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Leader (1850-1860), 8th July 1854, Edition 1 of 2, Page 640

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      Untitled Article

      Critics are . not the Legislators , bat the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Reuieiv .

      Untitled Article

      The deplorable precipitation with which even wise thinkers judge ideas adverse to their own philosophy is the great obstacle to intellectual progress . Opinions are the spectacles of the mind , through -which we look , believing their colour to be the colour of the objects seen . Of all intellectual acts , that of ! keeping our own ideas in abeyance while endeavouring to understand the ideas of another seems the most difficult . And thus it is that the greater part of polemics is skiamachy—or shadow-fighting . " We catch a glimpse of another ' s meaning , we distort the image , and then destroy it . * In the current number of the British Quarterly there is an article by a profound thinker * on the Genesis of Science , which may be referred to as a most remarkable contribution to philosophy—one which must be read and reread wM ; h studious slojrness . Yet even in this paper , obviously the product of long thought * ± here is an example of that precipitancy , of judgment

      Which * . * little . attention might have escaped . The writer attacks Comte ' s classification of the sciences , and is often right in the details ; but exhibits soT ' singular a misconception of Comte ' s principles that we must suppose him only to have glanced at the Second Lecture of the Philosophie Positive , and tp haye ^ a ^ e lip for himself a system which he fancies is to be found there . ¦ We cannot here enter dha discussion which would carry us beyond limits ; but th _ e reviewer and his readers will do well to read the lecture referred to , especially pages 75 to 84 , in which they will find Comte fully alive to the necessary imperfections of every classification—to the arbitrary nature of a dogmatic exposition as distinguished from the historic , to the interdependence of the sciences , one perfecting the other , progress in the earlier being also

      determined by discoveries in the later—in short , they will find tliat the revie wer's ^ arguments portent a faux . After giving a flat denial to the charges he makes against Comte ' s principles , we nevertheless believe that his discussion of those principles will do service ; and , for the rest of his essay , it has our entire approbation , in spite of some reserves , which belong more to points ' omitted than points discussed . He sets out with destroying the old notion of there being any essential difference between ordinary knowledge and science . Science , he says , is not distinctively prevision since all knowledge is prevision ; but science differs from knowledge of an ordinary kind in being quantitative as well as qualitative—as foreseeing not only the kind of result , but the amount of result .

      "In its earlier phases science attains only to certainty of foreknowledge : in its later phases It farther attains to completeness . We begin by discovering a relation . ; we end by discovering Me relation . Our first achievement is to foretel the kind of phenomenon which will occur under specific conditions : our last achievement is to foretel not only the kind but the amount . Or , to reduce the proposition to its most definite form—undeveloped science is qualitative prevision : developed science is quafititative prevision . " This will at once bo perceived to express the remaining distinction between the lower and the higher stages of positive knowledge . The prediction that a piece of lead will take a greater force to lift ft than a piece of wood of equal siae , exhibits certainty , but not completeness of foresight , The kind of effect in which the one body will exceed the othor is foreseen ; but not the amount by which it will exceed . There is qualitative prevision only . On the other hand the predictions that at a stated time two particular planets will be in conjunction ; that br means of a lever having arms in a eiven ratio , a known force will raise iust so

      many ponnds ; that to decompose a specified quantity of sulphate of iron by carbonate of soda will require so many grains—these predictions exhibit foreknowledge , not only of the nature of the effects to bo produced , but of the magnitude , either of the effects themselves , of the agencies producing them , or of the distance in timo or space at which they will be produced ; There is not only qualitative but quantitative prevision . And this is the unexpressed difference which leads us to consider certain orders of knowledge as especially £ cienUno when contrasted with knowledge in general . Are the phenomena oneasurabhT as the test wluch we unconsciously employ . Space is measurable : hence Geometry . Force and space aro measurable ; hence Statics . Time , force , and space are measurable : hence Dynamics . Tho invention of the baromoter enabled men tu extend the principles of mechanics to the atmosphere ; and ^ Erostatics existed . When a thermometer was devised there came to be ft science of heat , which was before impossible . Such of our sensations as we have not yet found modes of measuring do not originate sciences . We liavo no science of smells ; nor haye wo one of tastes . Wo have a scionco of tlio relations of sounds differing in pitc'h j because we have discovered a way to measure them ; but wo have no scionco of sounds in respect to their louflness or their timbre , because we have got no measures of

      loadncss and timbre . Obviously it is this reduction of the sensible phenomena it presents , to relations of magnitude , which gives to any division of lcnowlodgo its especially scientific character . Originally men ' s knowledge of weights and foicoa was in tho aumo condition as their knowledge of . smells nnd tastes is now—n knowledge not extending beyond that given by tho unaided sensations ; and it remained so until weighing instruments and dynamometers wore invented . Bofora there woro hour-glasses and clepsydras , tho Rroatcr proportion of phenomena could bo estimated as to their durations and intervals , with no greater precision than dogreea of hardness can bo estimated by the fingers . Until a thormomotrio scale waa contrived , men ' s judgments as to relative amounts of heat stood on the samo footing with thoir prosoiit judgments as to relative amounts of sound . And ns in these initial stages , -with no aidB to observation , only the roughest comparisons of cases could bo rnado ; and only the most marked differences perceived ; it is obvious that only tho most simple laws o { dependunco could bo ascertained—only thoso laws which boing uncomplicated with others , and not disturbed in their manifestations , required no nicotics of observation to disentangle tlicm . Whence it appears not only that in proportion as knowled ge bocomos ( jucintitaUvo do itn previsions become complete as well a « eortnin ; but that until its assumption of a quantitative character it is necessarily conllndd to tho moat elementary relations . "

      How far this luminous principle can be carried into Biology and Sociology the writer does not intimate ; but in tho inoi'ganic sciences , it certainly does seem to bo the capital point . Very striking both in idoaa nn < l illustrations 4 re the pages in which tho writer traces tho evolution of science through tho ideas of likeness , equality , number , measure , &c . His tracing up to suggestions of organic bodies all our measures of extension , foroo , nnd timo is very curious . Hero ia t \ passage s" Thus , nnaoiigat HncairjmoaBures , tho oubitof the Hcbrovm was tho length ofIhoforearm

      from the elbow to the end of the middle finger ; and the smaller scriptural dimensions a expressed in hand-breadths andspaws . The Egyptian cubit , which was similarly derive was divided into digits , which were finger-breadths ; and each finger-breadth was me definitely expressed as fceing equal to four grains of barley placed breadthwise . Amonf other ancient measures were the orgyia or stretch of the arms , the pace , and the palm . persistent has been the use of these natural units of length in the East , that even now , soi of tli 9 Arabs mete out cloth by the forearm . So , too , is it with European measures . T foot prevails as a dimension throughout Europe , and has done since the time of the Romai by whom , also , it was used—its lengths in different places varying not much more th men ' s feet vary . The inch is the length of the terminal joint of the thumb , as is cleai sho-wn in France , where powe means both thumb and inch . Then we have the inch < vided into three barley-corns . So completely , indeed , have these organic dimensions serv aB the substrata of all mensurationthat it is only by means of theni ~ that we can form ai

      , estimate of some the ancient distances . For example , tbe length of a degree on the eartli surface , as determined by the Arabian astronomers shortly after the death of Haroun-t Rasehid , was fifty-six ot their miles . We know nothing of their mile further than that was 4000 cubits ; and whether these were sacred cubits or common cubits , would rema doubtful , but that the length of the cubit is given as twenty-seven inches , and each in defined as the thickness of six barley-grains . Thus one of the earliest measurements oi degree comes down to 11 s in barley-grains . Not only did organic lengths furnish those a proximate measures which satisfied men ' s needs in ruder ages , but they furnished also ti standard measures required in later times . One instance occurs in our own history . _' remedy the irregularities then prevailing , Henry I . commanded that the ulna , or ancie ell , which answers to the modern yard , should be made of the exact length of his own arv

      *• ' Measures of weight again had a like derivation . Seeds seem commonly to have supph the unit . The original of the carat used for weighing in India is a small bean . Our m systems , both troy and avoirdupois , are derived primarily from wheat-corns . Our smalle weight , the grain , is a grain of wheat . This is not a speculation ; it is an historically regi tared fact . Henry III . enacted that an ounce should be the weight of 640 dry grains wheat from the middle of the ear . And as all the other weights are multiples , or su multiples of this , it follows that the grain of wheat is the basis of our scale . So natural it to use organic bodies as weights , before artificial weights have been established , or whe they are not to be had , that in some of the remoter parts of Ireland the people are said , be in the habit , even now , of putting a man into the scales to serve as a measure for hea commodities . "

      Besides this masterly essay , the British Quarterly presents tis with an xu usually attractive selection of articles . Among them may be named one ( Dry den , and one on Prose Writing , for lovers of Belles Lettres ; one on tl Plurality of Worlds , for theologians and men of science ; and one on Chr tianity , for theologians . On each of these topics we might enlarge , but da

      not . Our space is claimed by the new number of the Westminster , which h no crack" article sure to get talked abotit , and which the victims society will be obliged to read ; but is nevertheless a number of averaj merit , and to say this is no slight praise . There are two historieo-biogr phical articles : one on Cardinal WoUey , by a writer who has few rivals the graceful ease of his narrative , and the vivid , unpedantte sympathy vri which he throws himself into the life of the past ; another on Wycliffe ai his Times—an able sketch , which brings into just prominence the superi breadth and profundity of Wyclipfe's views , compared with those of tl more successful reformers in the sixteenth century . Perhaps the me important article in the number is that on the Civil Service , which discuss * with far-seeing and practical wisdom , the means by which , this immense

      important part of Government machinery may cease to be a sort of pensio list for unpromising younger sons of the aristocracy , or an indirect instr ment of bribery in the hands of public men , and maybe laid open to competition of merit . A writer on the Russo-European Embroilment adop " and forcibly exhibits , Kossuth ' s view of the dilemma in which the " Weste allies are placed "by their acceptance of Austrian co-operation ; and , as practical issue , dwells on the forfeitures which must be exacted from Rus , before we can lay down our arms in the confidence that we have Avon pea for Europe . There is a good article on Comtb , though of rather slig texture , and a well-written , well-informed review of Milman ' s History

      Latin Christianity , placed in the " Independent Section , " though on wJ ground it is condemned to that fever-ward we confess ourselves unable see , since its views are not essentially different from those of several otl articles on kindred subjects which have been admitted into the editoi part of the Review . Much of the distinctive value of the Westminster ari from its being the organ of men who are too original and independent submit to the paring process which must be inflicted on them in a party sectarian periodical . The public wants to know what such men have to s and will prefer the genuine inconsistency whiuh the " liberty of prophesyii given to them may entail on successive numbers of the Westminster , to * factitious agroqnaent with an editorial standard .

      Idle readers must turn to tho articles on the Beard and on Parody , wh are tho only fare provided for them . Two ox three sections of the Cont < porary Literature—thoso on Theology and History especially—are i done : they give real information about the works noticed , and aro agroea written .

      Untitled Article

      SIMON ON OUR SANITARY CONDITION . Reports relating to the Sanitary Condition Qftfie City of London , lly John Simon , F . Surycon to St . Thomas ' s Hospital , and Officer of IInatch to tho City . J . W . Parlcc Tho most casual reader of tho Times will not forgot tho grave and mast < Hoports which for five successive yenra havo boon signed by Mr . Sim although none but the very unoccupied reader , or tho reader seriously o < pied with sanitary matters , will have found timo aind patience to go earof . through those compact columns of print , ovory paragraph of which calle careful attention . Therefore , not only on tho ground of their own groat vn but also on the separate ground of their having boon up to this date virtu unpublished [ for aa Martial says , Non acrlbitcujua oanninu nemo legit , tho unread ia unwritten ] , wo regard this volume aa one of unusual imn ftnec . Thoso who road tho Reports tin they appeared will bo glad toi thorn gathered into a volumo convenient for reference : those who me

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      Untitled Article

      640 TfifE LEADER . Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 8, 1854, page 640, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2046/page/16/