To show the groundlessness of the notion that new ideas are not evolved and appreciated as much in England as else where, I am tempted here to enumerate our modern inven tions of all orders: from those directly aiming at material results, such as Trevethick's first locomotive, up to the calculat ing-machines of Babbage and the logic-machine of Jevons, quite remote from practice in their objects. But merely assert ing that those who go through the list will find that neither 202 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
in number nor in importance do they yield to those of any nation during- the same period, I refrain from details. Partly I do this because the space required for specifying them would be too great; and partly because inventions, mostly having immediate bearings on practice, would perhaps not be thought by Mr. Arnold to prove fertility of idea: though, considering that each machine is a theory before it becomes a working reality, this would be a position difficult to defend. To avoid all possible objection, I will limit myself to scientific dis covery, from which the element of practice is excluded; and to meet the impression that scientific discovery in recent days has not maintained its former pace, I will name only our achievements since 1800.
Taking first the Abstract Sciences, let us ask what has been done in Logic. We have the brief but pregnant statement of inductive methods by Sir John Herschel, leading to the defi nite systematization of them by Mr. Mill; and we have, in the work of Professor Bain, elaborately-illustrated applica tions of logical methods to science and to the business of life. Deductive Logic, too, has been developed by a further concep tion. The doctrine of the quantification of the predicate, set forth in 1827 by Mr. George Bentham, and again set forth under a numerical form by Professor De Morgan, is a doctrine supplementary to that of Aristotle; and the recognition of it has made it easier than before to see that Deductive Logic is a science of the relations implied by the inclusions, exclusions, and overlappings of classes.14 Even were this all, the instal ment of progress would be large for a single generation. But it is by no means all. In the work by Professor Boole, Inves tigation of the Laivs of Thought, the application to Logic of methods like those of Mathematics, constitutes another step far greater in originality and in importance than any taken since Aristotle. So that, strangely enough, the assertion quoted above, that " we are backward in appreciating and pur suing abstract knowledge," and this complaint of Mr. Arnold that our life is wanting in ideas, come at a time when we have lately done more to advance the most abstract and purely- ideal science, than has been done anywhere else, or during any past period!
In the other division of Abstract Science — Mathematics, a THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 203 recent revival of activity has brought results sufficiently striking. Though, during a long period, the bias of patriot ism and undue reverence for that form of the higher calculus which Newton initiated, greatly retarded us; yet since the re commencement of progress, some five-and-twenty years ago, Englishmen have again come to the front. Sir W. R. Hamil ton's method of Quaternions is a new instrument of research; and whether or not as valuable as some think, undoubtedly adds a large region to the world of known mathematical truth. And then, more important still, there are the achieve ments of Cayley and Sylvester in the creation and develop ment of the higher algebra. From competent and unbiassed judges I learn that the Theory of Invariants, and the methods of investigation which have grown out of it, constitute a step in mathematical progress larger than any made since the Dif ferential Calculus. Thus, without enumerating the minor achievements of others, there is ample proof that abstract science, of this order also, is nourishing among us in great vigour.
Nor, on passing to the Abstract-Concrete Sciences, do we find better ground for this belief entertained by Mr. Arnold and others. Though Huyghens conceived of light as constituted of undulations, yet he was wrong in conceiving the undula tions as allied in form to those of sound; and it remained for Dr. Young to establish the true theory. Respecting the prin ciple of interference of the rays of light propounded by Young, Sir John Herschel says, — " regarded as a physical law [it] has hardly its equal for beauty, simplicity, and extent of application, in the whole circle of science; " and of Young's all-important discovery that the luminiferous undulations are transverse not longitudinal, he says that it showed " a sagac ity which would have done honour to Newton himself." Just naming the discovery of the law of expansion of gases by Dalton, the laws of radiation by Leslie, the theory of dew by Wells, the discrimination by Wollaston of quantity and inten sity in electricity, and the disclosure of electrolysis by Nicholson and Carlisle (all of them cardinal discoveries) and passing over minor contributions to physical science, we come to the great contributions of Faraday — magneto-electricity, the quan titative law of electrolysis, the magnetization of light, and dia- 204 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
magnetism: not mentioning others of much significance. Next there is the great truth which men still living have finally established — the correlation and equivalence of the physical forces. In the establishment of this truth English men have had a large share — some think the larger share. Remembering that in England the conception of heat as a mode of motion dates from Bacon, by whom it was expressed with an insight that is marvellous considering the knowledge of his time — remembering, too, that " Locke stated a similar view with singular felicity; " we come, among Englishmen of the present century, first to Davy, whose experiments and arguments so conclusively supported those of Eumford; then to the view of Roget and the postulate on which Faraday habitually reasoned, that all force arises only as other force is expended; then to the essay of Grove, in which the origin of the various forms of force out of one another was abundantly exemplified; and finally to the investigations by which Joule established the quantitative relations between heat and mo tion. Without dwelling on the important deductions from this great truth made by Sir W. Thomson, Rankine, Tyndall, and others, I will merely draw attention to its highly-abstract nature as again showing the baselessness of the above-quoted notion.
Equally conclusive is the evidence wrhen we pass to Chem istry. The cardinal value of the step made by Dalton in 1808, when the apergu of Higgins was reduced by him to a scien tific form, will be seen on glancing into Wurtz' Introduction to Chemical Philosophy, and observing how the atomic theory underlies all subsequent chemical discovery. Nor, in more recent days, has the development of this theory fallen unduly into foreign hands. Prof. Williamson, by reconciling the theory of radicals with the theory of types, and by intro ducing the hypothesis of condensed molecular types, has taken a leading part in founding the modern views of chemical com binations. We come next to the cardinal conception of atom icity. In 1851, Prof. Frankland initiated the classification of the elements by their atomicities: his important interpretation being now avowedly accepted in Germany by those who orig inally disputed it; as by Kolbe in his Moden der Modernen Chemie. On turning from the more general chemical truths THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 205 to the more special chemical truths, a like history meets us. Davy's discovery of the metallic bases of the alkalies and earths, revolutionized chemists' ideas. Passing over many other achievements in special chemistry, I may single out for their significance, the discoveries of Andrews, Tait, and espe cially of Brodie, respecting the constitution of ozone as an allotropic form of oxygen; and may join with these Brodie's discoveries respecting the allotropic forms of carbon, as throw ing so much light on allotropy at large. And then we come to the all-important discoveries, general and special, of the late Prof. Graham. The truths he established respecting the hydration of compounds, the transpiration and the diffusion of liquids, the transpiration and the diffusion of gases, the dial ysis of liquids and the dialysis of gases, and the occlusion of gases by metals, are all of them cardinal truths. And even of still greater value is his luminous generalization respecting the crystalloid and colloid states of matter — a generalization which, besides throwing light on many other phenomena, has given us an insight into organic processes previously incom prehensible. These results, reached by his beautifully-coher ent series of researches extending over forty years, constitute a new revelation of the properties of matter.
Neither is it true that in advancing the Concrete Sciences we have failed to do our share. Take the first in order — As tronomy. Though, for the long period during which our mathematicians were behind, Planetary Astronomy progressed but little in England, and the development of the Newtonian theory was left chiefly to other nations, yet of late there has been no want of activity. When I have named the inverse prob lem of perturbations and the discovery of Neptune, the honour of which we share with the French, I have called to mind an achievement sufficiently remarkable. To Sidereal Astronomy we have made great contributions. Though the conception of Wright, of Durham, respecting stellar distribution was here so little attended to that when afterwards enunciated by Kant (who knew Wright's views) arid by Sir W. Herschel, it was credited to them; yet since Sir W. Herschel's time the re searches in Sidereal Astronomy by Sir John Herschel and others, have done much to further this division of the science. Quite recently the discoveries made by Mr. Huggins respect- 20G THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
ing the velocities with which certain stars are approaching us and others receding, have opened a new field of inquiry; and the inferences reached by Mr. Proctor respecting groupings of stars and the " drifting " of star-groups, now found to harmo nize with the results otherwise reached by Mr. Huggins, go far to help us in conceiving the constitution of our galaxy. Nor must we forget how much has been done towards explain ing the physical constitutions of the heavenly bodies, as well as their motions: the natures of nebula;, and the processes going on in Sun and stars, have been greatly elucidated by Huggins, Lockyer, and others.
In Geology, the progress made here, and especially the progress in geological theory, is certainly not less — good judges say much greater — than has been made elsewhere. Just noting that English Geology goes back to Ray, whose notions were far more philosophical than those set forth long after wards by Werner, we come to Hutton, with whom in fact ra tional Geology commences. For the untenable Neptunist hy pothesis, asserting a once-universal aqueous action unlike the present, Hutton substituted an aqueous action, marine and fluviatile, continuously operating as we now see it, antago nized by a periodic igneous action. He recognized denudation as producing mountains and valleys; he denied so-called primitive rocks; he asserted metamorphism; he taught the meaning of unconformity. Since his day rapid advances in the same direction had been made. William Smith, by estab lishing the order of superposition of strata throughout Eng land, prepared the way for positive generalization; and by showing that contained fossils are safer tests of correspondence among strata than mineral characters, laid the basis for subse quent classifications. The better data thus obtained, theory quickly turned to account. In his Principles of Geology, Lyell elaborately worked out the uiiiformitarian doctrine — the doctrine that the Earth's crust has been brought to its present complex structure by the continuous operation of forces like those we see still at work. More recently, Prof. Ramsay's theory of lake-formation by glaciers has helped in the inter pretation; and by him, as well as by Prof. Huxley, much has been done towards elucidating past distributions of continents and oceans. Let me name, too, Mallet's Theory of Earth- THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 207 quakes— the only scientific explanation of them yet given. And there must be added another fact of moment. Criticism has done far more here than abroad, towards overthrowing the crude hypothesis of universal " systems " of strata, which suc ceeded the still cruder hypothesis of universal strata, enun ciated by Werner.
That our contributions to Biological science have in these later times not been unimportant, may, I think, be also main tained. Just noting that the " natural system " of Plant- classification, though French by development is English by origin, since Kay made its first great division and sketched out some of its sub-divisions; we come, among English botan ists, to Brown. He made a series of investigations in the mor phology, classification, arid distribution of plants, which in number and importance have never been equalled: the Pro- dromus Florae Novce-Hollandice is the greatest achievement in classification since Jussieu's Natural Orders. Brown, too, it was who solved the mystery of plant-fertilization. Again, there is the conception that existing plant-distribution has been determined by past geological and physical changes — a conception we owe to Dr. Hooker, who has given us sundry wide interpretations in pursuance of it. In Animal-physiology there is Sir Charles Bell's discovery respecting the sensory and motor functions of the nerve-roots in the spinal cord; and this underlies multitudinous interpretations of organic phe nomena. More recently we have had Mr. Darwin's great addi tion to biological science. Following in the steps of his grandfather, who had anticipated Lamarck in enunciating the general conception of the genesis of organic forms by adap tive modifications, but had not worked out the conception as Lamarck did, Mr. Darwin, perceiving that both of them were mistaken in attributing the modifications to causes which, though some of them true, were inadequate to account for all the effects, succeeded, by recognizing the further cause he called Natural Selection, in raising the hypothesis from a form but partially tenable to a quite tenable form. This view of his, so admirably worked out, has been adopted by the great ma jority of naturalists; and, by making the process of organic evolution more comprehensible, it is revolutionizing biological conceptions throughout the world. In the words of Professor 208 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
Cohn, " no book of recent times lias influenced the concep tions of modern science like the first edition of Charles Dar win's Origin of Species."16 Nor should we overlook the vari ous kindred minor discoveries, partly dependent, partly in dependent: Mr. Darwin's own respecting the dimorphism of flowers; Mr. Bates's beautiful interpretation of mimicry in in sects, which led the way to many allied interpretations; Mr. Wallace's explanations of dimorphism and polymorphism in Lepidoptera. Finally, Professor Huxley, besides dissipat ing some serious biological errors of continental origin, has made important contributions to morphology and classifica tion.
Nor does the balance turn against us on passing to the next- highest concrete science. After those earlier inquiries by which Englishmen so largely advanced the Science of Mind, and set up much of the speculation subsequently active in France and Germany, there came a lull in English thinking; and during this arose the absurd notion that the English are not a philosophical people. But the lull, ending some forty years ago, gave place to an activity which has quickly made up for lost time. On this point I need not rest in assertion, but will quote foreign testimony. The first chapter of Prof. Eibot's work, La Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine be gins thus: — " ' Le sceptre de la psychologic, dit M. Stuart Mill, est decidement revenu a PAngleterre.' On pourrait soutenir qu'il n'cn est janmis sorti. Sans doute, les etudes psychologiques y sont maintenant cul- tivees par des hommes de premier ordre qui, par la solidite de leur methode, et ce qui est plus rare, par la precision de leurs resultats, out fait entrer la science dans une periode nouvelle; mais c'est plutot un redoublement qu'un renouvellement d'eclat."
Similarly, on turning to Ethics considered under its psycho logical aspect, we find foreign testimony that English thinkers have done most towards the elaboration of a scientific system. In the preface to his late work, La Morale nella Filosofia Positiva (meaning by " Positiva" simply scientific), Prof. Barzellotti, of Florence, states that for this reason he limits himself to an account of English speculation in this depart ment."
And then, if, instead of Psychology and Ethics, Philosophy THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 209 at large comes in question, there is independent testimony of kindred nature to be cited. Thus, in the first number of La Critique Philosophique (8 Fevrier, 1872), published under the direction of M. Renouvier, the acting editor, M. Pillon, writes: — " On travaille beaucoup dans le champ des idees en Angleterre..." Non-seulement 1'Angleterre surpasse la France par 1'ardeur et le tra vail, ce qui est malheureusement bien peu dire, et par Finteret des in vestigations et des debats de ses penseurs, mais meme elle laisse loin derriere elle 1'Allemagne en ce dernier point."
And still more recently M. Martins, in the leading French periodical, has been referring to — "les nouvelles idees nees dans la libre Angleterre et appelees a transformer un jour les sciences naturelles." 17 So that while Mr. Arnold is lamenting the want of ideas in England, it is discovered abroad that the genesis of ideas in England is very active. While he thinks our conceptions are commonplace, our neighbours find them new, to the extent of being revolutionary. Oddly enough, at the very time when he is reproaching his countrymen with lack of geist French men are asserting that there is more geist here than anywhere else! Nor is there wanting testimony of kindred nature from other nations. In the lecture above cited, Dr. Cohn, while claiming for Germany a superiority in the number of her earnest workers, says that " England especially has always been, and is particularly now, rich in men whose scientific works are remarkable for their astonishing laboriousness, clearness, profundity, and independence of thought " — a further recognition of the truth that instead of merely plod ding along the old ruts, the English strike out new tracks: are unusually imaginative.
In his essay on the " Functions of Criticism at the Present Time," Mr. Arnold insists that the thing most needful for us now, in all branches of knowledge, is " to see the object as in itself it really is "; and in Friendship's Garland, his alter ego, Arminius, exhorts our Philistinism "to search and not rest till it sees things more as they really are." Above, I have done that which Mr. Arnold urges; not by picking-up stray facts, but by a systematic examination. Feeling sure that Mr. Arnold has himself taken the course he advises, and is there- 15 210 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
fore familiar with all this evidence, as well as with the large quantity which might be added, I am somewhat puzzled on finding him draw from it a conclusion so different from that which presents itself to me. Were any one, proceeding on the foregoing data, to assert that since the beginning of this cen tury, more lias been done in England to advance scientific knowledge than has ever been done in a like interval, at any time, in any country, I should think his inference less wide of the truth than that which, strange to say, Mr. Arnold draws from the same data.
And now to consider that which more immediately con cerns us — the effect produced by the bias of anti-patriotism on sociological speculation. Whether in Mr. Arnold, whom I have ventured to take as a type, the leaning towards national self-depreciation was primary and the over- valuing of foreign institutions secondary, or whether his admiration of foreign institutions was the cause and his tendency to depreciatory estimates of our social state the effect, is a question which may be left open. For present purposes it suffices to observe that the two go together. Mr. Arnold is impatient with the unregulated and. as he thinks, anarchic state of our society; and everywhere displays a longing for more administrative and controlling agencies. " Force till right is ready," is one of the sayings he emphatically repeats: apparently in the be lief that there can be a sudden transition from a coercive sys tem to a non-coercive one — ignoring the truth that there has to bo a continually-changing compromise between force and right, during which force decreases step by step as right in creases step by step, and during which every step brings some temporary evil along with its ultimate good. Thinking more force needful for us, and lauding institutions which exercise it, Mr. Arnold holds that even in our literature we should benefit by being under authoritative direction. Though he is not of opinion that an Academy would succeed here, he casts longing glances at the French Academy, and wishes we could have had over us an influence like that to which he ascribes certain excellencies in French literature.
The French Academy was established, as he points out, " to work with all the care and all the diligence possible at THE BIAS OP PATRIOTISM. 211 giving sure rules to our "the French] language, and rendering it pore, eloquent, and capable of treating' the arts and sci ences." Let us consider whether it has fulfilled this in tention, by removing the most conspicuous defects of the Ian- Down to the present time, there is in daily use the expression quest ce que c'est! and even qu'est ce que c'est que cela * If in some remote corner of England is heard the analogous expression, — >k what is that there here? " it is held to imply entire absence of culture: the use of two super fluous words proves a want of that close adjustment of lan guage to thought which even partially-educated persons among us have reached. How is it. then, that though in. this French phrase there are five superfluous words (or six if we take cela as twoX the purifying criticism of the French Academy has not removed it from French speech — not even from the speech of the educated? Or why. again, has the Academy not condemned, forbidden, and so expelled from the language, the double negative? If among ourselves any one lets drop the sentence. " I didn't say nothing.'' the in evitable inference is that he has lived with the ill-taught: and. further, that in his mind words and ideas answer to one another very loosely. Though in French the second negative is by derivation positive, yet in acquiring a negative mean ing it became alike superfluous and illogical; and its use should then have been interdicted, instead of being en forced. Once more, why has not the French Academy systematized the senders? No one who considers language as an instrument of thought, which is good in proportion as its special parts are definitely adjusted to special functions, can doubt that a meaningless use of genders is a defect. It is undeniable that to employ marks of gender in ways always suggesting attributes that are possessed, instead of usually suggesting attributes that are not possessed, is an improvement. Having an example of this improvement before them, why did not the Academy introduce it -into French? And then — more significant question still — how, without the aid of any Academy, came the genders to be systematized in Eng lish? Mr. Arnold, and those who. in common with him. seem to believe only in agencies that have visible organizations, might, perhaps, in seeking the answer to this question, lose 212 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
faith in artificial appliances and gain faith in natural pro cesses. For as, on asking the origin of language in general, we are reminded that all its complex, marvellously-adjusted parts and arrangements have been evolved without the aid or oversight of any embodied power, Academic or other; so, on asking the origin of this particular improvement in language, we find that it, too, arose naturally. Nay, more, it was made possible by one of those anarchic states which Mr. Arnold so much dislikes. Out of the conflict of Old-English dialects, sufficiently allied to co-operate but sufficiently different to have contradictory marks of gender, there came a disuse of meaningless genders and a survival of the genders having meaning — a change which an Academy, had one existed here in those days, would doubtless have done its best to prevent; seeing that during the transition there must have been a dis regard of rules and apparent corruption of speech, out of which no benefit could have been anticipated.
Another fact respecting the French Academy is by no means congruous with Mr. Arnold's conception of its value. The compiling of an authoritative dictionary was a fit under taking for it. Just recalling the well-known contrast between its dilatory execution of this undertaking, and the active exe cution of a kindred one by Dr. Johnson, we have more espe cially to note the recent like contrast between the perform ances of the Academy and the performances of M. Littre. The Academy has long had in hand two dictionaries— the one a second edition of its original dictionary, the other an his torical dictionary. The first is at letter D; and the initial number of the other, containing A — B, issued fifteen years ago, has not yet had a successor. Meanwhile, M. Littre, single-handed, has completed a dictionary which, besides doing all that the two Academy-dictionaries propose to do, does much more. With which marvellous contrast we have to join the startling fact, that M. Littre was refused admission to the Academy in 1863, and at length admitted in 1871 only after violent opposition.