Joseph Henry

“ If we desire an illustration of the condition of civilization based upon empirical art, upon facts accidentally discovered, or invention without science, we have merely to turn to China and Japan. These countries have long since utilized all the facts and empirical processes the result of accident or simple invention, and have, consequently, remained stationary for thousands of years, and must remain so continually, unless they borrow a knowledge of science from abroad. ”

“ It is this substitution of the energies of Nature for the power of human muscle that, as we have said, has abolished slavery and elevated humanity to a higher plane than was ever dreamed of by the wisest sages of ancient times. ”

“ It is a fundamental principle of political economy that the physical state of man can only be ameliorated by means of labor, or, in other words, by the transformation of matter from a crude to an artificial condition. But this cannot be effected, except by expending what is called power or energy. In ancient times, almost the elusive source of this energy was muscular force, derived from compulsory human labor; and all the monuments and objects that have been left to us, as marks of ancient civilization, are the results of organized systems of slavery. ”

“ The man imbued with the proper spirit of science does not seek for immediate pecuniary reward from the practical applications of his discoveries, but derives sufficient gratification from his pursuit and the consciousness of enlarging the bounds of human contemplation, and the magnitude of human power, and leaves to others to gather the golden fruit he may strew along his pathway. ”

“ It is not, however, merely the material wants of man that are gratified by the results of science; it administers also to his highest intellectual development. Placed in a universe of constant change, on an isolated globe, surrounded by distant celestial objects on all sides, subjected to influences of various kinds, it is a sublime occupation to measure the earth and weigh the planets, to predict their changes, and even to discover the materials of which they are composed ”

“ In a new country like this, where a whole continent is to be subdued, and there is so great a demand for the practical application of science to art, it is not surprising that the great principles which underlie these applications while they can be borrowed from Europe should not at first receive much attention; but, since our country has become so much advanced in wealth and in intelligence, this state of things should no longer exist, and it is therefore proper on an occasion like this to call public attention to the importance and wants of abstract science. ”

“ We hold that every age of the world has had its mission, and has left its impress upon all the ages that have followed. The lessons taught by the Greeks have not been forgotten. The examples of beauty and the vestiges of truth they have bequeathed to us, still exist to ameliorate the condition and improve the moral character of a thousand times greater number of individuals than was effected by them in the palmy days of Hellenic development. ”

“ It is the pursuit, above all, which impresses us with the capacity of man for intellectual and moral progress, and awakens the human intellect to aspirations for a higher condition of humanity, and gives a pleasurable consciousness to those who successfully pursue it, of contributing, in however small a degree it may be, to such a desirable consummation. The effect of such pursuits on the mind of the individual himself cannot be otherwise than salutary. ”

“ By a knowledge of these laws the energies of the elements of Nature are substituted for human labor, and by this substitution mankind is not only relieved from brute-labor, but also given control of energies which enable him to produce effects which could only result from the muscular power of beings of a superior order. It may be shown by a simple calculation that about fifteen tons of anthracite coal burned in the furnace of one of our best steam-engines exerts an energy equal to that of an able-bodied slave, working ten hours a day for thirty years of his active life. ”

“ The faculty should be men of intrinsic worth, chosen, not on account of influential connections, social position, denominational predelictions, nor for any vague popular reputation, but especially in the line of science, from having given evidence of their power in the way of original research. A man of this class must be possessed of enthusiasm which in a measure he can scarcely fail to impart to his pupils. ”

“ Science is every day creating new arts, and modifying and improving the processes of old ones. We are skeptical as regards the value of lost arts. It is true there are arts which have fallen into disuse, and others which depend upon the skill and patience of the individual, but none, which rests on any lost secret of Nature which science cannot restore. ”

“ There is a spirit of improvement awakened in this country in regard to scientific investigation which I doubt not will be stimulated into more active exercise by the visit of our illustrious friend, which will induce men who, by the exercise of peculiar talents, have accumulated wealth, to endow institutions for the special cultivation of scientific investigation, and to set apart with liberal support as the priests or interpreters of Nature, those who by special mental endowment are capable of benefiting their fellow-men by the discovery of new principles. ”

“ The results we have mentioned are frequently attributed by superficial observation to immediate practical invention of persons having little or no knowledge of abstract science. But, in regard to this, it must be recollected that our whole civilization is pervaded by a knowledge of facts primarily derived from scientific investigation. Such inventions as those we have alluded to are not produced in a barbarous country, or even in those of a comparative high civilization without science. ”

“ In this country, science is almost exclusively prosecuted by those engaged in the laborious and exhaustive employment of imparting instruction. Science among us brings comparatively little emolument, and is accompanied with but little honor. ”

“ The wide extent of our national domain, and the gigantic scale on which its geological formations are presented, have served as the basis of valuable contributions to geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology. The contributions that have been made within the last forty years to meteorology, especially in the simultaneous observations over the large extent of our country, and the subsequent comparison of results, have materially assisted in developing the laws of storms, and have almost advanced meteorology to the character of an exact science. ”

“ As one of these, we may refer to the progress of the arts of locomotion, and the means which science has afforded for the instantaneous interchange of thought between men in the most distant parts of the earth; as another, to the production of clothing fabrics, in which a single individual, directing the energies of an engine of one-man power, is capable of doing three thousand times the work of an ordinary weaver. ”

“ Whatever opinion may be adopted as to the origin of man, it cannot be denied that we have descended from a race of ancestors but little elevated above the brute—from naked savages, the denizens of caves, feeding upon wild fruits, devouring shell-fish, or struggling for mere existence with the larger quadrupeds of the times, gradually emerging from this state by the invention of weapons of flint and bone, through long geological periods, into a pastoral condition ”

“ Living in the present, enjoying its innumerable comforts and facilities of life, they do not realize the conditions of the past, or, if they imperfectly realize them, the changes are attributed to fortuitous circumstances really exercising a subordinate influence, or to apparent proximate causes such as the immediate practical application of science to art. ”

“ While we have endeavored to show that abstract science is entitled to high appreciation and liberal support, we do not claim for it the power of solving questions belonging to other realms of thought. ”

“ Profound learning is not sufficient; however versed a man may be in the knowledge of others, he is not of the first order unless he be endowed with the peculiar mental powers which enable him to originate new truths. When such men are found—and they exist in every community in a certain, perhaps small ratio, they should be consecrated to the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. They should be secured by our colleges and universities, and all the facilities given them for original investigation. ”

“ We freely admit that the laws which relate to dead matter apply equally well to all living organic bodies, but we are constrained at the same time to believe in the existence of a mysterious something lying beyond this, working through the laws of Nature as it were by immediate intelligence and by prearrangement, producing results marked in the future by evidences of design. ”

“ Much harm has been done by the antagonism which has sometimes arisen between the expounders of science on the one hand, and those of theology on the other, and we would deprecate the tendency which exhibits itself in certain minds to foster feelings antagonistic to the researches into the phenomena of Nature, for fear they should disprove the interpretations of Holy Writ made long before the revelations of physical science, which might serve for a better exegesis of what has been revealed ”

“ It is to the men of which the faculties of the German universities are composed, that those establishments owe their reputation, and they are the attraction which draws pupils from every part of the world to these centres of high intelligence. ”

“ In all cases of transformation of organic matter, a definite amount of potential energy is expended; for example, in the incubation of an egg, a considerable portion of the material within the shell runs down from an organic condition in combining with the oxygen of the atmosphere, into carbonic acid and water, and in this evolves the power or energy necessary to build up the future animal out of the remaining material. ”

“ As a third example, we may point to the art of printing by means of the steam-press, in which a single man will make more copies in a given time of a composition, than a million of ancient transcribers could do. ”

“ But we should not unduly exalt the past, or claim for it a superiority over the present. There never was a time in which the realms of actual thought were so extended as at present, nor when so many individuals were occupied in the contemplation of abstract truths. ”

“ Again, no college or university is properly equipped that is not furnished with a complete series of the objects and implements of instruction and research. In regard to instruction, the impressions made through the eye are the most definite and indelible, and may serve as nuclei around which by association to group facts and suggestions the most varied. ”

“ It is only of late years that the investigations of the tendencies and changes of the human family have been systematically studied under the general denomination of anthropology, and its subdivisions of ethnology and archæology. From these studies we may infer that man is a being capable of indefinite moral and intellectual development ”

“ The rock-sculptures of Elephanta, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the temples of Greece, were all the result of the labor of slaves, directed by the minds of freemen. It is said that a hundred thousand slaves were employed at one time in the construction of the Pyramids of Egypt ”

“ The analogy between crystallization and organization has never impressed me as being well founded. If we allow the existence of atoms endowed with the simple force of attraction in right lines, these must, of mathematical necessity, group themselves in geometrical figures—three forming an equilateral plane triangle, four a solid tetrahedron, and so on. ”

“ Tribes which remain entirely isolated may utilize the suggestions and facilities of life which are afforded them by their localities, and when these are exhausted become permanently stationary, but tribes impelled by want of subsistence, or the desire of conquest to migrate to other localities, as is stated to have been the case with the Aryan race in their migration from the East to the West, gather up the separate civilizations as they advance, and hence, by accretion or intercourse with others, rise to a higher plane. ”

“ That man is not necessarily a progressive being is shown by the fact that large portions of the inhabitants of the world are still in a condition of barbarism, from which they show no indications of emerging, and cannot probably do so except by-influences from without. ”

“ Such being the results proceeding from science as we have stated, it appears strange that so little encouragement is given to its prosecution, and that it should not be more liberally fostered by governments and wealthy individuals. ”

“ They should be relieved from the drudgery of drilling in the elementary branches, and be assisted by tutors in the general instruction, being themselves only called upon to give a limited number of lectures on the general principles of the branch of knowledge under their care. ”