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SCIENCE
SCIENCE THOMAS H. HUXLEY PREFACE
The apology offered in the Preface to the first volume of this series
for the occurrence of repetitions is even more needful here I am
afraid. But it could hardly be otherwise with speeches and essays on
the same topic addressed at intervals during more than thirty years
to widely distant and different hearers and readers. The oldest piece
that "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences"
contains some crudities which I repudiated when the lecture was first
reprinted more than twenty years ago; but it will be seen that much of
what I have had to say later on in life is merely a development of
the propositions enunciated in this early and sadly-imperfect piece of
work.
In view of the recent attempt to disturb the compromise about the
teaching of dogmatic theology solemnly agreed to by the first School
Board for London the fifteenth Essay; and more particularly the note
n. 3 may be found interesting.
T. H. H.
Hodeslea Eastbourne _September 4th 1893_.
CONTENTS
I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY [1874]
(An Address delivered on the occasion of the presentation of a statue
of Priestley to the town of Birmingham)
II ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES [1854]
(An Address delivered in S. Martin's Hall)
III EMANCIPATION--BLACK AND WHITE [1865]
IV A LIBERAL EDUCATION; AND WHERE TO FIND IT [1868]
(An Address to the South London Working Men's College)
V SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH [1869]
(Liverpool Philomathic Society)
VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE [1880]
(An Address delivered at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's Science
College Birmingham)
VII ON SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION [1882]
(An Address to the members of the Liverpool Institution)
VIII UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL [1874]
(Rectorial Address Aberdeen)
IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION [1876]
(Delivered at the opening of the Johns Hopkins University Baltimore)
X ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY [1876]
(A Lecture in connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific
Apparatus South Kensington Museum)
XI ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY [1877]
XII ON MEDICAL EDUCATION [1870]
(An Address to the students of the Faculty of Medicine in University
College London)
XIII THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION [1884]
XIV THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES WITH MEDICINE [1881]
(An Address to the International Medical Congress)
XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO AND WHAT THEY MAY DO [1870]
XVI TECHNICAL EDUCATION [1877]
XVII ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF
TECHNICAL EDUCATION [1887]
COLLECTED ESSAYS
VOLUME III
I
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
[1874]
If the man to perpetuate whose memory we have this day raised a statue
had been asked on what part of his busy life's work he set the highest
value he would undoubtedly have pointed to his voluminous
contributions to theology. In season and out of season he was the
steadfast champion of that hypothesis respecting the Divine nature
which is termed Unitarianism by its friends and Socinianism by its
foes. Regardless of odds he was ready to do battle with all comers in
that cause; and if no adversaries entered the lists he would sally
forth to seek them.
To this his highest ideal of duty Joseph Priestley sacrificed the
vulgar prizes of life which assuredly were within easy reach of a
man of his singular energy and varied abilities. For this object he put
aside as of secondary importance those scientific investigations
which he loved so well and in which he showed himself so competent to
enlarge the boundaries of natural knowledge and to win fame. In this
cause he not only cheerfully suffered obloquy from the bigoted and the
unthinking and came within sight of martyrdom; but bore with that
which is much harder to be borne than all these the unfeigned
astonishment and hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society
composed of men whose sympathy and esteem must have been most dear to
him and to whom it was simply incomprehensible that a philosopher
should seriously occupy himself with any form of Christianity.
It appears to me that the man who setting before himself such an ideal
of life acted up to it consistently is worthy of the deepest respect
whatever opinion may be entertained as to the real value of the tenets
which he so zealously propagated and defended.
But I am sure that I speak not only for myself but for all this
assemblage when I say that our purpose to-day is to do honour not to
Priestley the Unitarian divine but to Priestley the fearless
defender of rational freedom in thought and in action: to Priestley
the philosophic thinker; to that Priestley who held a foremost place
among "the swift runners who hand over the lamp of life" [1] and
transmit from one generation to another the fire kindled
in the childhood of the world at the Promethean altar of Science.
The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well known that I need
dwell upon them at no great length.
Born in 1733 at Fieldhead near Leeds and brought up among Calvinists
of the straitest orthodoxy the boy's striking natural ability led to
his being devoted to the profession of a minister of religion; and in
1752 he was sent to the Dissenting Academy at Daventry--an institution
which authority left undisturbed though its existence contravened the
law. The teachers under whose instruction and influence the young man
came at Daventry carried out to the letter the injunction to "try all
things: hold fast that which is good" and encouraged the discussion of
every imaginable proposition with complete freedom the leading
professors taking opposite sides; a discipline which admirable as it
may be from a purely scientific point of view would seem to be
calculated to make acute rather than sound divines. Priestley tells
us in his "Autobiography" that he generally found himself on the
unorthodox side: and as he grew older and his faculties attained
their maturity this native tendency towards heterodoxy grew with his
growth and strengthened with his strength. He passed from Calvinism to
Arianism; and finally in middle life landed in that very broad form
of Unitarianism by which his craving after a credible and consistent
theory of things was satisfied.
On leaving Daventry Priestley became minister of a congregation first
at Needham Market and secondly at Nantwich; but whether on account of
his heterodox opinions or of the stuttering which impeded his
expression of them in the pulpit little success attended his efforts
in this capacity. In 1761 a career much more suited to his abilities
became open to him. He was appointed "tutor in the languages" in the
Dissenting Academy at Warrington in which capacity besides giving
three courses of lectures he taught Latin Greek French and Italian
and read lectures on the theory of language and universal grammar on
oratory philosophical criticism and civil law. And it is interesting
to observe that as a teacher he encouraged and cherished in those
whom he instructed the freedom which he had enjoyed in his own student
days at Daventry. One of his pupils tells us that
"At the conclusion of his lecture he always encouraged his
students to express their sentiments relative to the subject of it
and to urge any objections to what he had delivered without
reserve. It pleased him when any one commenced such a conversation.
In order to excite the freest discussion he occasionally invited
the students to drink tea with him in order to canvass the
subjects of his lectures. I do not recollect that he ever showed
the least displeasure at the strongest objections that were made to
what he delivered but I distinctly remember the smile of
approbation with which he usually received them: nor did he fail to
point out in a very encouraging manner the ingenuity or force of
any remarks that were made when they merited these characters. His
object as well as Dr. Aikin's was to engage the students to
examine and decide for themselves uninfluenced by the sentiments
of any other persons." [2]
It would be difficult to give a better description of a model teacher
than that conveyed in these words.
From his earliest days Priestley had shown a strong bent towards the
study of nature; and his brother Timothy tells us that the boy put
spiders into bottles to see how long they would live in the same
air--a curious anticipation of the investigations of his later years.
At Nantwich where he set up a school Priestley informs us that he
bought an air pump an electrical machine and other instruments in
the use of which he instructed his scholars. But he does not seem to
have devoted himself seriously to physical science until 1766 when he
had the great good fortune to meet Benjamin Franklin whose friendship
he ever afterwards enjoyed. Encouraged by Franklin he wrote a "History
of Electricity" which was published in 1767 and appears to have met
with considerable success.
In the same year Priestley left Warrington to become the minister of a
congregation at Leeds; and here happening to live next door to a
public brewery as he says
"I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed
air which I found ready-made in the process of fermentation. When I
removed from that house I was under the necessity of making fixed
air for myself; and one experiment leading to another as I have
distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the
subject I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the
purpose but of the cheapest kind.
"When I began these experiments I knew very little of _chemistry_
and had in a manner no idea on the subject before I attended a
course of chemical lectures delivered in the Academy at
Warrington by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often thought
that upon the whole this circumstance was no disadvantage to me;
as in this situation I was led to devise an apparatus and
processes of my own adapted to my peculiar views; whereas if I
had been previously accustomed to the usual chemical processes I
should not have so easily thought of any other and without new
modes of operation I should hardly have discovered anything
materially new." [3]
The first outcome of Priestley's chemical work published in 1772 was
of a very practical character. He discovered the way of impregnating
water with an excess of "fixed air" or carbonic acid and thereby
producing what we now know as "soda water"--a service to naturally and
still more to artificially thirsty souls which those whose parched
throats and hot heads are cooled by morning draughts of that beverage
cannot too gratefully acknowledge. In the same year Priestley
communicated the extensive series of observations which his industry
and ingenuity had accumulated in the course of four years to the
Royal Society under the title of "Observations on Different Kinds of
Air"--a memoir which was justly regarded of so much merit and
importance that the Society at once conferred upon the author the
highest distinction in their power by awarding him the Copley Medal.
In 1771 a proposal was made to Priestley to accompany Captain Cook in
his second voyage to the South Seas. He accepted it and his
congregation agreed to pay an assistant to supply his place during his
absence. But the appointment lay in the hands of the Board of
Longitude of which certain clergymen were members; and whether these
worthy ecclesiastics feared that Priestley's presence among the ship's
company might expose His Majesty's sloop _Resolution_ to the fate
which aforetime befell a certain ship that went from Joppa to Tarshish;
or whether they were alarmed lest a Socinian should undermine that
piety which in the days of Commodore Trunnion so strikingly
characterised sailors does not appear; but at any rate they objected
to Priestley "on account of his religious principles" and appointed
the two Forsters whose "religious principles" if they had been known
to these well-meaning but not far-sighted persons would probably have
surprised them.
In 1772 another proposal was made to Priestley. Lord Shelburne
desiring a "literary companion" had been brought into communication
with Priestley by the good offices of a friend of both Dr. Price; and
offered him the nominal post of librarian with a good house and
appointments and an annuity in case of the termination of the
engagement. Priestley accepted the offer and remained with Lord
Shelburne for seven years sometimes residing at Calne sometimes
travelling abroad with the Earl.
Why the connection terminated has never been exactly known; but it is
certain that Lord Shelburne behaved with the utmost consideration and
kindness towards Priestley; that he fulfilled his engagements to the
letter; and that at a later period he expressed a desire that
Priestley should return to his old footing in his house. Probably
enough the politician aspiring to the highest offices in the State
may have found the position of the protector of a man who was being
denounced all over the country as an infidel and an atheist somewhat
embarrassing. In fact a passage in Priestley's "Autobiography" on the
occasion of the publication of his "Disquisitions relating to Matter
and Spirit" which took place in 1777 indicates pretty clearly the
state of the case:--
"(126) It being probable that this publication would be unpopular
and might be the means of bringing odium on my patron several
attempts were made by his friends though none by himself to
dissuade me from persisting in it. But being as I thought engaged
in the cause of important truth I proceeded without regard to any
consequences assuring them that this publication should not be
injurious to his lordship."
It is not unreasonable to suppose that his lordship as a keen
practical man of the world did not derive much satisfaction from this
assurance. The "evident marks of dissatisfaction" which Priestley says
he first perceived in his patron in 1778 may well have arisen from the
peer's not unnatural uneasiness as to what his domesticated but not
tamed philosopher might write next and what storm might thereby he
brought down on his own head; and it speaks very highly for Lord
Shelburne's delicacy that in the midst of such perplexities he made
not the least attempt to interfere with Priestley's freedom of action.
In 1780 however he intimated to Dr. Price that he should be glad to
establish Priestley on his Irish estates: the suggestion was
interpreted as Lord Shelburne probably intended it should be and
Priestley left him the annuity of L.150 a year which had been promised
in view of such a contingency being punctually paid.
After leaving Calne Priestley spent some little time in London and
then having settled in Birmingham at the desire of his brother-in-law
he was soon invited to become the minister of a large congregation.
This settlement Priestley considered at the time to be "the happiest
event of his life." And well he might think so; for it gave him
competence and leisure; placed him within reach of the best makers of
apparatus of the day; made him a member of that remarkable "Lunar
Society" at whose meetings he could exchange thoughts with such men as
Watt Wedgwood Darwin and Boulton; and threw open to him the pleasant
house of the Galtons of Barr where these men and others of less note
formed a society of exceptional charm and intelligence. [4]
But these halcyon days were ended by a bitter storm. The French
Revolution broke out. An electric shock ran through the nations;
whatever there was of corrupt and retrograde and at the same time a
great deal of what there was of best and noblest in European society
shuddered at the outburst of long-pent-up social fires. Men's feelings
were excited in a way that we in this generation can hardly
comprehend. Party wrath and virulence were expressed in a manner
unparalleled and it is to be hoped impossible in our times; and
Priestley and his friends were held up to public scorn even in
Parliament as fomenters of sedition. A "Church-and-King" cry was
raised against the Liberal Dissenters; and in Birmingham it was
intensified and specially directed towards Priestley by a local
controversy in which he had engaged with his usual vigour. In 1791
the celebration of the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastille
by a public dinner with which Priestley had nothing whatever to do
gave the signal to the loyal and pious mob who unchecked and indeed
to some extent encouraged by those who were responsible for order had
the town at their mercy for three days. The chapels and houses of the
leading Dissenters were wrecked and Priestley and his family had to
fly for their lives leaving library apparatus papers and all their
possessions a prey to the flames.
Priestley never returned to Birmingham. He bore the outrages and losses
inflicted upon him with extreme patience and sweetness [5] and betook
himself to London. But even his scientific colleagues gave him a cold
shoulder; and though he was elected minister of a congregation at
Hackney he felt his position to be insecure and finally determined on
emigrating to the United States. He landed in America in 1794; lived
quietly with his sons at Northumberland in Pennsylvania where his
posterity still flourish; and clear-headed and busy to the last died
on the 6th of February 1804.
Such were the conditions under which Joseph Priestley did the work
which lay before him and then as the Norse Sagas say went out of the
story. The work itself was of the most varied kind. No human interest
was without its attraction for Priestley and few men have ever had so
many irons in the fire at once; but though he may have burned his
fingers a little very few who have tried that operation have burned
their fingers so little. He made admirable discoveries in science; his
philosophical treatises are still well worth reading; his political
works are full of insight and replete with the spirit of freedom; and
while all these sparks flew off from his anvil the controversial
hammer rained a hail of blows on orthodox priest and bishop. While thus
engaged the kindly cheerful doctor felt no more wrath or
uncharitableness towards his opponents than a smith does towards his
iron. But if the iron could only speak!--and the priests and bishops
took the point of view of the iron.
No doubt what Priestley's friends repeatedly urged upon him--that he
would have escaped the heavier trials of his life and done more for the
advancement of knowledge if he had confined himself to his scientific
pursuits and let his fellow-men go their way--was true. But it seems to
have been Priestley's feeling that he was a man and a citizen before he
was a philosopher and that the duties of the two former positions are
at least as imperative as those of the latter. Moreover there are men
(and I think Priestley was one of them) to whom the satisfaction of
throwing down a triumphant fallacy is as great as that which attends
the discovery of a new truth; who feel better satisfied with the
government of the world when they have been helping Providence by
knocking an imposture on the head; and who care even more for freedom
of thought than for mere advance of knowledge. These men are the
Carnots who organise victory for truth and they are at least as
important as the generals who visibly fight her battles in the field.
Priestley's reputation as a man of science rests upon his numerous and
important contributions to the chemistry of gaseous bodies; and to form
a just estimate of the value of his work--of the extent to which it
advanced the knowledge of fact and the development of sound theoretical
views--we must reflect what chemistry was in the first half of the
eighteenth century.
The vast science which now passes under that name had no existence.
Air water and fire were still counted among the elemental bodies; and
though Van Helmont a century before had distinguished different
kinds of air as _gas ventosum_ and _gas sylvestre_ and Boyle and Hales
had experimentally defined the physical properties of air and
discriminated some of the various kinds of aeriform bodies no one
suspected the existence of the numerous totally distinct gaseous
elements which are now known or dreamed that the air we breathe and
the water we drink are compounds of gaseous elements.
But in 1754 a young Scotch physician Dr. Black made the first
clearing in this tangled backwood of knowledge. And it gives one a
wonderful impression of the juvenility of scientific chemistry to think
that Lord Brougham whom so many of us recollect attended Black's
lectures when he was a student in Edinburgh. Black's researches gave
the world the novel and startling conception of a gas that was a
permanently elastic fluid like air but that differed from common air
in being much heavier very poisonous and in having the properties of
an acid capable of neutralising the strongest alkalies; and it took
the world some time to become accustomed to the notion.
A dozen years later one of the most sagacious and accurate
investigators who has adorned this or any other country Henry
Cavendish published a memoir in the "Philosophical Transactions" in
which he deals not only with the "fixed air" (now called carbonic acid
or carbonic anhydride) of Black but with "inflammable air" or what we
now term hydrogen.
By the rigorous application of weight and measure to all his processes
Cavendish implied the belief subsequently formulated by Lavoisier
that in chemical processes matter is neither created nor destroyed
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