Heroes of Science: Mechanicians

Abstract

IN this volume short histories are given of the following inventors:—Watt, George Stephenson, Richard Arkwright, Crompton, Maudsley, Joseph Clement, James Nasmyth, Whitworth, and Babbage. The facts told of the lives of these men have been gathered from reliable sources and are accurate. It is unfortunate that Prof. Lewis did not introduce more of these facts in his book instead of using up its very limited space by inserting an inordinate amount of moralising, which is extremely tantalising, and makes it often difficult to proceed owing to the impatience which it causes. No words that could be used by way of reflection, even by a great writer, could add much to the moral stimulus afforded by the simple narrative of the lives of men like Watt and Stephenson, and the style which we encounter here, although often very ambitious, signally fails in attaining its mark and, instead of increasing our admiration for the men described, adds an unwelcome tinge of the ridiculous to the account. Thus in describing the early life of Arkwright we meet with these sentences amongst others:—“Before this he was probably as well off as most itinerant dealers in hair of his rank, but this first decisive step of his” [that from a village barber to a dealer in hair] “was enough to show that he could be dominated by an idea even to the length of relinquishing some certainties of advantage.” “Whilst he was doing his unexciting work of preparing orderly cover for the outside of other men's heads” [this means making wigs] “he was—apparently too without much mental excitement—introducing order and exercising thought in the interior of his own; in consequence of which it appears that, whatever he did in those days to cover the heads of thinking and thoughtless men and women with a fair show of hair, he has done more for us in providing for the inside of ours some furniture of profitable thought,” &c.

Heroes of Science: Mechanicians.

By T. C. Lewis (London: Published under the direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884.)