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ApfiiL 27, 1850.] $&£ %t%lftt> ** 3
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LlEBIG AND BlSCHOFF'S EVIDENCE.—GoRLITZ ...
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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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Position Of Science. We Frequently Hear ...
judge from whose decision we shall desire no appeal . The students of Physics claim for themselves first to have found out such a guide , first to have found a code of laws which all must obey , which neither time nor circumstance shall cause us to alter . Like all other laws , the laws of nature were changed , at least in books , according to the will of the student or writer , and according to his ideas of rectitude ; and the making of worlds was as common as the passing of Parliamentary bills .
Gradually , however , we have seen a change ; societies were framed , and the laws of nature which had been discovered were written down , and stood as an authority which no man dared contradict . Gradually one portion after another of the world was examined , and law after law written down ; and those who sneered or set up opposing laws were simply referred to the great lawgiver of nature ; and , however unwilling , they became silent and obedient . Like a new oracle set up in Greece , which , becoming famous , was the fashion for a time , Science has become a general oracle for consultation , and differs only in not losing its capacity
for truth . We can do nothing now by opinion : when we wish to make a railway , we do not ask merely that the enquirer should examine ; even then , if he gives his opinion , we ask him why ? If a plague comes , we do not ask the physician if it can be cured ; we ask thousands of physicians , and the testimony of men over all the globe is collected before an opinion can be ventured on . The great individual has ceased to be , the oracle and his opinion is negatived by the fact sent as a small tribute from an unknown and humble man . The man is not seen , his fact is taken , and the whole testimony of humanity , as far as it can be collected , is the basis on which we make the law . The
ruler sends for statistics , and figures are collected from every corner of the country ; not till then can he venture on a law , because he knows that his opinion has no weight if another man , however mean , shall produce facts which prove him to be acting against the natural course of events . Eloquence has changed its features , and although still of value , because there are times when from the apathy of man they require to be roused to their duty , yet to a true man ready to do according to his convictions , the facts are sufficient , and the conclusion is such as all men will agree in if these facts be clear and abundant .
Truth has become a deduction in so many cases , that Government itself , which is our first notion of power , has become a science , and we yield not to the will of a man but to the completeness of the conclusion . Our Government is becoming a science , and the more it is a science the more will all men be satisfied . Whenever it is not a science , men are discontented ; inasmuch as it is not a thoroughly understood science men must be discontented , because any one cannot have his due and deserved treatment .
The physical sciences have advanced farthest , the laws made out are more complete than the laws made out in the political parts of Government . In this reason , as far as they are concerned , Government has given up into the hands of science all it can do . It is no man ' s opinion that the streets be lighted , and paved , and sewered , —it is a fact that they must be so , for our health and moral wellbeing . It was an opinion that a man might keep his house in as filthy a state as he pleased , and we saw no reason why he should not , until science said that it was inconsistent with the
wellbeing of himself and others ; and his house was invaded . As far as political economy is a science , Government cannot oppose it , and would not wish to do so ; there it yields itself up to offices and to machinery , which goes like any other piece of scientific apparatus . Science has no arbitrary laws ; it is merciful and kind : there is no respect of persons ; there is no
pleasing the rich and displeasing of the poor . J * ut science also is stern , very stern : there is no controlling allowed , there is no deviation from its laws , there is no mercy shown where there has been crime : it deals out hard laws never to be disobeyed ; hard injunctions , an appeal against which is never heard . When men know them they cease to appeal , and science is , therefore , dominant and undisputed .
Such is science generally . Every thing is ngnt when it gets based on a true scientific basis , taking science in its higher meaning . Since physical laws have as yet yielded most to generalisation , we mostly look to external nature when we speak of science ; but every other branch
of knowledge would be equally a science if equally understood . In the more limited meaning of science , we are led to look on the strange properties which the materials of the world are daily proving themselves to possess . So wonderful these properties , that some believed that from them we shall receive an explanation of all the mysteries of life . By science we are taught to elevate bodies once looked on as degraded ; for there are men to whom science is wearisome , because they feel as if degrading themselves by a constant attention to sticks and stones . Ever comes some weary
mathematical law , expressed in figures and in letters of the alphabet ; or there comes some weary round of oxygen and hydrogen , unintelligible to many , and looked on as symbols also expressing some scientific opinion . These men err , however , in their appreciation of stocks and stones ; the whole world is made of such matters . As far as we know , the whole solar system may have a similar formation ; at least , it is made of matters having some of the same properties . Science is always impartial ; it despises nothing : it teaches us to look at nothing as common or unclean .
This degraded matter , dull and inert , penetrated apparently by mere want of character , heavy from its mere want of power to rise , from its utter incapacity , as we might suppose , to proceed towards any higher existence , to make even one advance towards motion , which is so intimately connected with life , has , after all , a something in it which is called weight , by which it is connected , as by a mystic chain , with all that is , and has its permanent and recognisable relations with much , if not with all . that was and will be .
It is for science , therefore , to uphold the high character of the subjects of which it treats ; it is for physical science to show the high position of matter , and the great importance of its laws , and if it be shown at any time that the advance of our physical is also intimately connected with the advance of our mental civilization , it is not to be said that we are degrading the mental below the position it has held , but rather that we are raising the physical to take that position which by its characteristics it is destined to take .
Science is clear , plain , and indisputable ; whereever it comes there dispute ceases . If scientific men dispute , it is about what shall be science in their estimation , or what is science in the decrees of creation . Wherever it can be introduced it puts a question at rest , and hence at all times every man has been anxious to stretch his own little bit of science to know as much as possible . Its words have been listened to with fear and trembling by men who have imagined that religion would die out of the earth if science advanced , and devout men have left the study of nature from the fear of
seeing what would upset their faith . So powerful are the ordeals of science , so utterly without ap peal . It is with delight that each party handles a new fact corroborative of his view , and men , from the times of Galileo downwards , have been ready to use it to secure their purpose , or abuse and cease to learn when it acted against their interest or belief . At present science seems to have ceased to fright . Men yield before it ; it crushes as it moves along , and the power is growing up among us scarcely seen and felt , coming to us in the shape of a new mode of communicating between Great Britain and France , in a new mode of going from
Wales to Anglesea , and in a new star or comet , a nine days * wonder , because of the many other accompanying wonders . Science may be said now for the first time , although highly honoured of old , to be asserting for itself a position as one of the great powers of the country . It is acknowledged by the state as a companion in all its labours , by towns as a director over their municipal councils , by individuals also as a guide in their most obscure
domestic arrangements . Still we cannot hut feel that its present position is but a beginning , and that it has gained it only amongst the most educated of the country , and where the demand for improvement has been most pressing . It will be well for us that it progress farther , and that we he lifted out of the region of caprice and guided by the wise aim of law , for we may truly say that it is better for us to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of
man . # In one sense and to many people it is painful to see science so ruthlessly advancing and the individual opinion of man giving way to united results of many men not to he looked on us heroes" And the individual withers and the world is more and more . "
But there is yet no fear that the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are nearly exhausted ; and there is still room enough for individual greatness to show itself , either in extending the bounds of science , or in the display of those higher instincts of humanity , where we feel men want a guide , and where science has not ventured to approach with its scales and compasses .
Apfiil 27, 1850.] $&£ %T%Lftt> ** 3
ApfiiL 27 , 1850 . ] $ & £ % t % lftt > **
Llebig And Blschoff's Evidence.—Gorlitz ...
LlEBIG AND BlSCHOFF'S EVIDENCE . —GoRLITZ MORdeu : —The question was asked , Is it possible under existing circumstances , is it probable or certain , that the Countess Gorlitz died by spontaneous combustion , and in consequence of it came into the position in which she was found ? The general opinion of the scientific men was decidedly against the possibility of spontaneous fire , and thpse who at first spoke in favour of it changed their minds or became silent . Professor Bischoff , of Giesen , then read his opinion , which had the consent also of Liebig . He looked on the prevailing opinions concerning spontaneous combustion as the product , not of science , but of ignorance . On enquiry , he had found only attested
two cases from 1840 to 1848 which were by living witnesses , which witnesses were by no means competent to give an opinion . One , which had gone the round of the papers lately , was particularly enquired after . It was stated to have pecurred in Paris ; Liebig wrote to Paris for information , and had received letters from several distinguished chemists , such as Begnault and Pelouze , and also from the Prefect of Police , asserting that the whole narration was a fiction—in fact , a lie ; and Regnault , moreover , expressed "his decided belief that spontaneous combustion was impossible . Professor Bischoff continued to support his opinion of the impossibility of the occurrence , believing at the same time that there are many marvellous things to be seen , he could not consider that this was to be reckoned among the numberbecause it directly contradicts well-known
, scientific principles . He laid great stress on the fact of the great amount of water in all the parts of the human body ; and believed that , even in a state of sickness , no such extraordinary occurrences could take place , an < l that these things could best be proved by the principles of the science of chemistry . He showed also how very little reason we had to believe the common opinion concerning the action of alcohol saturating the body , and the improbability of any external cause setting the body of man or other animal on fire , under the condition a > luded to . He showed also that the blood having received any alcohol rapidly gave it out again by the lungs during respiration ; and as to the existence of alcohol in other parts of the body besides the blood , the evidence , he said , was very contradictory . As to the appearance of flame issuing from the mouth , he cut it up entirely by
his severe criticism . This is another instance of the progress of science , another marvel removed , if we are to believe the evidence , as far as the professors seem to believe themselves . But we cannot help reflecting that men are not deceived without a cause , and that even a lie has some origin in nature , not entirely a fabrication of the mind . It may indeed be doubted whether the mind has the power of imagining anything perfectly original . Although we must bear in mind that what Professor Bischoff said was not in reference to science merely , it would have been more satisfactory for general science and for the public in general , to have had an explanation of the extraorbeen ht before
dinary fact which has so frequently broug us as spontaneous combustion . We must take the higher scientific evidence given of its very great improbability , of its never having been proved , of its being witnessed generally , if not always , by incompetent persons , in short of its being a subject that must be explained before it can be looked on as historical . But that a state has occurred which to some persons had an appearance of combustion must be allowed , and it is the business of science rather to find out what it is , than to deny the existence of what it has been explained to be . The explanation , spontaneous combustion , may be wrong ; what was it then ? Science is sometimes too confident ; no , science is always true : but the very decision which it has the power of making brings a state of confidence into our minds which acts where it has no right to act .
Lord Bacon says , in his Syloa Sylvarum , that sea-water may be filtered into fresh , by merely passing it through sand . Many people did this so far as the filtering went , but they got sea-water again . One tried it by passing it through fifteen pots of sand , and he found then that the water did come through fresh for a time , and later experiments have sufficiently proved it . The experiment described by Bacon was on a large scale : it was required that the water should pass throu « h a great deal of sand ; the same circumstance brought the same results to those who came after ; but he erred in supposing that the sand would allow the water to run pure for ever , and his followers erred in supposing that it would not run fresh at all . We still have lingering about us a popular , perhapn an unscientific , wish for an explanation of the reports us to spontaneous combustion ; how have they originated , and what is the state ?
The case alluded to by BiflchofF , as said to have occurred at Paris , went the round of the papers in England also , nt least we suppose it to be the same , which some of the papers here were quick enough to recognise as a friend of the monster cabbage , and to head it also " French penny-a-lining . " It ended by saying that thero was nothing left but a handful of ashes , which we cannot , alter what the authorities have stated , believe to be even possible . The court seems to have been struck by the admirable manner in which Professor BischofT treated the subject , and all doubt seems to have been removed . Of course it was not his business to explain what many would like to knoW | the cause or origin of the popular belief .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 27, 1850, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27041850/page/17/
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