Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.

The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression, which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be entirely lost.

In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase, although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity, the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others—the different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to different minds—the unwillingness which the mind experiences in renouncing published but erroneous opinions—are points of human weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care. Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants on the arenæ of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate, unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination, seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.

Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the Patent law—a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the practical working of it be useful, either to science or its cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must the first expense of a patent be incurred—no inconsiderable one either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape litigation—but a large sum of money must be invested in advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision, that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.

According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work out his discovery of the electrotype—we say doubtful; for, as far as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it; and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre. Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified, that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of science, which is the point of view in which we here principally regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes no debt.

We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the Edinburgh Review, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's) photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the Rumford medals for the last biennial period."24

The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded, the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however, against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made the subject of a patent—but it certainly should not bestow an honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have published his paper and not awarded him a medal.

Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some features in which England differs not from other countries; there are others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other countries:—"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity, blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy; when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign lands?"25

This, to be sure, is somewhat "tumultuous." We do not, however, cite it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding quære is open to doubt—England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are the soldiers of science militant less honoured or rewarded. It is no uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a republican or constitutional government, politics are the all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme of conversation;—in purely despotic states, such discussions are prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual energies of a people.

We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a promoter of physical science.

In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results; researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate, instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than any other European nation; the æsthetical power which enables them to seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators. The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional—too much selon les règles; there are too many minutiæ; the reader is tempted to exclaim with Jacques—"I think of as many matters as he; but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper in the Annales de Chimie, containing some chemical researches, in which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next, is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to think a paper per annum, good or bad, necessary to indicate their philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still, in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition, if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions; and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.

Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark—for their population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy—in Italy science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit—in which laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention; America and Russia come next—the former state is zealous, ready at practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native philosophers—her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but the emperor's zeal and patronage (a word which we scarcely like to apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general character of each people than to classify them according as they may happen to be the birthplace of those

"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."

A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of Mr Carlyle:—"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it? Whence comes it? Where goes it?"26

However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that in themselves theories are nothing—that they are but collations of phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect, all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.

If not theory but hypothesis be objected to—not the imperfect generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two fluids of electricity, we should not now possess many of the discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not, and probably never shall, know what electricity is.

On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end, which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.

Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena, enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good—they do not always end with experiment.

As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * * the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and make it current here."27

As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the kings of science—those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.

"Si forte necesse estIndiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegisContinget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."

But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint; and although their several coins do not pass current very generally, yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance, "idiopts," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more numerous and more unfortunate class—the word physicists, where four sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We may take, as an instance, platinode, Spanish-American joined to ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate of ammonia—oxi-sulphion of ammonium—sulphat-oxide of ammonium—three names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England. In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following passage:—"It should be remarked that some chemists designate artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville calls it bihydrochlorate of térèbène, and Souberaine and Capelaine call it hydrochlorate of pencylène."

So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous words might be cited which are names for non-existences—mere hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final; otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in framing ad libitum a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.

Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary, aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable—perhaps, indeed, it will be so, give but the time proportionably requisite to master its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulæ of an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally high with the critical knowledge of the digamma or the à priori philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic? Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline; but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning, could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford, instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.