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544 The Leader and Saturday Analyst. [Ju...
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OKIGINALITY. A S might be expected, a re...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Glaciees In Winter. • \Resterday Week Pr...
nected it with a similar hollow sound produced by striking a mass of vesicular rock in Naples or Sicily—we forget which he said . He attributed the effect in both cases to a reinforcement of the original sound by echo or reverberation from a multitude of particles , and made two or three . experiments to show how echoes were able to make small sounds audible all over the theatre of the institution , although without such aid they were too feeble to be heard . Having arrived at a convenient station , Professor Tyndall erected a theodolite , and caused a row of stakes to be placed across the glacier in a perfectly straight-line . This process involved some danger , and would have been fatal if pi-ecautions had not been taken to secure
the man who fixed the stakes to three other guides , who might pull him up if he fell through the treacherous crust on which he trod . On one occasion these arrangements proved both necessary and effective ; for while the Professor was looking at him , the man suddenly disappeared , and must have been lost if his companions bad not drawn him up again from the crevasse into which he had accidentally fallen . The snowstorms came in fitful drifts , and sometimes rendered portions of the scene invisible , while the adjacent parts were brilliantly lit up . After much labour all the stakes were placed , and being arranged exactly at right angles to the direction of the glacier ' s slope , any motion of the mass would be indicated by
their change of place . , . The lapse of a few hours demonstrated the fact of which the Professor was in search ; all the posts were carried down by the ice stream , and those in the centre more rapidly than those at the sides . Tims the phenomena known to occur in summer , were found to happen in the depth of winter : the plastic power of glacial ice was preserved at a temperature considerably below zero , and the muss moved like the waters of au ordinary river , quickest in the centre and slower at the sides , where more friction took place . The Professor described the scene as far grander than in summer ; and when the sun began to sink , the gorgeous masses of flame colour contrasted with the clear deep blue of the sky , and were brilliantly reflected from the icy peaks . Ne ^ vton ' s theory of the blue Colour
of the clear atmosphere and of the hues of clouds was illustrated by some well-contrived experiments , tending to show that the blue was the resultof reflection from thin films or particles ofMoisture , and that the other colours weret produced by varyinglhicknesses of vaporous films . <* oethe'sideas were likewise noticed , and the value of ~ his observations ^ ully admittedr although his theory was a mistake . The great poet-philosopher thought that light and darkness were , so to speak , the opposite poles of light ^ and that turbidity was-a sort of middle term . If darkness was looked at through" : a turbid medium ^ blue was the result—rif through one more turbid , yellow this
or red , until' at last no light at all appeared . From -hypothesis Goethe supposed the blue of the sky to be occasioned by looking at the blackness of space through a turbid medium-of the atmosphere , smd was confirmed in his idea by many observations , one of which was narrated by the lecturer . It appeared that a certain picture at Weimar , representing a grave person in a solemn black dress , had been washed , and as soon as the moisture made the varnish turbid the old gentleman appeared in a suit of blue plush , which disappeared to give place to his original costume as the surface of . the picture got dry . Professor Tyn dall gave numerous experimental illustrations 6 f ^ lre-- ^ 'ml n ^ ticm- ^ f ^ -blue ^ oloiH ^ by
renection from fine particles , such as those precipitated when a few drops of an alcoholic solution of resin are added to water , and closed his lecture amid general applause .
544 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Ju...
544 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ June 9 , 1860 .
Okiginality. A S Might Be Expected, A Re...
OKIGINALITY . A S might be expected , a reaction is taking place to the great impulse education has been receiving from the upper classes in England during the last few years . We hear that there is too much reading , that originality is being destroyed , and that mediocrity prevuils . These sentiments at present find vent chiefly among the ultra-refined classes ; we do not regard them as one of those affectations which occasionally possess that body , but rather as the form of expression a vague idea has assumed—that we are cramming the youth of England rather than educating them . In order to examine the subject fairly , let us inquire , Can there be too much reading ? Is the advance of learning calculated to suppress originality P We shall treat reading , knowledge , and education , as synonymous terms , for our remarks are not intended to apply to such persons as are incapable of deriving information from the contents of books . Originality we take to be the possession of a creative quality of the mind " that is absolutely independent of all ideas that have preceded it ; and we take leave to remark that there is something very indefinite about the ordinary application of the term . la it
originality of design , of thought , of observation , or ot language , that is meant P They are all distinct qualities , though strongly allied , and very frequently , but not always , co-existent in the same person . Thus originality of design , which we understand as the invention of some n « w form or , combination tbM ^ may or may not be combined with originality of languago . An original thinker is one whose thoughts , When brought to bear upon a certain subject , take a direction which is entirely independent of the thoughts of others that have gone before ; he begets a new < WA ]< mm < mt of the subiect . Originality of observation takes the
form of an uncommon sense of the appearances and relations of familiar objects ; while originality of language is the power of expressing , " in a fresh and forcible manner , the ideas that have arisen in the mind in relation to the foregoing subjects . Is education , then , opposed to originality of design P Great designs have undoubtedly sprung from illiterate persons . Mr . Smiles
may point with pride to the prodigious undertakings of men in humble life ; their inventions , perhaps , would never have been given to the world had they been born in another sphere— -but that is not the question . Would those undertakings have been less complete or less important if the inventors had known more ? Were not the designs actually impeded by the want of knowledge of the designers , not only of the forces and materials they were using , but of ^ the means of making known to their fellow-creatures the results of their labours ? - . V Does reading suppress novelty of thought ? In this case thera tat
appears more reason for doubt . It may be said with truth h those who are accustomed to make continual use of the thoughts of others , are very apt , unconsciously , or to save themselves trouble , to adopt such thoughts in lieu of their own . Undeniably , many very great thinkers have been men of apparently little education . Shakspeaee will at once occur as the popular instance ? but was Shakspeaee uneducated ? We cannot allow that the man who reflected every form of human thought and action in his own person , who was philosopher , scholar , sailor , ecclesiastic , lawyer , horse dealer , " all mankind ' s epitome , " was an uneducated man ; he must have been one of the greatest readers of any age , as he was
one of the most original thinkers . In many minds there is an impression that there may be an education formed upon the study of nature and of mankind , distinct and apart from that of books . And this is , in a great measure , true ; but it will be found that unassisted application to nature will produce but small results . To arrive at any degree of perfection or importance , those studies ' must be founded on the collective wisdom of observers that have gone before . The individual observation of no single man , not even of Shakspeaee , would enable him tp plumb the depths of human sympathies and human character , and to penetrate to the inmost recesses of nature , as Shakspeare has done . He gleaned the thoughts of others before he spoke himself , and although lie has added an enormous mass of his own to what
he received from other sources , his contributions would have been infinitely inferior if lie had been unable to avail himself of external help . If it be true that reading impedes novelty of thought , we should find less and less of creative genius as education extended ; but is that so ? Taking writers only , what equal period of English history , even of itsTcjassical days in the last century , can boast of such a-phalanx of originality as the last thirty years has produced ? No other thirty years has given to England such a race as Tennyson , MACA ] CJI , AY , CAKtYXE , DlCKENS , THACKERAY , MlLt , the BeQNTES , Kin & sley , Btckle , Darwin , and many others , yet in no age has the average education of Englishmen been so far advanced , or the
individual knowledge of the writers greater . Ifc wilHbe 8 aKr * thafc these are men who belong to a past system , ; that the system which is now being tried has yet to give forth its men . But if education , which has been steadily advancing , has up to this time , so far from reducing originality , eminently increased its luxuriance , it is fair to reason that it will continue to produce the same results . Take the instance of poetry—can any poetry in the English language rival Mr . Tennyson ' s in originality both of thought and diction ? Yet every stanza shows profound study . Of all that have gone before him , ( with the exception , of course , of Shakspeaee , Spensee and M-TTjrmgy ) -DiLs : r > Eif- ^ was ^ probabl y less indebted to the mind 3 of
others than any one . How dull and pedantic Pope , Addison , and the rest , with their poetry " formed on the best classic models , " seern , to us now . It may appear , at first sight , that this illustration militates against the position we are taking , but the truth is that Pops and Addison applied themselves to the classic models and to little else , while Tennyson has a mind that , while escaping from the trammels of imitation , is well stored with every kind of knowledge that man ' s intellect can command . Nothing is above or beneath its grasp , and we may look in vain among the classic modelists for those thrills of delight we derive from his ever-recurring touches of nature . The most remarkable instance of originality of observation in our time is Mr . Chaeles Dickens—we doubt it any writer that ever lived has created such a new world of fancies from the familiar
objects of every day life ; nothing escapes him . The most minute and trivial circumstances , that would pass to one of us without notice , is tuken hold of by him , revolved in the machinery of that ! fertile mind , and reproduced to us in a form we have never before suspected it of , and we contemplate its novel shape with wonder and delight . Of originality of language Mr . Cablyxe is the great prose example ; it is probable that he has scarcely given to the world an absolutely new idea , but he has succeeded in clothing his thoughts in a language to which we were quite unaccustomed— -racy and vigorous at first , it threatened to produce a revolution in the English tongue ; but in some of his later works it has degenerated into such a peculiar phraseology that it becomes troublesome to translate it into English . Of originality of thought the modern instances must bo Mili > Buckle , and Dawiw . - : . . - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - - -..: ' :-
The lives of the youngest amongst us have seen such wonders of design that it would be invidious , nay , impossible , to select'a representative example ; wo will go , therefore , to George Stephenbon as an instance , and an uneducated instance , of a creative man ; but by no means the least interesting 1 part of that great man's lift ) is the history of his endeavours to cultivate his mind . He felt hampered by his ignorance when those mighty projects entered his head , and it was not , and never would have been , till he became an educated man , that he became a great man . As it was with Stephbnson , so it has boon and , must bo with every
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1860, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09061860/page/12/
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