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Read Ebook: Yesterday's Revenge by Nichols H L Mirando Michael Illustrator
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Editor: William Chambers Robert Chambers
CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
HINTS ON THE USEFUL-KNOWLEDGE MOVEMENT.
The advocates of the diffusion of useful knowledge among the great body of the people, found one of their greatest difficulties to lie in an inability on the part of the people themselves to see what benefit they were to derive from the knowledge proposed to be imparted. This knowledge consisted of such a huge mass of facts of all kinds, that few could overcome a sense of hopelessness as attending every endeavour to acquire it. Take botany alone, it was said. You have a hundred thousand species of plants to become acquainted with--to learn their names, and to what genera and orders they belong, besides everything like a knowledge of their habitats, their properties, and their physiology. Seeing that this is but one of the sciences, there might well be a pause before admitting that the moral and intellectual regeneration of our people was to be brought about by the useful-knowledge movement.
There was here, however, a mistake on both hands, and one which we are only now beginning to appreciate. It was not observed at first, that there is a great distinction to be drawn between the relations of science to its cultivators or investigators, and those which it bears to the community at large. It is most important that a scientific zoologist like Mr Waterhouse, or a profound physiologist like Professor Owen, should determine and describe every species with the minutest care, even to the slightest peculiarities in the markings of a shell or the arrangements of a joint, because that exactness of description is necessary in the foundations of the science. But it is not necessary that every member of the public should follow the man of science into all these minutiae. It is not required of him, that he should have the names of even the seventy families of plants at his finger-ends, though that is not beyond the reach of most people. Some summation of the facts, some adroit generalisation, if such be attainable, is enough for him. The man of science is, as it were, a workman employed in rearing up a structure for the man of the world to look at or live in. The latter has no more necessary concern with the processes of investigation and compilation, than a gentleman has with the making of the mortar and hewing of the stones used in a house which he has ordered to be built for his residence.
This is putting the matter in its extreme form. We are entitled to suppose that the bulk of mankind have some time to spend on the acquirement of a knowledge of the natural system of things into which their Maker has thrown them. Grant a little time to such a science, for example, as botany; we would never attempt impressing a vast nomenclature upon them. We would give them at once more pleasure and more instruction in shewing some of the phenomena of vegetable physiology: fundamental and profoundly interesting matters, of which specific distinctions and external characters of all kinds are only accidental results--that is, results determined by the outer phenomena affecting the existence of plants. A single lesson on the profound wonders of morphology would go further, we verily believe, in making our pupil a man of science, than the committing of the whole Linnaean system to memory. In zoology, again, we would leave the endless details of minute description to the tomes of the scientific naturalist, and be content to sketch animals in broad masses--first, in regard to grades of organisation; and, second, in regard to family types. The Feline Animal, we say, is one idea of the Creator--a destructive creature of wonderful strength in comparison with its bulk--of immense agility, furtive in its movements, furnished with great powers for the destruction of others. Lion, tiger, panther, ounce, lynx, jaguar, cat, are all essentially one creature--not the slightest difference can be traced in their osteological structure, hardly any in their habits. Why dwell, then, on minutiae of external appearances, if time presses, and there be much of more importance to be learned? So, also, is the Cirrhopode one idea of the author of nature. You may find a very respectable quarto account of the family, tracing them in all their varieties; but a page might inform you of all that is essential about the barnacle, curious as its history has been, and you need not ponder on the quarto unless you have some particular curiosity to gratify. The Types of nature, both in her vegetable and animal departments are, after all, few. Describe each comprehensively, group them all in correct relations to each other, and display their various destinies and connections with the rest of creation, and you enable your pupil to learn in a few weeks more than Pliny mastered in a lifetime.
It appears to us that the reason why science is so coldly received in ordinary society is, that either by reason of its unripeness for generalisation, or of the tendency of its cultivators to keep continually analysing and multiplying facts, it has not in general been presented in propositions which the ordinary mind can comprehend or make use of. We should be loath to urge it into generalisations for which it was not prepared; but while this is duly avoided, we would have it to be somewhat more vigilant than it usually is, in taking opportunities of proceeding with those synthetical clumpings of facts which we conceive to be so essential, on mere grounds of convenience, to its success with the multitude. Better be a little dogmatical, than insupportably tedious. Better have your knowledge in some order, though not perhaps beyond correction, than in no order at all. It is to be feared, however, that the thing wanting is not the sufficiency of particulars out of which to make general or comprehensive truths, but that of the requisite intellectual power and habit on the part of the men of science. The constant working towards separate facts seems to disqualify the mind for grouping or clustering them. Hundreds can detect a new sphinx or butterfly in the fauna of a country or a county, and are content with such small results, for one who can lay a few facts together, and make one truth out of all. One could almost believe, that there is a greater want of comprehensive intellect in the walks of science, than in some other fields of labour which make less pretension to an exertion of the mental faculties: for example, merchandise. And does not that very appearance of continual peddling amongst trifles, in some degree prevent the highest kind of minds from going into the fields of science? There is here, it appears to us, a great error to be corrected.
We must recur after all to the maxim which it is mainly the object of this paper to impress--that judicious generalisation is the indispensable pre-requisite to a more general diffusion of knowledge. To bring it to an apothegm--Let the man of science in seeking to enlighten himself, pursue analysis; in seeking to enlighten the outer public, he has no chance but in synthesis.
FOOTNOTES:
We have much pleasure in acknowledging one instance of a movement in the right direction, in connection with the Museum of Economic Geology in London. While nothing can exceed the beauty of the arrangements in that institution, for enabling everybody that chooses to study the science from the actual objects, the professors have, during the last winter, come forward with supererogatory zeal to teach the working-classes, and to illustrate in every possible way the bearings of the subject upon the arts and economy of life.
THE FALSE HAIR:
A TALE.
'Pray remember, Monsieur Lagnier, that I wish particularly to go out this morning. It is now past one o'clock, and if you continue endeavouring to do what is quite impossible, my hair will never be dressed. You had much better plait it as usual.'
Adelaide de Varenne pronounced these words in a tone of pettishness very unusual with her, as, giving vent to a long sigh of impatience and weariness, she glanced hastily at the mirror on her toilet-table, and saw there reflected the busy fingers of M. Lagnier, the hairdresser, deliberately unfastening her hair, and preparing once more to attempt the arrangement, which repeated failures had declared to be an impossibility. He looked up, however, as he did so, and seemed to read the expression of her features, for a comic mixture of astonishment and dismay immediately overspread his own.
'Fifteen years,' he exclaimed, 'I have had the honour of daily attending mademoiselle, and she never was angry with me before! What can I have done to offend her?'
'Oh, nothing very serious,' replied the young girl, good-naturedly; 'but really I wish you would not dally so long. It is of very little consequence, I think, how one's hair is worn.'
'But you see it is impossible,' she said. 'I have so very little hair; and I am sure it is not my fault--nor,' she added archly, 'the fault of all those infallible pomades and essences recommended to me by somebody I know.' M. Lagnier looked embarrassed.
'Oh, I did not know there was any question of that!' and the young girl suddenly resumed an expres
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