Popular Science Monthly/Volume 64/January 1904/The Progress of Science
Herbert Spencer when 76
HERBERT SPENCER.
The world loses one of its few great men in the death of Herbert Spencer. Thirty years ago there lived and worked in Great Britain a notable group of leaders—Darwin, Huxley, Browning, Tennyson, Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, Gladstone and many more. One by one they have died, each time leaving an empty space that remains unfilled. We have still Kelvin, Watts, Swinburne and Meredith, but the voices of the Victorian era are now nearly silent. It is perhaps needful to go back to the Elizabethan age for a period of parallel efflorescence; and it may be that such will not again recur even after three hundred years.
Spencer believed in universal evolution rather than in miracles wrought by the individual; and it is certainly true that his own work was the result rather than the cause of certain leading tendencies of the nineteenth century. Evolution and the conservation of energy are the great legacy handed on to the twentieth century, no longer speculations of the philosophers, but part of the real life of every one. Spencer more completely and more perfectly than any other represented these truths and made them our common heritage. In the preface to the fourth edition of the 'First Principles,' he explains that the doctrine of evolution was maintained by him two or even four years before the publication of the 'Origin of Species.' As a matter of fact the idea of world evolution goes back almost to the beginning of thought; it is clearly stated for inorganic matter and living things by the Greek philosophers and again by Kant, Laplace, Goethe and Lamarck. It is a question whether even Darwin's 'natural selection,' which does not after all play a leading part in Spencer's philosophy, can not be found in Aristotle. Evolution was clearly 'in the air' in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Thus before Darwin or Spencer, Tennyson wrote and printed the line verses:
'So careful of the type?' but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.'
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The solid earth whereon we tread
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man.
Of these ideas Spencer became the leading representative, his bold formulas appealing directly to the people to an extent that could not be expected of Darwin's patient investigations. The methods of the two men are compared in a letter from Darwin to John Fiske:
I find that my mind is so fixed by the inductive method that I can not appreciate deductive reasoning: I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please. This may be very narrow-minded; but the result is that such parts of H. Spencer as I have read with care impress my mind with the idea of his inexhaustible wealth of suggestion, but never convince me.
If others were as frank as Darwin, many would say with him: "With the exception of special points I did not even understand H. Spencer's general doctrine; for his style is too hard work for me." But Spencer appealed to the emotions as well as to the intellect. His work justified the abandonment of certain narrow dogmas, which left an exhilarating sense of emancipation. There was more truly a Spencerian religion than any resulting from the positivism of Comte. This was particularly the case in America, and The Popular Science Monthly was largely responsible. Spencer opened the first volume in 1872, and contributed in all ninety-one articles. The editorial writings of E. L. and W. J. Youmans were always enthusiastically loyal to the Spencerian doctrines and the Spencerian religion. No greater service could at the time have been performed for the freedom of thought and the progress of civilization.
But the great representative of evolution, though he may be interpreted as regarding his own doctrines as final, must surely have rejoiced in the further progress of science and of thought. His works on biology and on psychology have been superseded. He clearly represented the conflicting tendencies of his age. He devoted his life to what is perhaps the last great system of synthetic philosophy, when the inductive sciences were becoming predominant. He was an ardent individualist, while advocating a theory that subordinates the individual to the world pattern. He leaves the problems of idealism and materialism face to face.
It is not necessary to enter here into details in regard to Spencer's life. Very characteristically he has left his autobiography stereotyped and ready for the press. A sketch with his portrait will be found in the issue of this magazine for March, 1876. We reproduce as a frontispiece, by the courtesy of Messrs. D. Appleton and Company, an engraving of a bust of Spencer at the age of seventy-six, modeled by Mr. Onslow Ford and presented to him by his admirers. Spencer's life was at once formal and heroic. Burdened by ill-health and comparative poverty, he would dictate to an amanuensis for fifteen minutes at a time, resulting in a productivity of some 300 words a day. Without family or intimate friends, he led a lonely life. But he never faltered in his devotion to his plans and ideals. After eighty-three years he is now dead; but his work is immortal, not only in the history of thought, but also in
The choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
THE CONVOCATION WEEK MEETINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
Those readers of this journal who are interested in the organization of science will remember that American scientific societies and institutions of learning have set aside the week in which the first day of January falls as a time of convocation for scientific meetings. Until last year the American Association for the Advancement of Science and its affiliated societies met in midsummer, while the American Society of Naturalists and a number of societies devoted to the biological sciences met in the Christmas holidays. Certain societies, such as the American Chemical Society and the Geological Society of America, held meetings at both times. All these societies met together last year at Washington during convocation week, making the largest and most influential gathering of scientific men that this country has witnessed.
There will this year be a certain amount of division. The American Association and the Naturalists with twenty affiliated societies will meet at St. Louis. The Zoologists and four other societies concerned with biology will meet at Philadelphia, and the Philosophical Association will meet at Princeton. The Economists and Historians, who have not as yet become affiliated with the scientific societies, will meet at New Orleans. It seems evident that the American Association must be a national organization and that there should be societies for the different sciences which are national in scope. Owing to the great area of the country these societies must be broken up into sections; but the most efficient form of organization has still to be worked out. A general meeting of the scientific men of the country appears to be essential; but it is possible that this can only take place once in three years, the meetings being more local in the intervening years. There should, however, be one central place of meeting each year, where the societies of the whole country can be represented by delegates, should a plebiscite be impossible. It has been agreed that for the present this general meeting should be in the eastern states twice and in the central or western states once in three years.
The general meeting is this year at St. Louis, and it will doubtless rival in interest and importance the Washington meeting. Counting the sections of the American Association, there will be at least thirty scientific organizations in session, and the officers alone make a representative body of scientific men. The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor and president of Clark College, presides over the association, and Dr. Ira Remsen, president of the Johns Hopkins University, gives the address of the retiring president. Professor William Trelease, director of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, gives the presidential address before the Society of Naturalists, and the public lecture is to be delivered by President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University. It would require many pages to give details of the programs; they will be found in part in recent numbers of Science and in the local program issued by the association. The latter can be obtained from the permanent secretary. Dr. L. 0. Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C, to whom also applications for membership should be addressed. All scientific workers in the central states and also those interested in science not now members should make the St. Louis meeting the occasion of acquiring membership.
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION.
The trustees of the Carnegie Institution held their second annual meeting at Washington on December 9. Nothing that has become known in regard to this meeting will tend to allay the anxiety with, which men of science are watching the administration of this great trust. It is reported that Dr. Oilman presented a letter to the trustees announcing his intention to resign the presidency at the close of next year. The institution will consequently drift along for another year, and its immediate future will in large measure depend on the president then chosen. There is no reason to doubt the ultimate outcome, and even the present conditions are only what might have been expected. Special creations are no longer regarded as feasible. The reply may be called to mind of the little boy, who on being asked who made him, said 'God made me one foot big, and I growed the rest.' A new foundation such as Mr. Carnegie's can only gradually become a true organism adjusted to the environment.
Mr. Carnegie's original plan of establishing a research university at Washington was comparatively plain sailing. The trustees are now divided as to policy, some wishing to establish certain laboratories at Washington, and others perferring to distribute subsidies throughout the country. The latter plan has been adopted; it has the obvious advantage of not committing the institution as to the future. No special objection can be made to the way the subsidies have been allotted. It is quite certain, for example, that the Harvard, Lick, Yerkes, Dudley and Princeton Observatories can spend to advantage any money that may be entrusted to them. Almost any grant for research made to men of science of established reputation will bear fruit a hundredfold. There is, however, an obverse to the shield. Such grants inhibit individual initiative and local support; they are likely to produce a certain subserviency to the powers that deal out money, and may lead to jealousy and intrigues.
It is perhaps scarcely fair to object to a board of trustees consisting chiefly of prominent politicians, lawyers and business men, who meet once a year, and can not be expected to give much attention to the affairs of a scientific institution, nor to have much knowledge of its scope and possibilities. Such boards are an established American institution, controlling universities, banks, etc. Their principal duty is to select efficient officers of administration. But the Carnegie Institution has been unfortunate in its first officers. Three men were largely instrumental in persuading Mr. Carnegie to make the original gift, and they have assumed control of its administration. This triumvirate has been at the same time autocratic and feeble, and has by no means worked in harmony. Antony may be supposed to say to Octavius:
And though we lay these honors on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers sland'rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold.
To groan and sweat under the business.
Either led or driven, as we point the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will.
Then take we down his load, and turn him off.
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,
And graze in commons.
Whether after the ensuing war Antony, Octavius or another will or should become Cæsar need not here be considered; but in the meanwhile and perhaps thereafter science will suffer. The fundamental difficulty is that no method has been found for consulting the consensus of opinion of scientific men. An American university has an absentee board in nominal control and a president as benevolent despot; but there is a faculty, which after all is the real university. The Carnegie Institution has no similar body; and until it is formed, it will drift along without compass or rudder.
BOTANY IN THE PHILIPPINES.
Whatever opinion may be held in regard to the advantages or dangers connected with the acquirement of the Philippines by the United States, there is no doubt but that it will result in the extension of scientific knowledge. An Insular Bureau of Government Laboratories has been organized under the direction of Professor Paul C. Freer, of the University of Michigan, and a Bureau of Agriculture under the direction of
Dr. F. Lamson-Scribner, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and scientific work is being done in other directions. The National Academy of Sciences last spring outlined, at the request of the President, a plan for a scientific survey of the islands, and this is being carried forward in all directions. The Bureau of Agriculture has already issued eight 'Farmers Bulletins' and four 'Scientific Bulletins,' the last of which, entitled ' Botanical Work in the Philippines,' by Mr. Elmer D. Merrill, gives an interesting account of the history of botany in the islands. Prior to the advent of the Americans, various travelers had made collections in the islands, and a certain amount of work had been accomplished by the priests; but the apathy of the Spanish government is in remarkable contrast to the present activity. The priests in the early centuries were chiefly interested in collecting medicinal plants, but Manuel Blanco published a flora of the Philippines extending to 887 pages in 1837, and a revised edition by Fernandez-Villar was published in Manila between 1877 and 1883. Blanco's original work is said to be very faulty, so that De Candolle regretted that he had not confined himself 10 writing sermons, and the later revision, prepared without reference to existing types or authentic botanical material, will retard rather than advance the science of botany.
In 1873 Domingo Vidal went to the islands and became director of the Botanical Garden, and after his death in 1878 he was succeeded by his brother Sebastian Vidal. The latter, who died in 1889 at the age of forty-seven years, appears to have been the ablest of Spanish botanists who have worked on the Philippine flora. He was greatly respected, both as a botanist and as a man, and a life-size statue, which is here reproduced, was erected by his friends in the center of the Botanical Garden.
The garden is said to have an unsatisfactory situation, being only a few feet above the level of the sea, with no
protection from the fierce gales that sweep across the bay in the typhoon season, and it is now being developed as a park. It is to be hoped, however, that a botanical garden and experiment station will be established at a higher elevation. Since the organization of the Bureaus of Agriculture and Forestry last year, considerable progress has been made in the study of the botany of the islands, herbaria containing about 5,000 specimens having been made. The New York Botanical Garden has sent a special agent to the islands, and it is probable that more knowledge will be secured of the botany of the Philippines during the next ten years than during the preceding four hundred years of Spanish rule.
HENRY BARKER HILL.
We reproduce above a portrait of Henry Baker Hill, whose death was a serious loss to Harvard University and the science of chemistry and who died at the comparatively early age of fifty-four years. Hill inherited his intellectual and academic interests, his father being president of Harvard University, and he early selected chemistry as his special field, his commencement oration being entitled 'The New Philosophy of Chemistry.' He was a student under and assistant to Professor Josiah P. Cooke, who first introduced laboratory methods of instruction, and when he himself became professor and director of the laboratory, he maintained its high traditions. Hill's research work was very special in character, being almost exclusively confined to the group of substances derived, from furfurol; but the thoroughness and exactness of these investigations take high place as contributions to the development of organic chemistry.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS.
We regret to record the deaths, during the past month of Dr. H. Carrington Bolton, of Washington, well-known as a chemist and bibliographer; of Dr. Frank Russell, of Harvard University, a student of anthropology; of Dr. Cloudsley Rutter, of the Bureau of Fisheries; of Mr. Marcus Baker, of the U. S. Geological Survey and assistant secretary of the Carnegie Institution; of Professor Arthur Allin, head of the Department of Psychology and Education at the University of Colorado, and of Dr. George J. Engelmann, the eminent physician and gynecologist. The Popular Science Monthly has very recently published contributions from Dr. Bolton, Dr. Engelmann and Dr. Rutter.
The following is a list of those to whom the Royal Society has this year awarded medals-The Copley medal to Professor Eduard Suess for his eminent geological services, and especially for the original researches and conclusions published in his great work 'Das Antlitz der Erde.' A royal medal to Sir David Gill for his researches in solar and stellar parallax, and his energetic direction of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. A royal medal to Mr. Horace T. Brown for his work on the chemistry of the carbohydrates and on the assimilation of carbonic acid by green plants. The Davy medal to M. Pierre and Madame Curie for their researches on radium. The Hughes medal to Professor Wilhelm Hittorf for his long continued experimental researches on the electric discharge in liquids and gases.
William Gilson Farlow
Professor of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University.
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.