possessed it, but would it be worth the labour man exposed and defeated it. 'Our legisof the acquisition? Life is short and know-lators,' is the reflection of Desaguliers on ledge is inexhaustible. Everybody must the occurrence, may make laws to govern be content to be ignorant of much, and must us, repeal some, and enact others, and we make a selection of what best befits his must obey them; but they cannot alter the station, his profession, and his partialities. laws of nature, nor add or take away one For the dignity of the information, and the iota from the gravity of bodies.' In another exercise of the intellect, there is nothing to place he relates a history, which shows that a be preferred to natural philosophy, and not member of Parliament, without science of his much that can rival it. But in regard to own, could turn the possessors of that comutility other pursuits have a higher claim modity to account. A person to secure his on the public at large. Religion and morals election for Shaftesbury undertook to supply are out of the competition, for whatever we the town with water at his private expense. may be besides, at least we must be Chris- He employed Mr. Holland, a clergyman. tians. Social relations are next in im- noted for mechanical skill, to design the portance, and, after professional lore, these engine and superintend the works, but, on are best served by the literature which their completion, suffered him to be thrown furnishes social ideas, and teaches the art into gaol for the debts contracted in their which renders them attractive. To play execution, while he himself boasted that the creditably their part in the world, to contri- engine was his own contrivance, bribed bute their quota of amusement and instruc-away Mr. Holland's foreman that he might tion at home and abroad, to be useful be able to put up waterworks for the king, citizens, and agreeable neighbours, are and on the strength of his vote in Parliament, qualities more to be prized in the bulk of and the credit of the machine, got the apmankind than a devotion to the sublimest pointment of Surveyor to the Board of contemplations of science, than an acquaint- Works. Electioneering manoeuvres have ance with the laws of light and water and degenerated since. So bold a stroke and so earth and air, or with the motions of the sun successful is not to be found in the modern and moon and stars. In short we must be annals of corruption and impudence. Desamen before we are philosophers. But guliers himself was made a victim in the letters and popular science, and of popular same sort of way. He had invented a plan science alone we are speaking now, may go for drying malt, which he was about to hand in hand, without clashing together in patent. A Captain Busby, whom he cour an inconvenient degree; or if the busy teously calls a Buckinghamshire gentleman, part of the world have no leisure to enter- borrowed his workman, in friendly guise, to tain it, we may particularise some of the learn the method, when lo, shortly afterdisadvantages of ignorance, and the ad- wards, comes a letter from Busby announcvantages of knowledge, for the sake of the ing that HE had found out an excellent idle who are in want of a pursuit to make system of drying malt, and inviting Desaguexistence endurable to themselves, and, we liers to purchase shares in the project. must add, to make themselves endurable to Busby, who to the art of purloining a scheme others. We only apprehend that we may joined the tact to recommend it, realised no be met by the answer of the young and less than twenty thousand pounds. The athletic peasant when asked by Marivaux fortune, however, thus made by one piece why he did not work. Ah, Sir!' said he of roguery was lost by another, for those with a sigh, 'you do not know how lazy I am!' were the days of the South Sea Bubble, Desaguliers, without setting out the ne- when men might be literally said to be cessity for knowing science in the formal ruined at their own request.' But waterway in which Blackstone recommended the works were the grand scientific imposition. study of the law, has scattered through his A well-informed lord might hinder an Act work some amusing instances of the effects of Parliament from passing, which avouched of ignorance on all descriptions of men, from that the laws of gravity had been superseded, Members of Parliament down to humble but private gentlemen continued to fall a artisans. A committee of the House of prey to plausible pretenders, and persisted Commons reported, on one occasion, that a in erecting expensive monuments to their man by a machine could raise ten times own folly in the shape of some useless and more water to a certain height in a certain unsightly machine. It is to this water-work time than was possible from the very con- epidemic that Swift alludes when the noblestitution of things. The report was fol- man shows Gulliver a ruined building on a lowed by a bill to establish a company, or mountain, and tells him that there stood in other words a bill to ruin the simple and half a mile from his house a convenient enrich the cunning, when a scientific noble-mill, which was turned by a stream, till a

Among smaller articles close-stoves have, in recent years, been a fruitful source of vexation and expense. The authors, or more frequently the plagiarists, of the num. berless expedients which were annually born to disappoint and disappear, often railed at the public for not blocking up their bright hearths and warming themselves

An

club of projectors persuaded him to destroy avert their eyes from probable ruin, prefer it, and erect another three miles off on the that the dream should be dispelled by the hill, where he had to cut a long canal as a event. reservoir for the water that had then to be conveyed to it by engines and pipes. He employs a hundred men for two years, the work miscarries, the projectors go off, lay the blame entirely on himself, rail at him ever after, and persuade others to make the same experiment with the same result. Many who did not put up engines of their own lent their money to contrivers. What cheaply-by a black and sullen mass of they lost by them, and reading this,' says iron. They seemed to imagine that nothing Desaguliers exultingly, will make them could be desired except warmth, and that remember it.' One pompous knave, who people must be crazy to think of purchasing obtained considerable subscriptions to his comfort into the bargain at the cost of a scheme, got leave to pump out the water few additional bushels of coals. It is cerfrom Rosamond's pond in St. James's Park. tain that if they had known enough of sciThat performance,' says Desaguliers, and ence to be aware of one of the principal the repayment of the money, will come at circumstances on which the economy dethe same time.' Several workmen ex-pends, the thousands who have since pulled pended their all in the purchase of patents down their stoves would never have put for inventions, the product of unenlightened them up, or would have left them to keep conceit, and which, if they had possessed company with their hats in the hall. the barest rudiments of science, they would have known to be fallacious. Desaguliers sometimes opposed the patents out of charity, and they consoled themselves with the conviction that he did it out of envy. A principal object which Dr. Young proposed to himself in his celebrated Lectures on Natural Philosophy, was to hinder projectors from becoming the dupes of their own presumption and ignorance, for it is amazing with what rashness they will enter upon undertakings for which they are utterly unprepared. It was remarked, when the reward of twenty thousand pounds was offered by Parliament for a method of obtaining the longitude at sea, that the greater part of those who contended for the prize did not even comprehend the problem to be solved; and hundreds wasted months, and years, in the attempt to discover Perpetual Motion, and often fancied their attempts had been crowned with success, because they were never at the pains of ascertaining what perpetual motion meant.

open grate consumes fuel with rapidity be cause the air, which is the supporter of combustion, has uninterrupted access to the fire; while with a close-stove the air can be limited to what is just sufficient to keep the fuel ignited. There is the gain, but the gain is not all. With the common grate, the air which goes to the fire is carried up the chimney, and gives place to colder currents from the crevices of windows and doors. As the close-stove draws less than the grate, in the same degree less air is taken from the room, and less abundant are the fresh streams brought into it from without. It is this absence of ventilation which constitutes a large part of the economy of stoves. The departure of the heated air is retarded, and the shades of evening find a portion which was warmed by the morning fire still lingering in the pent-up apartment. Dr. Fyfe has demonstrated in the Encyclopædia Britannica the startling fact, that in a moderately-sized room, if the air were kept at the promised temperature for the promised The mania is over for erecting water- price, the action of the fire in an entire day engines which refuse to work; but while would be incapable of changing once the there is game to be caught it will not be whole of the atmosphere. No independent difficult to find a bait for the trap. Not an system of ventilation has ever been found eminent geologist but can tell of mines dug sufficient to remove the close smell which is where the disposition of the strata foretold the heavy accompaniment; and if it did, that the search must be vain, and of timely the economy would be proportionably dimiwarning repaid by the indignation of suici-nished, for the heated air would be carried dal projectors. There is nothing that more off, and there must be larger fires to furnish irritates a sanguine speculator who is build-sufficient relays of warmth to compensate ing castles in the air than the friendly for the loss. The cheapness, therefore, readmonition that he is walking into a pit. The thoughtless and the greedy, who concentrate their attention on possible gain and

duces itself to what is the usual secret of cheapness of every description-that the article is bad as the cost is less. Stove

so, for the story that has been told by Basil Hall must lose in the repetition.

inventors, who, like all the interested advocates of change, equally overrate the evil of what we have and the benefit of what The inconvenience and injuries which they propose to substitute in its stead, arise from an ignorance of natural philosoexperience none of these annoyances them- phy are casual, and happen comparatively selves. They are invariably men of pecu. to few; but the advantages of knowledge liar sensations. They allege that the backs are certain and constant. It is an especial of their legs are frozen by draughts from characteristic of natural philosophy that the the door in a degree to which the rest of subjects of its lessons hem us in on every mankind are strangers, or for which they side. We live and move in the midst of find a remedy in a screen. But the whole them. Were it to be studied solely with of their sensibility seems to have descended reference to its domestic uses and bearings, to their legs, for their eyes never miss the those who made acquaintance with it for the joyous blaze, their heads never ache from first time would learn, with equal surprise tainted air, and their noses can never detect and delight, that, applied to every-day facts the slightest closeness in connexion with about which there seemed to be nothing to their stoves. One man's meat is another know, it unfolds a world to which indifferman's poison. They luxuriate in circum-ence is blind. Wherever he may be and stances which are obnoxious to different con- whatever he is doing-sleeping, dressing, eatstitutions; and hence, perhaps, their wonder that so many Englishmen, who usually have the sense or selfishness to adopt a good thing, should persevere in refusing to be coal-wise and comfort-foolish.

Not only loss of money, but loss of life and limb, is sometimes the result of inattention to natural laws. Persons who ride in a carriage seldom reflect, unless they read it in a book of science, that the motion of the vehicle is communicated to themselves, and that whatever the rate at which they travel they have a forward impulse to the same amount. A horse runs away; they leap out, and expect to alight as gently as if the carriage was standing still: instead of which they are hurried to the ground with their acquired velocity, and probably break their legs, if they are not killed upon the spot. But terror often impels to rashness where knowledge counsels prudence. It is not the only occasion in which science is easier to learn than to apply. No one can be better aware than a seaman that the world is round, and yet a sailor was once flogged because his captain had forgotten it. Two men-of-war, one larger than the other, were sailing in company, when the man on the look-out from the larger descried a ship in the horizon, which was not reported by the watch of the smaller vessel. The catof-nine-tails was the penalty of his negligence. But the same occurrence happening shortly afterwards to a second person, it was remembered that the taller mast could overlook a portion of the curvature of the earth which must interpose to hide distant objects from the man on the lower, and that the sole fault of the supposed culprit was not to have been able to see through the ocean. The anecdote is related in the 'Fragments of Voyages and Travels;' and those who have not read it there should do

ing, drinking, walking, riding-man has within himself and the objects which surround him a perpetual exemplification of the greatest discoveries of some of the noblest intellects that ever adorned the earth. If the speculations of science are sublime, the materials from which it is constructed or to which it applies, are ordinarily the homely things which we see and touch and taste every instant of our lives. Nature, if we may so speak, is a humble artificer. What she does on a grand scale she reproduces on a small one. Newton's eye, glancing from earth to heaven, saw the cause of the planetary motions in the fall of an apple; and a school-boy who whirls a stone in a sling has actually produced a close imitation of the machinery which is hurrying the earth round the sun. The man of science that sips his cup of tea and ponders its phenomena must summon to his aid hydrostatics, pneumatics, chemistry, with some of the most refined and beautiful parts of optics; and though he should be what Dr. Johnson playfully styled himself, a hardened and a shameless teadrinker, whose kettle has scarcely time to cool,' he would find that he had finished his teadrinking long before he had exhausted the philosophical lessons. Or to take an instance, the most unlike we can recall-the almanac, which is in every house and hand, is a mere convenience of domestic life but how intimately is it connected with the laws of the universe? Not one in a thousand properly comprehend it for the want of a general idea of the movements in the solar system. The theory of eclipses, the changes of the moon, the distinction between mean and apparent time, are matters about which the current notions are vague or erroneous. M. Comte heard a well-educated man tell a youth, at a striking eclipse of the sun, that

The universal presence of the materials

the obscuration would have been greater if, losophy is like the Genius of the Allegories. the moon had been full. He fancied that The ordinary gazers behold the vision, but the larger the moon appeared the more it he alone can inform them of its meaning. must obstruct the solar light: in total ignorance that if we see the whole of its illu-of science peculiarly adapts it for the inminated face it cannot be revolving between struction of children. Madame de Genlis us and the sun. When it interposes to cut prefaces one of her tales by the announceoff the solar rays and cause an eclipse, its ment that she is about to relate a history in dark side is of necessity to the earth. M. which what is improbable shall be true, and Comte insinuates his conviction that this the only things credible shall be the fictitious gentleman was not in the rear of his gene- adventures round which the marvels are ration. He was not even singular, we may arranged. These matter-of-fact wonders are be sure, in the temerity with which he un- the operations of nature upon which she dertook out of the depths of his own darkness ingeniously makes the fortunes of her chato enlighten his son. Few things are more racters to depend. But the children for astounding than the confidence with which whom the story is designed need not the absurdities are asserted in conversation, charm of artifice to interest them in unless it be the credulity with which they knowledge to which they are attracted of are received. But we make progress not- themselves. When the world is new its withstanding. We are in advance of the phenomena never fail to excite attention and days when Protestant countries refused to provoke inquiry. Yet while we endeavour, adopt the reformation of the calendar be- and often vainly endeavour, to enlist the cause Gregory XIII. had set the example. sympathies of children in studies to which It was thought to be a piece of Romish they are naturally averse, we strangely superstition, and it was considered better to neglect to avail ourselves of their instinctive differ from the sun than to agree with the tastes, and by our negligence convert their pope. With something done there is much ardour to indifference. Wonder ceases to do; and M. Jourdain, in the Bourgeois with novelty, and curiosity ceases with Gentilhomme, made a sensible request when wonder, and we soon sit down quietly under he begged his master in philosophy to teach an ignorance we no longer feel. We repress him the Almanac. With the vulgar notion the thousand interrogations with which of the almanac in our heads the petition children assail us, till they become hais diverting; but deeper consideration would bituated to the want of knowledge and forget tell us it was no bad text-book from which that the craving ever existed. The little to teach, and no contemptible lesson to boy marvels why spectacles enable his learn. Common things, we again find, are grandfather to see, and his grandfather, in the closest connexion with the grandest who once marvelled too, is now content truths. We may begin at the house, but with the result, and leaves the cause we cannot stop there. By the dependence to the optician. By marking and obeyof facts we are driven to take the world for ing the bent of youthful inquisitiveness, we our province. Thenceforth it becomes a should fill the mind with an additional different world from what it was before. class of ideas that use would make as In every object there is something to see familiar as the mother-tongue, and invest beyond what common eyes can behold. with interest a multitude of objects upon The marvellous operations of nature are which now we gaze with listless, because incessantly receiving fresh illustrations. In- with undiscerning, eyes. Those genuity is taxed to apply the principles with assume that the curiosity of children to which we are stored, and we have the know is not accompanied by the capacity to double pleasure of familiarity and novelty understand, would find on a trial that their -of old truths in an unexpected form. If aptitude is greater than we commonly Lord Bacon could say that the history of the suppose. To attempt to thrust upon them world, without literary history, was as the at the outset a connected system of natural effigy of Polyphemus with his eye out-philosophy would, indeed, be absurd: at that part being wanting which did most show first they must be followed rather than led. the spirit and life-it is no less certain that We must wait their questions, suffer their nature is without its eye, its spirit, its life, discursiveness, tell them what they are to him that remains ignorant of its interior willing to learn, and not everything there is laws. It may be made to minister, through to be told. With natural truths, and in its ordinary operations or through the instru- early years, they should hunger and thirst mentality of others, to his bodily comforts, for knowledge before they are fed. When but it is only through his own exertions that they are satisfied we should stop, and not it can minister to his mind. Natural phi-oblige them to feel the sickness of satiety :

who

his store of invaluable manuscripts were burnt. She complained that she found in her bed-room smoke without fire; and methinks, says Madame de Stael, it was the emblem of herself. She expected to excite homage, and provoked contempt. Her knowledge was doubted, her airs ridiculed, and she was not more hated than she was thoroughly despised. Madame du Châtelets are fortunately rare; but in whatever proportion knowledge, which should ornament and enliven existence, is turned to exaction and ostentation, in the same degree will it be wished that philosophical women were more feminine and less profound. These are the abuses of knowledge, which need not affect its use. There is a medium between a quiet, humble fool,' and the female pedant, who should walk in breeches and wear a beard.'

the appetite that is forced is less likely to, upon a piece of her translation, raised more return. Nor is it any use to set them to disturbance than Newton did himself when study science in books. They must be taught by word of mouth and visible examples; for natural philosophy, unintelligible to them when read, is readily taken in when told or shown. But their teachers must understand what they attempt to explain. Children are not to be imposed upon, like their elders, by mystic verbiage; and we infallibly confuse them when we are confused ourselves. Aptitude on their part must be met by intelligence and skilfulness on ours. It is indeed the great drawback to the scheme that the requisite qualifications are rarely to be met with in mothers, upon whom the early education of children devolves; and the deficiency is one which, in spite of all that has been said of the unfitness of the study for their sex, we cannot but think they would do well to supply. Miss Edgeworth justly considered the defence of the Edinburgh wit to be complete when he gave utterance to the lively and happy observation,-'I do not care about the blueness of a lady's stockings if her petticoats are only long enough.' It is the ostentation of knowledge, and not the knowledge itself, which disgusts, and is doubly offensive when female aspirants are voluble upon subjects of which they understand little-except perhaps the jargon. Pretension is repulsive where we look for reserve, and the woman purchases knowledge too dearly who exchanges for it the attributes which are the charm for her sex. Her native virtues are of more value than acquired learning. The Marchioness du Châtelet, who translated and annotated Newton's Principia, was one of these pedantic ladies who studied science that it might minister to vanity, and Madame de Stael, the bedchamber woman of the Duchess of Maine, well known by her lively Memoirs, has handed down some traits of her character, which should scare away imitators as the drunken slave scared Spartans from intoxication. She arrived on a visit at midnight, the day before she had settled to come, occupied the bed of another lady who was hastily displaced, complained of her accommodation, and tried a fresh room on the following night; and, still dissatisfied, inspected the whole of the house, to be sure of securing the best apartment it contained. Thither she ordered to be carried half the furniture of the place, chose not to appear till ten o'clock at night, when she made her company less agreeable than her absence, by her arrogance and dictation; could endure no noise, lest her ideas should be disarranged, and, some ink being spilt

VOL. LXXXIV.

13

We hope there are few specimens left of the sensual school who overlooked the highest part of man, and denied the utility of everything which did not minister to bodily comfort. It is inconceivable that any one of them could be consistent in the doctrine, could only see in a noble tree the materials for boards, food for cattle in the verdure of the field, and medicinal properties in the flowers of the garden; or, if such a man did really exist, he was a subject for compassion, not for argument. Tried by the mere test of pleasure, intellectual gratification is a deeper delight than corporal luxury. But natural philosophy combines both advantages in the highest degree. It has helped on the useful arts to that extent that there is hardly a philo sophical speculation which has not yielded, sooner or later, a substantial result, and added to the convenience or the indulgences of life. What can appear to concern less than the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, or the thousands of stars, which merely look like spangles in the sky; and yet both one and the other are made the means of determining the longitude at sea, of finding the road to any given place over the wide and pathless waste of waters. The niceties of astronomical observations are not within the compass of popular science. But without travelling out of our beat, it would be easy to show that an ordinary knowledge of philosophical truths has filled the world with substantial products. The greater part of the history of scientific civilization is lost, of course, in the night of time. aggregate result of improvement is apparent. From a rude hut, and a few rude utensils, we have advanced to a pitch of refinement

us

The