The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-14 00:00:00

we may havo sometimes overstrained our language, and
have thereby given such vantage-ground to pfejudice that
it has been enabled to assume the form of just objection.
We cannot too earnestly disclaim the idea that the know-
ledge of physical laws can ever of itself form the ground-
work of any active influence in morals or religion. Any
such idea would only betray our ignorance of some of the
deepest principles of our nature. But this does not affect
the estimate which we may justly put on an early training
in the principles of physical research. That estimate may
be not tbe less a high one because it does not assign to
science what belongs to other things. There is one aspect
in which we do not require to plead the cause of science
as an element in education, and on that therefore I shall
riot dwell—l mean that in which certain applied sciences
are recognised as the essential bases of professional train-
ing, as, for example, when the engineer is trained in the
principles of medhs.nies and hydrostatics, or the physician
in those of chemistry. Of course, with every new appli-
cation of the sciences to the arts of life 'this direct influ-
ence will extend. But what we desire, and ought to aim
at, is something more. It is that abstract science, with-
out special reference to its departmental application, should
be mere recognised as an essential element in every liberal
education. We desire thii on two grounds mainly—first,
that.it•will contribute more than anything else to the
further advancement of
,science itself; and, secondly, we
believe that it would be an instillment nfs vital benefit in
the culture and strengthening of the mental powers. But,
as regaris both these great objects, we must remember
that much will depend on the manner in which elemen-
tary instruction in science is conducted,—on • the concep-
tion, 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 contemplation of the few
they have already ascertained. May we not illus-
trate this by the effect which has not seldom been pro- '
duced by the scientific education of professions ? It is true,
inileed, that professional men have often eel-
of science by the discovery of new and impel.-- —,
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
hey() been assailed by every weapon in the extensive
armoury of prejudice and bigotry ! How many of them
have had their name recognised, only after it h,ad,been
written on the grave !' and over whom we Might well re-
peat the noble lines

" Now thy brows arc 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 surrounded ; by what patient watchings and careful
reasonings, by what chance suggestions and happy thoughts,
ley what docility of mind and faith in the fullness of Na-
ture'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 abstractions of science with some-
thing of a living and human interest that we should recall
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 en-
couraged to observe nature, and that they may better
un-
derstand how to do so with effect. 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 opportunities of observation may be small,
it is that they may better appreciate the labours of others
and may be enabled to recognise, in the midst, per-
haps, of much extravagance, th tokens of real genius, and
in the midst of much error the golden sands .of truth.
It is one of the many obgervations of Sir C. Lyell, which
have a much wider application than that to which they
were specially directed, that the mistake of looking too ex-
clusively to the grand results of geological change, and of
referring them too readily to sudden agencies of trensen-
dons activity and power tended to check the advance of
that science, by discouraging habits of watchfulness over
those operations which aro contemporary with ourselves,
Red 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 re-
garding 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 unapproach-
able superiority of intellect, have taught us all 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
monument. 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. separable
from extraordinary intellectual power, although, where
both are found together, the great results produced are too
often attributed to the more brilliant faculty alone. Pro-
fessor Whewell, in his most interesting history of the in-
ductive sciences, while deprecating the degree of attention
which has been paid to the well-known story respecting
the origin of Newton's thoughts on gravitation, has never-
theless 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 ab-
stract reasoning, have with one voice assigned it the
highest place in the records of human intellect. Doubt-
less it was those powers which enabled him to prove
what otherwise would have remained conjecture. But it
is not the less important to observe that the suggestion
on which those powers were called to work wa,
one eminently characteristic of a mind where sim-
plicity and greatness were indeed synonymous. That
the celestial motions, about which so many wonderful
facts were then already known, and which had been re-
ferred to so many mysterious and imaginary forces, should
be indeed identical in kind with the motions which took
place close beside him, ants 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 concep-
tion of such an idea, and of those other faculties whicl
could alone crown it with demonstration, and add it to the
number of established truths. For the attainment 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 phenomena of
nature are often alone enough to yield a rich harvest to the
man of science and to crown his labours with an immortal
name. This has been a result of continual recurrence in
the progress of knowledge. It is the expression and evi-
dence 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 infinite interest and value, and
whose range of application is as wide as the universe of God.
And this brings me to say a word on the value of instruc-
tion in physical science, not merely with a view to its own
advancetneut, 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 admitted or understood. We may bear an exception
made in favour of the exact sciences, which involve the ap-
plication of mathematical knowledge, since this has been
long recognised as requiring the highest intellectual exer-
tion ' • but with regard to other sciences how often do we
hear them condemned as affording " mere information,"
and as tending in no sensible degree to strengthen and in-
vigorate the mental powers ! But, again I say, this would
entirely depend on how science is to be taught—whether by
a mere cramming of facts from manuals, or explaining how
and by whom former problems have been solved—what and
how vast aro other problems yet waiting for and capable of
solution. And even where the researches of physical
science can do little more than guide conjecture, or illus-
trate merely what it cannot prove, how grand are the
questions which it excites us to ask, and on which it ena-
bles us to gather some amount of evidence ! In geology,
is it true, or is not true, that "we can see no trace of a
beginning—no symptom of an end ?" To what extent and
in what sense are we yet entitled to say that there has been
advance in organisation as there has been advance in time?
In physiology, what is the meaning of that great law of
adherence to type and pattern, standing behind, as it were,
and in reserve of that other law by which organic struc-
tures are specially adapted to special modes of life? What
is the relation between these two laws ; and can any light
be cast upon it, derived from the history of extinct forms,
or from the conditions to which we find that existing forms
are subject? In vegetable physiology, do the same or
similar laws prevail, or can we trace others, such as those
on the relations between structure, form and colour, of
which clear indications have already been established, in
communications lately made to this association by Dr.
M'Cosh and Dr. Dickie, of Belfast? In chemistry, how
is it that some of the most powerful actions escape our
finest analyses ? In medicine, what is the action of spe-
cifics ; and are there no more discoveries to be made such
as rewarded the observations of Jennor, in the almost
total extinction of a fearful and frequent scourge ? It is
in reference to such great questions, awl ten thousand
others equally interesting and important, that the pursuits
of science call forth the highest activities of the mind, and
exercise every power of thought and reasoning with which
it has been endowed. Indeed it may fairly be questioned
whether those sciences which are called exact are neces-
sarily the best preparation for the actual business of
twhhen
e
world. It is the rare exception, aid not the rule,
exact and perfect demonstration becomes applicable to the
affairs of life. In general, men have to balance between g!
thousand probabilities, and to take into account a thousand
conflicting tendencies. Surely there can be no,
better than that which teaches us by what careful wentac and
reasoning—by what separation between pa
training
present to the past, and from the past
baeobtthned in the
present, our existing knowledge has been
mined,
that where
paths of physical research., It is true,m
nt g thecorrect truth.causes,rea wheresoni Butn
g
nch concerned no
men's passions and prejudice! aroinduce them to follow or
accidental causes—by what constant referekuracleitnrotmo
the
amount of teaching will ever
moderate and candid men are expressing their sincere con-
victions,onstantly do we hoar them ascribing effects
how c
dw.earnt of such habit is often moat painfully uv to
se thewhich
theree stt methods
ae
slightestt
would have been sufficient to dismiss ! In questions of
halleaqluiemstWionrs.
political as
twyelolfascoonf
sipdheirlionsogp
ap-
parent, and serves in no small degree to retard the progress
hn ood alifh arriving
hd sittu disturbing
with reference to fundamental principles or laws, and these
again with reference to the disturbing causes which delay
attendetov ecna
or suspend their operation, the mode of weighing evidence,
otg
afr
pe
.mankind.
et a socialpt dhen
and the degree of value to be attached to that which is cf
meielymegative kind--these are things of 'which we are,
perpetually reminded in the pursuits - •
of science, and these
surely are no useless lessons, whether in religious,
social,
or political affairs. And then there
is another considera-
tiQu of 110 61:111111 importance, ge 1401100 ins now come to