaid, or the pan of a soap-boiler; iron wire is as readily deprived of its rust in a chemist's acid bottle as in a wire-drawer's pickling tub; a piece of phosphorus will as readily ignite in the hands of a chemist as in those of a match maker; a galvanic battery yields the same quantity of electricity whether it be in the hands of an experimentalist or in those of a working electro-plater.
It is true that many things which have appeared very promising in theory or in experiment, havefailed altogether in practice, but why is this? it is not that the principles of nature operated in the one case and did not operate in the other, but that we have imperfectly understood them, that from some unforeseen circumstances we have been unable to apply them; or that we have indolently abandoned them without sufficient or proper trial. In many cases we are unable to obtain the same conditions of success upon the large scale that we have upon the small one. In other cases a process fails because of its too great expense; many attempts have been made to supersede steam as a motive power by means of electro-magnetism, and engines driven by that force have been constructed of five or ten horse-power, but the cost of driving them has been found to be at least ten times the amount of that of the steam-engine of equal strength. And in other cases we fail because we attemptat onceto carry out upon a large scale that which has only been the subject of limited experiment, instead of enlarging the process by small degrees, and adapting the apparatus, the materials and the treatment, to the size of the operation.
That also which appears very simple in the hands of an experimentalist, almost invariably becomes much more complex when carried into practice in a manufactory, simply because there is then a greater number of conditions to be fulfilled. Electro-plating a piece of steel with silver is to a chemist a very simple matter, because it is of no importance to himwhether the silver adheres firmly, is of good colour, or is deposited at a certain cost; but with amanufacturerunlessallthese conditions are fulfilled, the process is a failure. These matters, however, belong to invention and not to original discovery.
We should not condemn theoretical science because we are not able, even with fair and persevering trial, to apply it to any useful purpose, but wait patiently until circumstances ripen for its application. Many inventions which are inapplicable in one state of knowledge become applicable by the progress of scientific research. The idea of an electric telegraph, attempted by Mr. Ronalds, in the year 1816, with the aid of frictional electricity, had to wait the development of the galvanic battery and the discovery of electro-magnetism before it could be successfully applied.
Many manufacturers seem to think that because some of their operations are completely routine, and have been handed down to them by their predecessors in nearly their present state, they are not at all indebted to science; but there is no manufacture, especially among metals, which has not in some degree been aided by scientific discovery.
In addition to the great benefits accruing from original research to all classes of society, our Governments have also derived immense advantages from the same source. The revenues have been greatly increased by the universal advantages conferred upon all kinds of industry and commerce byscientific knowledge. The additional taxes upon increased incomes from agriculture, arts, manufactures, mines; increased value of land and rents; investments in railway, telegraph, steam-ship and other companies, have been extremely great. From the sale of patents alone, a surplus sum of nearly six hundred thousand pounds has already accumulated. Our Governments are also indebted to original research for the use of percussion-powder, gun-cotton, improvements in cannon, projectiles, rifles, armour-plated ships, the ocean telegraph, field telegraph, the telephone, rapid postal communication, the speedy transport of troops and war-material, and a multitude of other advantages. The value of science to Governments in the prevention of war by means of more ready correspondence through telegraph is incalculable. Mr. Sumner, of America, at the period when the Atlantic telegraph was first employed, stated that the use of that telegraph averted a probable rupture between Great Britain and America. There was a period when we did not possess such evidence of the great value of science; but that time has now passed away, and our governing men have had abundant proof of the national importance of scientific discovery, and of the essential dependence of the welfare of this country upon scientific research.
Whilst vast sums of money are spent upon the applications of science in military and naval affairs, research itself is neglected; the superstructure isattended to, but the foundations are left to decay. A very small proportion of the money which is expended upon military affairs would, if devoted to research, save a great deal of expense in warfare:—
"Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,—Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,Given to redeem the human mind from error,There were no need of arsenals nor forts."—Longfellow.
"Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,—Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,Given to redeem the human mind from error,There were no need of arsenals nor forts."—Longfellow.
"Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,—
Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts."—Longfellow.
Our Government has as yet made but little payment for the labour of pure research in experimental physics or chemistry; it has, however, given four thousand pounds a year for five years to be distributed by the Royal Society among scientific investigators, partly as personal payment. Income tax is deducted from these grants.
Want of recognition of the value of science has been so general in this country, that it is quite pleasing to quote a somewhat different case from theIllustrated London News, January 4th, 1873, viz., that of the late Archibald Smith, L.L.D., F.R.S. That gentleman was an investigator in pure mathematical science, and devoted the latter part of his life to theapplicationof mathematics in the computation, reduction, and discussion of the deviation of the mariners' compass in wooden and in iron ships, and made practical deductions therefrom in the construction of those vessels. He published those practical applications of his scientific knowledge in the form of an Admiralty Manual, which was afterwards reprinted in various languages. Her Majesty's Governmentsubsequently "requested his acceptance of a gift of two thousand pounds, not as a reward, but as a mark of appreciation of the value of his researches, and of the influence they were exercising on the maritime interests of England and the world at large." The kind of labour rewarded in this case was not scientific discovery, but the practical application of previously existing scientific knowledge.
The case of the late Dr. Stenhouse, F.R.S., is one of rather an opposite kind. That gentleman devoted his life throughout to pure investigations in organic chemistry, and published several of his researches in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[9]His discoveries are very numerous, and although not much applied to practical uses by himself, the result of his researches on Lichens, and the yellow gum of Botany Bay, have been applied extensively by other persons in the manufacture of "French purple" and picric acid, and will doubtless continue to be applied to valuable uses. He held the Government appointment of Assayer to the Royal Mint, London, an office for several years unprofitable to him, but of increasing remunerative value, and which would have been subsequently worth £1,200 a year; but after the decease of his colleague, Dr. Miller, in 1870, that office, which was then worth to him about £600 a year, was abolished by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he lost theappointment, receiving, however, £500 as compensation. An application was therefore made to the Government, and a partial recompense to him was obtained, by Her Majesty granting him one hundred pounds a year "for eminence in chemical attainments, and on account of loss by suppression of office in the Mint." The only difference in these two instances, was, that in the second there was a very much greater amount of pure research and discovery, and a much smaller degree of applied knowledge.
These instances illustrate the statement, that however great an amount of valuable knowledge in pure science a man may discover and publish, or however freely he may provide others with the materials of invention and wealth, if he never invents anything, nor applies his knowledge to useful purposes, he is usually less rewarded even than an inventor. "The more intrinsically valuable the labour, and the greater the degree of profound original thought required to direct it, the less is it usually appreciated by the governing men of a nation." Absorbed in exciting questions relating to political emergencies, and national matters requiring immediate attention, even men of great administrative ability fail to appreciate the less direct though more fundamental sources of a nation's happiness and wealth. In harmony with these instances also, we find that it is not the pure sciences, but the concrete and applied ones, such as meteorology, geology, natural history, &c., in the Meteorological Department, theGeological Survey, the British and South Kensington Museums, the Geological Museum, &c., and the National Gallery of Art, which have received the greatest degree of support from our Governments.
That discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members of the community is quite clear; either a physician, a judge, divine, lawyer, or railway superintendent of high ability, obtain from one to many thousand pounds a year, but a discoverer in pure physics or chemistry is, in scarcely any case, paid anything for his labour. That most eminent discoverer, Faraday, received for his scientific lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, only £200 a year and apartments, during many years, and absolutely nothing for his great discoveries; and during the remainder of his life he only received a few hundred pounds per annum, including a pension of £300 pounds a year from Government. In contrast with this, the general manager of the Midland Railway has £4,000 a year. A General of our army receives £2,000, and a Field Marshal £4,000 a year (See "Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 121 and 138). A Head Master of either of the great public schools obtains from £3,000 a year upwards. An Archbishop of Canterbury receives £15,000 a year, besides a great amount of influence and power in the form of patronage to 183 livings, a palatial residence, and a seat in the House of Peers. A Bishop of London has £10,000, the patronage of 98 livings, and a seat in the House of Lords. I do not,however, mean to imply that these large emoluments are not deserved. Whilst also there are nearly 13,000 church benefices in England (See the "Clergy List," also "Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 153 and 155, and "Walford's County Families," 1872, pp. 173 and 610), there is scarcely a single appointment entirely devoted to scientific discovery, nor a single professorship in original research in science. I leave my readers to judge to what extent these instances illustrate the statement that discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members of the community. Partly in consequence of the foregoing neglect, the proportion of persons wholly devoted to scientific research in this country probably does not much exceed one in one million of the population.
It is scarcely credible that in a wealthy and civilized country, whilst the non-productive classes are protected in the enjoyment of titles and material wealth which in many cases they have not earned, the greatest scientific benefactors of the nation are constrained to live in straitened circumstances whilst working for the pecuniary and other advantages of those classes, and of manufacturers, capitalists, land-owners, and the nation in general. By these remarks it is not intended to imply that discoverers are intentionally neglected; but that the injustice they suffer is a disgrace to this country, and reflects discredit upon the governing classes, and especially upon those who reap the greatest advantage.
The men who are rewarded highly in this country are not always those who yield the greatest service to the nation, but frequently those who render the most immediate or most apparent benefit; to stop short at this cannot produce the greatest degree of success. The national services of a great discoverer are probably not equalled by those of any man. Who can estimate the value of the commercial, social, moral, political, and other great advantages to the world, of Oersted's discovery of the principle of electro-magnetism, which enabled the invention of the electric telegraph to be made? The men we reward the highest are not those who discover knowledge, but those who use or apply it; physicians, judges, bishops, lawyers, railway managers, military and naval officers, and head masters of schools, all of them gentlemen who render great services to the nation, by using, diffusing, and applying knowledge already possessed.
It requires less rare ability to apply knowledge to new purposes by means of invention, than to discover it; it is still less difficult to diffuse it by means of tuition and lectures, because the labours of a teacher consist largely of a repitition of other men's discoveries and inventions; and to use scientific knowledge in the ordinary business of every-day life, requires a still more common degree of ability.
A chief reason why ordinary business capacity is paid for whilst original research is not, is the fact that research is not considered a necessity; manypersons do not perceive its immense future value. Men perform those duties first which they feel they must: they are also willing to pay for the performance of those duties which press most urgently upon them, and defer all other kinds of labour that they consider will bear postponement. Most men act upon this rule, until they acquire a habit of sacrificing the future to the present, of neglecting more important matters in order to attend to less, and of living too much for money, without sufficient regard for the more valuable condition, viz., individual and national improvement. These circumstances also largely explain the fact that it requires more pressure to induce individuals or governing bodies to aid original research than to assist any other good object. Other chief reasons why persons in general cannot perceive the great practical value of new scientific truth are, because the perception of it requires a scientifically trained mind. The greatest truths are frequently the least obvious, and are therefore valued the least.
It may be objected that research is not aided, because it sometimes takes a long time to acquire a practical shape and make it pay. We do not omit to plant an acorn because it requires many years to become an oak; we do not neglect to rear a child because he may not live to become a man; but we leave scientific discovery to take care of itself. The intense desire which exists in this country for "quick returns" has shewn itself in the much greater readiness to aid technical education than to promotepermanent progress by means of original research. But the discoveries made in such a place as the Royal Institution of Great Britain have had a vastly greater beneficial effect upon civilization than that of any technical institution which has ever existed.
In a letter received by me from the Duke of Somerset, and which I have permission to publish, the true state of things in this country in relation to pure research is stated with remarkable accuracy and brevity:—
"The hindrances to scientific studies in this country are very many. The gentry are almost invariably educated by the clergy, and the clergy have seldom had time or opportunities for any scientific study. They usually take pupils or become tutors as soon as they have taken their degrees, and can only teach the Latin and Greek which they have themselves learned. The commercial classes value what they call practical science; this means some application of science for the purpose of making money. Competitive examinations may promote a superficial acquaintance with the elements of science, but are unfavourable to the development of scientific culture. The scientific associations tend to degrade science by exhibiting scientific men as candidates for applause from assemblies which seek amusement and startling results from lectures and experiments. The advancement of science, is therefore, left to comparatively few men, who are unregarded and unrewarded."
To remedy this state of things we require a general encouragement of pure scientific inquiry by the State and Universities. It is thought by some persons who have given special attention to the subject, that the State ought to encourage such research and science in general, by appointing a Minister of Science possessing scientific knowledge and good administrative ability; a Scientific Council to advise our Governments in all important matters relating to science; and by establishing State laboratories for pure scientific inquiry, with discoverers of repute in them wholly engaged in research in their respective subjects.
There are also many new experiments, investigations, and explorations, which neither private individuals, nor even corporate bodies, such as the Royal Society, the British Association, Geographical Society, can effectually make, and which only a Government can carry out, such as Arctic expeditions, trigonometrical surveys, deep sea dredging operations, magnetic observations, determinations of longitude, meteorological and astronomical observations, researches on tides, observations of earthquakes, determinations of the height of mountains and the density of the crust of the earth, experiments on the best form of ships, geographical explorations, and many others.
It is clear from the enormous advantages which this nation has already derived from scientific discovery in physics and chemistry, pursued with onlythe aid of the very limited means of private persons, that had research in those subjects been sufficiently supported, the manufactures, arts, commerce, wealth, and civilization of this country would have been much greater than they are; emigration also of the industrious classes, disease, pauperism, crime, the evil effects of famine, etc., would have been much less. The amount of knowledge and riches obtainable by means of research and invention is practically unlimited, and it is astonishing that this immense source of industry and wealth in a nation should have been so neglected by our Governments. The practical value of new scientific knowledge is vastly greater than that of all our goldfields or even of our coal supply, because it would not only enable us to obtain from coal several times the amount of available heat and mechanical power we now secure, but also to apply to our wants the numerous other materials composing the crust of our globe and the contents of our oceans; also allterrestrialforces, the internal heat, the tidal energy and atmospheric currents, and the immense amount of power this Earth is continually receiving from the Sun. Whilst at present vast amounts of materials and energy remain unutilized, nearly all those terrestrial substances and forces might probably be rendered of service to us if we possessed sufficient knowledge.
That scientific research is a far greater source of wealth and wellbeing than our stores of coal is easily proved. At present we obtain in our beststeam-engines only about one-seventh (or less) of the mechanical power producible by the combustion of the coal, the remainder being lost in various ways. And this occurs simply because we have not yet discovered a method of wholly converting heat into mechanical power. In some other instances we are able to convert one force wholly into another without loss, as for example: the chemical action of a voltaic cell into electricity; and by means of research we shall probably be enabled to effect a similar complete conversion of other powers into each other. The effect of converting heat wholly into mechanical power would be equal to increasing our stock of coals for that purpose to seven times its present amount. This instance is only one of the many thousand possible ways in which research may yet prove of value to mankind.
It is true that a very large amount of original research in physics and chemistry has been done in this country; the contents of our scientific journals and of the publications of our various Learned Societies prove this. It is also true that the English nation has been pre-eminently active in applying scientific knowledge to practical uses by means of inventions, and has been generally the first in carrying out inventions on a large scale. We have been either the first, or nearly so, in developing steam-engines, railways, locomotives, rapid trains, gas works, flour mills, blast-furnaces, cotton machinery, cheap postage, light-houses, electro-plating, lucifer-matches,electric-telegraphs, submarine electric cables, great engineering establishments, iron ship-building, and many other important enterprises. Three out of four of all the great ocean steamers, and three-fourths of all the locomotives of the world were constructed in this country.[10]By means of our enterprise and capital also, the first railways, telegraphs, gas works, cotton mills, modern water works, suspension bridges, water wheels, harbours, lighthouses, &c., &c., in nearly all parts of the world were constructed; and foreign nations have been inducted into the practical methods of working our great manufacturing and technical applications of science.
By means of English enterprise and skill the cities of Aix-la-Chapelle, Altona, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfort-on-Maine, Ghent, Haarlem, Hanover, Lille, Rotterdam, Stolberg, Toulouse, Vienna, and others were lighted with gas. We formed Water Companies or Waterworks in Amsterdam, Berlin, and other cities, and drained Naples. We utilized the falls of the Rhone at Bellegarde, and thus obtained 10,000 horse-power for the use of the French manufacturers. We also sent the first steam-boat to Coblentz in 1817, and the first to America. We laid the first Atlantic cables. And as a general truth, we have been foremost in invention, application and enterprise.
Recent International Exhibitions however, and the migration of various branches of our trade to the Continent and America, have shown that the degree of our relative superiority in manufacturing skill is diminishing. Other nations, especially the German and American, perceiving the dependence of invention upon research, and the enormous pecuniary and other advantages gained by us, by the application of scientific knowledge to manufacturing and other purposes, have within the last few years aroused themselves, and are now pursuing pure science much more energetically than ourselves. A few years ago the relative number of original researches made per annum in England, France, and Germany were in the proportion 127, 245, and 777. Many of those made in Germany were valuable ones, and were made by Students in order to obtain a degree. Other nations are rapidly gaining upon us in the application of science to industrial purposes, and have even surpassed us in the extent of some of their manufacturing and technical operations. Many persons who have visited Europe and America at intervals during the last twenty years have testified to this.
The Vielle Montagne Zinc Company in Belgium employ 6,500 workmen, and produce annually 32,000 tons of zinc. The John Cockerill Company, engine-builders, Seraing, near Liege, employ nearly 8,000 men. Krupp, the great engineer at Essen, near Dusseldorf, employs about 10,000 workmen; his works at Essen alone cover 450 acres, and 1,000 tonsof coal are consumed in them daily. The Anzin Company (Valenciennes) "is the largest coal company in the world, producing no less than 1,200,000 tons per annum, and employs 8,000 hands." The Chatillon and Commentry Iron and Coal Company (France), produce annually from 300,000 to 350,000 tons of coal and coke, nearly 70,000 tons of iron and steel, and employ nearly 9,000 workmen. At the Creuzot Ironworks (France), "the mineral concessions cover an area of nearly six square miles, the coal-fields nearly twenty-five square miles, the building 296 acres. There are nearly forty-five miles of railway between various parts of the works, upon which are generally running sixteen locomotives. The galleries in the mines are more than twenty miles long." 10,000 persons are employed in the works and the annual amount of wages paid equals £400,000.[11]
Our practice with regard to original science has been very different from the plan carried out in Germany. Within the last few years great laboratories have been erected in Berlin, Leipzig, Aix la Chapelle, Bonn, Carlsruhe, Stuttgardt, and other places, at the expense of the State, and special provision has been made in them for original scientific research. A glance at the frequently published list of scientific investigations made in different countries will shew us that the Germans have been making a far greater number of discoveries in science than ourselves.
Sir R. B. C. Brodie, Professor of Chemistry atOxford, speaking of his experience when a student at Geissen, in Germany, states: "I say that the enthusiasm and earnestness of the young men in the laboratory was quite unparalleled in my experience at Oxford. The dilettante sort of way in which things go on there is very inferior indeed to the way the German students study. At Heidelberg, I have been told, there are about eighty professors, and amongst those professors are some of the most eminent men in Europe, so that they have a staff quite unsurpassed."
The industry of the Germans in scientific research is quite remarkable, they are availing themselves of the great fountain of knowledge to a much greater extent than ourselves, and are already beginning to reap the reward. Within the last few years they have succeeded, by means of researches, in making alizarine, the colouring principle of madder. "England produces immense quantities of benzene, the greatest part of which goes to Germany, there to be converted into aniline dyes, a considerable quantity of which goes back to England. No other country is so far advanced in the manufacture of the coal-tar colours as Germany. The quantity of alizarine manufactured by the German makers far surpasses the English production." (See "Alizarine, Natural and Artificial," by F. Versmann, New York, 1873). Statements of this kind are frequently published, and made by our manufacturers and others, of the departure of branch after branch of our manufactures to the Continent, and of continually increasing importation of foreign-made articles.
Some persons, having become aware of the cosmopolitan nature of scientific research, have suggested that it is a matter of no importance to us as a nation whether we make researches or not, as foreigners would make them, and we could apply them. But no honourable man would, after reflection, seriously maintain such a proposition, because it implies a willingness to obtain from the labours of other persons, advantages without paying for them. It is partly this absence of a desire to pay for the labour of investigation, which is now damaging the manufacturing and commercial prosperity of this country. It is also certain that however much we may have hitherto succeeded commercially, without making payment for research, we should have succeeded much better had we properly assisted investigators in pure science. Our success has hitherto been obtained, not in consequence, but in spite of the disadvantageous circumstances under which discoverers have laboured.
The commercial argument in favour of encouraging research, although the most effective with the great mass of persons, and therefore much dwelt upon in this chapter, is however quite a secondary one; the encouragement of truth for the sake of its own intrinsic worth, in preference to the material or extrinsic value of its results, should be the foundation of all aid to discovery. Justice, also, ought to come before all minor considerations, and no upright man would wish for a moment that anyone, and much less the greatest scientific intellects in the country, should work for his benefit without being remunerated.
It has been objected that Continental nations, the Germans in particular, have pirated our patents, infringed our designs, imitated our labels, used our names, and taken our improvements wholesale, and this may be true. But we still have had by far the largest portion of the reward of our greater energy and inventive skill; we have had the great advantage of being first in the markets of the world; and that advantage can only be retained by our being the first in the pursuit of original research, as we have so long been in the application of science to industrial arts, and not by purchasing foreign inventions, nor by accepting gifts of unrecompensed researches.
Nations as well as individuals are apt to push to an extreme the means by which they have succeeded in gaining either riches or power. We have devoted ourselves relatively too much to the pursuit of money and too little to the pursuit of knowledge. The desire for wealth is in this country so great, that probably nothing but a loss of that wealth will ever make us properly encourage the pursuit of new knowledge.
Whilst research is being neglected, manufacturers and others in all directions are asking for improvements in their machines and processes; employers of steam engines want to obtain more power from the coals; makers of washing soda wish to recover their lost sulphur; copper smelters, want to utilize the copper smoke; glass makers wish to prevent bad colour in their glass; iron puddlers want to economise heat; gas companies are desirous of diminishing theleakage of gas; iron smelters wish to avoid the evil effects of impurities in the iron; manufacturers in general want to utilise their waste products and prevent their polluting our streams and atmosphere; and so on without end. And inventors are continually trying to supply these demands, by exercising their skill in every possible way, with the aid of scientific information contained in books; but after putting manufacturers and themselves to great expense, they very frequently fail, not always through want of inventive skill, but often through want ofnewknowledge attainable only by means of pure research. Judging from the vast amount of inventive skill already expended upon the steam engine, and the small proportion of available mechanical power yet obtained from the coals consumed in it, it is highly probable that a machine for completely converting heat into mechanical force cannot be invented until more scientific knowledge is discovered.
It must not be supposed from these remarks, that discoveries which will enable a man to make any particular invention, can be produced to order; that is only true to a very limited extent. Men are beggars of nature, and must not expect to be permitted to choose her gifts, or dictate what secrets shall be disclosed. We may however be certain that if we acquire a very much greater supply of new scientific knowledge, we shall then be able to perfect many good inventions, though not always of the kind we wish, or in the way we expect. The great sewage questionmay perhaps be solved in quite an unexpected way, possibly by the discovery of some substance capable of precipitating ammonia and organic matter from their solutions.
Nearly all our manufacturing processes are full of imperfections; thus the loss of gas by a single large provincial gas company, after that substance has left the works, amounts to nearly one hundred and fifty millions of cubic feet per annum, and to a value of about £18,000; and the soil of all our large cities and towns is permeated and rendered fœtid by coal gas. And it has been stated by an eminent authority in such matters that we might save 500,000 tons of coal a year by economizing the waste heat of furnaces, by purifying the coal, coking it, etc. In a single chemical manufactory, out of about two thousand tons of hydrochloric acid used per annum, about eight hundred tons have been allowed to flow away as a polluting substance, because it was not possible to utilise it. The loss of material from a single large glass works equals fourteen hundred tons per annum, and a value of £8,000. Similar grave defects might be pointed out in nearly all our large manufactures, by those acquainted with the subject.
Inventions are wanted for quickening the process of vinegar making, and diminishing the percentage of loss of the acid. For bleaching discoloured fats. For quickening the process of converting cast iron into malleable iron. To easily separate nitrogen from the oxygen of the atmosphere. To economically convertthe nitrogen of the air into valuable products, such as nitric acid and ammonia. To find uses for the immense quantities of minerals which abound all over the earth; to utilise wolfram and find applications for tungstic acid; to apply titanic acid to great industrial purposes; to produce aluminium on the large scale, as we now produce iron. To tan leather more quickly, and without detriment to its quality. To prevent the rusting of iron. To more perfectly prevent smoke. To collect and use the sulphuric acid of the salt cake consumed in the glass manufacture. To make window glass by means of common salt. To deodorise offensive substances. To find larger uses for phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, and common salt. To remove phosphorus and sulphur from iron ores, and sulphur from coal and coke. To obtain a good white alloy as a cheaper substitute for German silver. To convert white phosphorus into the red variety by a less dangerous process than the present one. To prevent the putrefaction of "peltries" in glue making. To obtain better and cheaper materials for colouring glass. To more perfectly prevent animal food from change. To obviate or prevent explosions in mines. To perfectly purify ordinary red lead for making flint glass. A cheaper process for converting common salt into washing soda; and so on without end.
We also very badly require a method of recording our thoughts in readable forms upon paper, without the slow and laborious process of writing. An incalculable amount of brains and of intellect, especially ofthe greatest thinkers, would be saved by such a discovery. The curative arts also are permeated with empiricism, and thousands of lives of persons of all classes of society, are annually lost in this country through want of a more perfect scientific basis of medicine, attainable only by means of experiment and observation.
In this country, such great practical results have been obtained by means of invention, that many persons suppose a sufficiency of inventive skill will enable us to effect every possible scientific object, and are surprised that no one can invent a plan of utilising the entire heat of coals, or a mode of overcoming the sewage difficulty, or prevent the great leakage of coal gas, or arrest epidemics, or produce a steam engine which shall work without waste of power. The progress of invention however depends upon that of discovery, and these various inventions, etc., wanted by manufacturers and others probably cannot be perfected until suitablenewknowledge is found. Every new invention has its own appropriate discoveries, by means of which alone it can be perfected; it was not possible to perfect the idea of an electric telegraph before the discoveries of Volta and Oersted were made. According to scientific laws, out of everything proceeds everything, and out of nothing, nothing can come, even ideas are not created. An unlimited number of inventions cannot be made by means of a limited amount of scientific knowledge; and our present stock of such information applicable toinvention, is very insufficient. One great reason why only a small portion of patents are of practical value; and so many useless ones are taken out is, that in consequence of our so-called "practical" spirit, we overestimate the power of invention and under-value the discovery of new abstract truths; because also invention has done so much, we think it will continue to do so, but the latter depends upon a continued supply of discoveries.
Nearly every manufacturer is aware by painful experience of the great and almost incessant variation that occurs in the quality and properties of the materials used in his trade, and the frequent risk of failure of his process. In the manufacture of iron, for example, the presence of much phosphorus, sulphur, or silicon in the ore is liable to be very detrimental to the quality of the iron produced from it; in the manufacture of glass, the least quantity of iron in the materials will seriously injure the colour of the product; in the selection of copper for telegraph wire, if it contains the least trace of arsenic, the wire will not conduct the electricity properly. The difficulties experienced in procuring suitable materials for a manufacturing process are in some cases very great; and when they are procured, additional difficulties arise from the inability of the manufacturer or his manager to analyse them.
Every manufacturer is also aware that the difficulties encountered in manufactures are not limited to the substances employed, but extend to all the differentprocesses and stages of processes through which these substances have to pass, and to all the forces, tools, machinery, and appliances employed in those processes; in the manufacture of glass, for example, the greatest care has to be exercised in the making and gradual heating of the pots in which the glass is melted, the proportions of the materials, the construction of the furnaces, the management of the heat, and a whole host of minor conditions too numerous to mention, all of which must be attended to with the greatest care. In the manufacture of iron and steel, the smelting of copper, the refining of nickel, the preparation and baking of porcelain, and in many other trades, innumerable difficulties, all having their origin in the properties of matter and forces, continually beset the manufacturers. In some cases difficulties occur which perplex both the workman and the scientific man called in to his aid, and so far from an unscientific workman being able to overcome them, even with the aid of the scientific man, he is unable to do so.
The hidden difficulties which beset a manufacturer are not unfrequently so inscrutable that the present state of knowledge in science fails to explain them. Who can tell why it is that wire-work of brass or German silver becomes gradually brittle by lapse of time? Or why varnish made in the open country has different properties from that made in a town? Or why silk dyed in Lyons should possess a finer colour than the same silk dyed by the same process in Coventry?With our present extremely imperfect knowledge of Physical and Chemical science, we can perhaps hardly form an idea of the amount of knowledge yet to be discovered respecting the phenomena which manufactures present.
One of the inevitable results of these difficulties in manufacturing processes and of deficiency of knowledge, is the production of a large amount of goods of an inferior quality; and useless goods, technically called "wasters," the cost of which has to be laid upon the saleable ones, and thus the price of the latter is enhanced to the consumer. For instance, flint glass discoloured by iron has sometimes to be sold at a loss for making common enamel; waste window glass has to be sold as "rockery" for ornamenting gardens, and defective articles of glass or metal have to be re-melted.
In consequence of this want of new knowledge, manufacturers continue to suffer losses which might be avoided; high prices of useful articles are maintained; defects in their quality are not improved; preventable accidents still continue to happen; the health of workmen continues to suffer; many means of curing diseases remain unknown; medical practice remains full of empiricism, &c., &c.
The great sewage question is apparently in this predicament; we are probably trying to solve it without first discovering the requisite knowledge; inventors, engineers, and consulting chemists have racked their brains, and have not been able to devise a satisfactoryremedy, and meanwhile the health of the entire population of this country is suffering. If we so neglect the fundamental means of ameliorating our condition we deserve to suffer. One would suppose that cholera, contagious diseases, colliery accidents, pollution of air and water, enormous waste of heat from fires, and a multitude of other evils which depend upon physical and chemical conditions, are of but little importance, that we should so neglect one of the most effectual means of preventing them; and it is perfectly clear that by neglecting to aid research, those who gain so much money and advantage from original science, and render no return, are unwittingly sacrificing national interests upon a large scale to personal benefit.
The practice of some manufacturers using and deriving great profit from new knowledge evolved by research, without recompensing the discoverers, sometimes causes injury to the public welfare by preventing the publication of discoveries which have an immediate practical application. Experience of this kind has constrained me to postpone the publication of a method I have found of readily and quickly converting lumps of white phosphorus into the red variety in a state of powder without protracted heat or grinding.
"What will be the next chapter of British enterprise and invention, and who and where the men to perform the chief part in it? As to the work to be done, there can be no doubt or mystery, for not a day passeswithout loud complaints, indignant remonstrances, fatal oversights, sad mis-calculations, terrible shortcomings, social or material evils to be remedied if possible, whole masses of people, indeed whole classes to be succoured and lifted out of the slough, and enormous difficulties placed by nature in our way evidently that we may exercise our wit and our virtues in the attempt to overcome them. Here, from all these Isles, there arises a despairing cry from agriculture, as if it had really reached the end of its tether, and had found itself landed in utter helplessness and insolvency—a bad speculation altogether. Here are countless problems, and at the same time countless discoveries, which if they lead to nothing else, prove the inexhaustible nature of our dominion over the elements. Then, for the sea, with its terrible average of wreck and total loss running on without intermission and with but rare abatement, who shall say there is here no work for the discoverer and inventor who will give his heart and soul and mind to it?"
It is indeed high time, that by means of discoveries which will enable us to predict with certainty the nature of coming seasons, we shall be better enabled to cope with adversities in agriculture; also, that the numerous wrecks, and the thousands of lives lost with them every year on our coasts, should be diminished. But these desirable results cannot be effected by invention based upon insufficient knowledge; invention must be preceded by general as well as special research, because the former often discloses importanttruths which we cannot predict. Our present electric lights in light-houses and on large ocean steamers, had their origin, not in direct inventions or special researches for the purpose, but in abstract researches on apparently remote subjects.
It is nothing less than a national crime that proper provision has not yet been made for investigating scientifically the causes of famine and pestilence, also physiology and pathology, and the discovery of the laws which regulate diseases and epidemics. What can be more painful to behold than a mother and father deprived of a whole family of five or six children in rapid succession by scarlatina or other contagious disease, and both the parents and medical men utterly unable to save them; and this is a common occurrence. Persons who are ignorant of science look with an abject feeling of helplessness upon great national calamities, and even upon private afflictions, such as a local epidemic, as if there was absolutely no remedy, whilst scientific men believe that by extension of knowledge, such evils might be largely avoided or prevented.
Many persons however, actuated by the very kindest of motives, but insufficiently acquainted with the necessity, conditions, results, and advantages of experiments, unwittingly obstruct the discovery of new knowledge in physiology and pathology, by attempting to prevent experiments being made upon animals.
We should not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Nearly every step in life involves a choicebetween two alternatives, and this is the case with experiments upon living creatures, either such experiments must be made, or the wholesale slaughter of men and other animals, by pestilences, epidemics, small-pox, foot and mouth disease, &c., must continue. Many of the properties of living bodies, like those of dead ones, can only be ascertained by means of experiments, no other course is possible; and the knowledge so obtained enables us not only to prolong the lives but also to alleviate the sufferings of all kinds of living creatures. Nearly all our medical and surgical knowledge has been obtained by observation and study, either of the results of experiments made by ourselves, or by the course of nature for us; and the former is often attended by immeasurably less pain and expence than the latter. No one who has ever made in a proper manner new experiments, would venture to assert that valuable knowledge is not gained by them; and this statement is as correct of experiments in physiology as in all the other sciences.
The total amount of pain inflicted upon animals by vivisection experiments in this country is infinitesimally small—because, firstly, the proportion of experimentalists in so-called "vivisection," does not amount to one person in one million of our inhabitants:—secondly, students cannot be induced to enter upon scientific research in physiology, because such labour is unrewarded, either by enabling them to obtain certificates, degrees, or money. Whatever pain also,is inflicted in such experiments, is by men of the highest eminence in physiology, and therefore by the most competent persons.
Experimental research is an occupation requiring an exceptional kind of ability and experience; and persons who have never made experiments, nor studied their relation to human welfare, are largely incompetent to determine when and how they should be made, the real effects of them, or the value of the knowledge they afford. To persons inexperienced in scientific research, many experiments appear useless, which have great practical value, either immediately or at a later period. Our greatest curse is ignorance; and knowledge, by enabling us to avoid the fatal effects of pestilences, and epidemics, is as necessary as food to mankind. The "Anti-vivisection" movement however is but one of the phases of the ever-existing conflict between the advancing and retarding sections of mankind.
Greater sympathy with suffering accompanies greater civilization. The increased humanity of the present age over that of previous ones, is largely due to the discovery and extension of new scientific knowledge. Science, by showing more clearly to man his true position in nature and in relation to his fellow-men and other animals, has rendered more evident the concrete fact, that the happiness of each depends upon the happiness of all, and the happiness and welfare of all upon that of each individual. It has also operated in a more apparent, though lessimportant way, by inculcating better systems ofhygiene, improved sanitary arrangements, &c, &c. It is not to the zeal of "anti-vivisectionists," but to the well-directed labours of experimental medical men, that mankind are indebted for the discovery and invention of nearly every known method of preventing and alleviating animal suffering and of prolonging human life. This statement is true of vaccination, the use of chloroform in general surgery, dentistry, and midwifery, of carbolic acid spray in surgical operations; the abolition of the practice of searing amputated limbs with a red-hot iron; and many other improvements. Ferrier's comparatively recent vivisection experiments have already enabled medical men to treat more successfully those formidable diseases, epilepsy and abcess of the brain.
What this nation badly requires, is not less experimental research, but more. When famines result from insufficiency of Solar heat, instead of investigating the conditions of the Sun's surface to enable us to predict their occurrence and provide accordingly, we allow them to come upon us in our unprepared state and produce their fearful effects. When contagious disease overtakes us, what do we do? Instead of previously employing and paying scientific investigators to make experiments in physiological and chemical science, to enable us to combat it successfully, we vainly attempt to apply our present stock of chemical and physiological knowledge to ward off the difficulty. When high price of fuel intervenes, insteadof previously giving discoverers the means of finding new principles relating to heat, and to chemical, and electrical action, we ineffectually endeavour by means of invention, to economise fuel. These are the pottering, short-sighted, and ignorant ways in which "the great English nation" temporises with great evils, and permits national welfare to be sacrificed to private gain, instead of employing for the discovery of new knowledge some of that superfluous wealth which in many instances is a curse to its possessors.
It is not highly necessary after what has been already said in these pages, to adduce much evidence to show that scientific discoveries, either directly or through the medium of the inventions based upon them, have been a great cause of mental and moral progress. As however there are many persons who do not perceive the dependence of such progress, and especially of moral advance, upon science, a few of the chief relations of those subjects to each other may be pointed out.
The dependence of mental progress upon science may be rendered manifest in several ways:—1st. By showing that new scientific knowledge is continually extending and modifying our views of existing things. 2nd. That inventions based upon scientific discoveries have aided and extended our mental powers:—3rd. That mental phenomena may be made the subject of experiment, observation, analysis, andinference:—4th. That the criteria of truth, and the mental powers and processes employed for discovering and detecting truth, are the same in mental as in physical science, and, 5th. That mental action is subject to the great principles and laws of science. And moral progress may be proved to have a scientific basis:—1st. By shewing that moral actions are a class of mental actions, and therefore subject to the same fundamental laws and influences:—2nd. That the discovery of new scientific knowledge, and the use of inventions based upon it, often conduce to morality:—3rd. That moral phenomena may be made the subject of experiment, observation, analysis, and inference:—4th. That the criteria of truth, and the mental faculties and processes employed, in discovering truth, are the same in moral as in physical science:—5th. That the fundamental rules of morality are subject to the great principles of science:—6th. That moral improvement follows in the wake of scientific advance:—and 7th. By showing the moral influence of experimental research in imparting "the scientific spirit;" promoting a love of truth; dispelling ignorance and superstition; detecting error; imparting certainty and accuracy to our knowledge; inculcating obedience to law; producing uniformity of belief; aiding economy and cleanliness, promoting humanity, &c, &c. Each of these will be treated with extreme brevity.
MENTAL PROGRESS.
The chief object of this chapter is only to shewthat mental action is largely consistent with the great principles of science; not that in our present state of knowledge, mental phenomena can be entirely explained by them, or that mental actions involve nothing more than physical and chemical processes.
That mental progress is advanced by scientific discovery is a common circumstance. Our ideas of facts, our knowledge of general principles, our views of man, of nature, and of the Universe; and even our modes of thought, have been gradually and profoundly changed by the new knowledge acquired by means of scientific research. This truth is capable of being most extensively illustrated by a multitude of facts in the whole of the sciences, and in the arts, manufactures, and other subjects dependent upon science. For example, in astronomy, great changes, produced by the results of scientific discovery have taken place in our ideas respecting the magnitude of Space and of the Heavenly bodies, the constitution, form, and motion of the Earth, the functions of the Sun and Moon, the distances of the Sun and fixed Stars, the nature of eclipses and comets; and a great many other matters. In terrestrial physics, the mental advances have been equally great in our ideas respecting the causes of tides and of winds, the pressure of the atmosphere, the existence and course of the Gulf Stream, the physical conditions of the Equator and Poles, the conditions upon which day and night, summer and winter depend, the depth of the ocean, the height of the atmosphere, the cause of rainbows, ofrain, hail, snow, mist and dew, of thunder and lightning, the composition of air, water, mineral, and organic substances, and other most numerous and varied phenomena. In the subjects of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemistry, vegetable and animal physiology, psychology and morality, and the more concrete subjects depending upon them, such as politics, trade, commerce, government, &c., our ideas have equally advanced, in consequence of scientific research; and to fully describe the mental progress resulting from discovery in nearly all branches of human knowledge would require a series of books to be written on the History of all the Sciences.
Other causes also, which I need hardly mention, besides scientific discovery, have of course contributed to the mental progress of mankind. We arrive at true ideas, not only by the more certain and systematic process employed in scientific research, but largely also by the uncertain method of trusting to instinct and habit, by adopting dogmatic opinions, and by the semi-scientific plan of following empirical rules.
Dogma and empiricism, in nearly all subjects, has rendered immense service to mankind. Contemporaneously with the progress produced by new knowledge, the mental condition of man has been maintained and prevented from receding, by the combined influence of hereditary mental proclivity, acquired habit, promulgation of dogmatic opinions and empirical rules, and by previously known verified truth. Religiousbelief has thus been the forerunner of Science. Dogma and empiricism are indispensable agents of civilization; they cannot be dispensed with by the great mass of mankind, who have not the time at command, nor possess the other means, necessary for acquiring verified knowledge. They afford rough and ready guides and useful "rule of thumb" methods, though less certain and less accurate than those afforded by verified and definite science.
That various inventions, based upon scientific discoveries, have greatly aided and extended our mental powers is quite certain. The discovery of the properties of a mixture of solution of nutgalls and green vitriol, has, through the invention of ink, exercised an immense influence in promoting the mental developement of mankind; and the discovery of the properties of esparto grass and other materials for making paper has contributed to this result. Every discovery also resulting in inventions which facilitated the transmission of intelligence has had a similar effect. Amongst these are magnetism, which, in the mariner's compass greatly assisted navigation and the conveyance of letters by sea; and the steam engine which facilitated the transmission of letters by land and by water; the electric telegraph, the telephone, and other contrivances for transmitting ideas, have also greatly promoted mental advance. The steam engine, by largely abolishing physical drudgery, gave time for study and mental and moral improvement. It has been said that "it is impossible to lay down arailway without creating an improved intellectual influence. It is probable that Watt and Stephenson will eventually modify the opinions of mankind, almost as profoundly as Luther and Voltaire." Photography has exercised an immense intellectual influence of an improved kind, by making common to all mankind views of the beautiful scenery of all parts of our globe, and portraits of individuals of all nations and of all classes of society. Processes of printing from electrotype plates, pictures and letter-press, upon the paper wrappers used by grocers and other tradesmen, have also carried into the homes of millions of poor persons truthful ideas and an improved intellectual influence. The invention of steel pens, of which a thousand millions are made yearly in Birmingham alone, must also have considerably aided intellectual progress. The various calculating machines used by merchants, the copying presses, papyrographs, and the numerous inventions for copying and multiplying letters and circulars and for domestic printing, have saved intellectual toil, and promoted the diffusion of intelligence. These are only a few of the numerous ways in which inventions based upon scientific discoveries, have resulted in mental progress.
Less perhaps has been done in the way of actual definite scientific experiments upon mental actions and processes than in almost any other department of science, and this is partly accounted for by the fact that the other sciences require to be largely advanced before we can use them to examine mental action,and partly also because (as occasionally happens) the latter has been a neglected subject of research. During the past few years however, various experimental investigations have been made, especially by Donders in Holland, and Mosso in Turin, for the purpose of elucidating the physical conditions of mental action; and it has been found that instead of an act of thought being instantaneous, as was formerly believed, it requires a variable time.[13]Numerous desultory experiments made upon dreamers, and with drugs, alcohol, &c., upon persons in the waking state, also prove that mental phenomena are amenable to scientific research. F. Galton has even proposed experiments and methods for measuring the mental faculties of different persons.[14]The effects of exciting different parts of the brain of animals by means of electric currents, and the localization of the functions of the brain effected by the experiments of Ferrier, Hirtzig and others, also tend to throw further light upon mental phenomena. The fact alone that mental actions and conditions may be made the subject of experiment, and consequently of observation, comparison, analysis and inference, proves that they may be rendered sources of new facts and principles, and are therefore within the domain of science. As the dependence of mental phenomena upon physical conditions has been clearly demonstrated, an extensive reduction of them to scientific laws is only a question of time and labour.
The principles of nature and the modes of mental action are the same for all men. It necessarily follows from the essential nature of truth and the invariability of the chief methods of detecting it, that the criteria of truth in mental science, and the mental powers and processes by which truth is arrived at and detected in that science, are essentially the same as in the physiological, chemical, and physical ones. In each of these subjects, we first, either with or without the aid of experiment, make observations, record facts, compare them, and draw conclusions from our comparisons; we also group the facts, and the conclusions, in every possible way, and then draw other conclusions; we also analyse, combine, and permutate the various truths arrived at, and cross examine the evidence in every possible manner in order to extract from it the greatest amount of new knowledge. And in each case we employ as the criteria of truth, the test of consistency with the whole of the evidence bearing upon the case, and especially with the great principles of science. We determine what is true, chiefly by comparison with those principles, because they are the most firmly established true ones and the most universal. There is no royal road to truth, and no special mental faculty for detecting it in any subject; and it is in consequence of our mental faculties being so very finite that we have no easier way of arriving at truth.
No dogmatic teaching can ever, except by accident, fully explain to man the true nature of mind; andonly in proportion as man becomes enlightened by extension of new scientific knowledge, especially in physiology, will he be able to view himself in a true aspect apart from his consciousness. Science penetrates deeper than metaphysical speculation, into the nature of mental action, chiefly because metaphysics deals only with old ideas, whilst science furnishes us with new experience and therefore with new conceptions and wider evidence.