Abstract
II.
WE now come to the second heading of our discourse, viz., the objects and aims of the experimental sciences, and the reason why we study them. Now the main object of science is the discovery of new truths, and the destruction of old errors. The human mind, much as it loves truth, has in the course, of ages given birth to an infinite number of fallacies, specially in regard to the operations of Nature. Fallacies handed down by tradition; fallacies elaborated in the mind of dreamers, and theorists, and believers in magic; fallacies founded upon inaccurate observation, false experiment, perverted reasoning; these have ever been the barriers which have most retarded the progress of true science; and the earlier natural philosophers had to contend against a mass of such pre-existent opinion and superstition. We can scarcely realise in the present day the amount of superstition which existed among all classes even two hundred years ago, and at an earlier period it was far more prevalent. That same Atha-nasius Kircher, who was before mentioned as the author of a book on light, and who also wrote on magnetism, gives a detailed account of an encounter with a dragon in one of the passes of the Alps, and illustrates his assertion by an exceedingly bold and imaginative woodcut. Metals were believed to be generated in the earth by tha action of the sun. Gold had a large proportion of condensed sunbeams. A mine when exhausted was closed, and re-opened after some years in the hope that the metal would have been produced in the meanwhile. Many —among them Cardanug—believed that metals and minerals possessed a kind of life, and that certain changes in them, such as conversion into calx, were the result of their death. The air was peopled with invisible demons, who wrought ail kinds of mischief, raised storms and whirlwinds, and warred against the works of man. Witches and wizards were in league with them, and could influence them, and were hence treated with extreme severity. In 1487 there was an unusually devastating storm in Switzerland, and two old women, who were believed to be witches, were arrested on the charge of having caused it. They of course denied the charge, but during the torment of the rack they confesssed they had raised the tempest. They were forthwith executed— “Convicta et combusta.” These cases were by no means, rare. Witches were believed to exist by the hundred and thousand, and to produce all kinds of supernatural effects. Pope Innocent VIII. issued a manifesto against them in 1488, and appointed inquisitors in all countries, armed with powers of arresting and punishing suspected sorcerers. In Geneva alone, no less than 500 persons were burned in 1515 and 1516. So late as the year 1716, two persons were executed in England for the practice of witchcraft. We can understand all this better if. we bear in mind how much superstition still exists in the world. Not to mention those things which appear under pseudo-scientific names, we find in many out-of-the-way villages, specially in Ireland, a very firm belief among the uneducated in the power of charms, and the existence of witches. In a village at far removed from the outer world, a witch has been pointed out to me, arid the laming of a horse and other disasters seriously attributed to her charge. Gaule, in his “Magastromancer,” gives a list of fifty-two forms of divination, and he has omitted at least six which are found in the works of other writers. Among other forms we have divining by ashes, by smoke, by the lees of wine, By cheese, by figs, by knives and saws; you will remember also some of the forms of divination practised by the Romans. But perhaps the delusion which has most militated against the growth and progress of true natural science has been alchemy-a false science which flourished for more than 800 years, and which was firmly believed in by thousands. The alchemists devote_d then- lives mainly to the search, for two palpable impossibilities; the Elixir Vitæ, which was believed to possess the power of conferring perpetual youth, and the Philosopher's Stone, which was believed to transmute everything that it touched into gold. The search for this substance, and the endeavours to make it by artificial means, occupied the attention of many notorious and eminent men. Albertus Magnus, who became Bishop of Ratisbon in 1259, and S. Thomas Aquinas, were particularly addicted to alchemy and magic. We hear most of their magical powers, although their writings on alchemy still remain. Between them they made a brazen statue and endowed it with the faculty of speech; but it was so garrulous that one day Thomas Aquinas, who was in vain trying to work out a mathematical problem, seized a hammer and destroyed it" at least, so say contemporary writers. Albertus Magnus once changed a severe winter into a most splendid summer within-the space of his garden. Detailed accounts exist of the transmutation of lead and tin into gold. Raymond Lully states in one of his works that he converted 50,000 Ibs; weight of quicksilver, lead, and pewter into gold. Pope John XXII. was a great alchemist, and had a laboratory at Avignon. He wrote a work on the transmutation of metals, and at his death left a sum of eighteen millions of florins, the existence of which according to contemporary alchemists, proved the possibility of transmutation. And thus one might continue to give a long list of known men who devoted themselves to these useless pursuits; and the unknown men could be counted by thousands. Here, then, we have some of the fallacies which it has been the object of science to disprove, and which, so long as they existed in full vigour, effectually prevented the progress of science. The disproval of these could only result in the discovery of new truths. There is an intense satisfaction in the discovery of absolute truth; truth which stands every opposition, which has been weighed in many balances and not found wanting; which has been submitted to every process of reasoning and of experiment, and has come out uninjured. Taking this discovery of new truths as the first and greatest aim of science, we may, perhaps, take next some of Francis Bacon's more practical ideas about the objects and aims of science; to increase man's sovereignty over Nature, to compel Nature to be subservient to his will, and to minister to his wants; to restore his lost sovereignty over Creation. And, indeed, when the new truths are discovered, they are soon applied to practical purposes, and to furthering the material good of mankind; but to study science with (his object alone is usually pernicious, and always to be avoided.
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On the Study of Science in Schools* . Nature 4, 455–456 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004455a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004455a0