John Trowbridge

“ Why can we not attach a little mirror, which shall not weigh more than a feather, just above our needle, and let it reflect, instead of the sun, a little point of light from a kerosene-lamp upon yonder wall which is four feet from it? ”

“ It is very natural also that the teacher whose training has been exclusively literary should be indisposed to teach a subject like physics, which requires a certain facility with apparatus and some inventiveness which a purely literary training has the effect of obscuring and even crushing out. Who has not seen an excellent teacher in the languages or even in mathematics fail completely before a class of boys and girls in showing some simple experiment? ”

“ In the process of physical growth and decay, the doctrine of the conservation of force, and the degradation of energy, is clearly exemplified. What the body receives from the sun in the process of growth is given back, transformed, to the earth. At death the physical being undergoes a chemical change; and the earth and air recall to themselves their respective portions. Here there is an equivalent rendering of matter. If the soul and mind have been the result of a process of growth, the entire potential energy of the living unit has not been accounted for in the final dissolution. ”

“ It is easy to theorize on the subject of teaching science, especially physical science, in the second grade of schools, but one should not forget the wearing nature of routine work which is apt to deaden one's enthusiasm. One can not expect a teacher to hold weekly talks with his pupils on force, or to rely upon treatises which are merely descriptive, or to be patient with apparatus which, by frequent use, seems almost puerile, without giving him also a comparatively rigid standard in the shape of a book by which he can advance in a more or less mechanical manner. ”

“ It does not seem to be recognized that a scientific man can have a religion apart from his science: that it is not necessary for him to apply the exact laws of his particular science to his religious convictions, or to test the logic of his belief by the methods which he has found necessary and invaluable in scientific investigations. Many scientific men who are considered atheists are far from being so. It is compatible for a man to be a logical reasoner in an exact science, and yet to refuse to apply the touchstones, which serve him in his science, to his religion. ”

“ A minister cannot expect to meet a scientific man on his own ground, in regard to the scope and bearing of his studies. By his eloquence in denunciation of scientific radicalism he can only hope to carry with him those who are ignorant, and who cling to old traditions. With his present preliminary education a minister cannot influence deep thinkers by any wealth of argument which he may possess. ”

“ The difficulties, however, in the way of an investigation of the effects of fires in producing rain-storms are manifold. Our knowledge of the science of meteorology is, at the best, very imperfect; and we have no series of observations from which we can draw trustworthy conclusions. A careful search into the narratives of great fires and into the accounts of great naval and land fights gives nothing which a scientific man would accept for a moment. One who is ready and determined to believe, it is true, will find in history many curious and apparent corroborations of the truth of his belief. ”

“ Science is regarded by many scholars merely as a practical branch of human knowledge, and, although its great value in contributing to the good of the world is acknowledged, yet its study is regarded as inferior in intellectual results to that of language or philosophy. It can not be denied, however, that the study of physical science gives a certain definiteness to our modes of thinking, even if it will not be granted that it affords a better method of intellectual training than philological study. ”

“ THERE are some subjects which are unapproachable by any of the present methods of scientific investigation, yet the human mind, especially that form of it which is utterly untrained in scientific methods of thought, loves to ponder over the profoundest mysteries, and calls upon Science with an almost imperative tone to solve moral doubts and fears. ”

“ An omnivorous reader, a village wiseacre in science, may easily have, in these days, a little sect of his own in a community. The minister, therefore, cannot ignore science, if he would reach all hearts. Yet an illogical and incomplete treatment of Nature's laws, and wrong deductions and false applications, will be quickly criticised by men who, however much they like to have hypotheses of their own, are harsh and critical to those of their minister.
Let us see what the training is which is to enable our young divinity students to successfully combat the modern scientific materialism. ”

“ Laboratory work will only enable a man to perceive the true scope and limit of science. This laboratory work cannot be undertaken by the young divinity student unless he takes it during a college course, as it is possible to do at Harvard University. An extended scientific training appears to be an impossibility for a young minister; and the most successful sermons seem to the writer, who is both a member of a church and a lover of science, to be those in which argument and logic are laid aside, and simple faith and enthusiasm take their place. ”

“ These inferences are often made by men who are well read in the scientific literature of the day, but who do not regard the limits of scientific generalizations, and take steps which the scientific hearer would not dream of taking. The hearer, knowing how defective the preacher's judgment is in his inferences from science, naturally doubts the clearness of his pastor's judgment on even purely theological points. The attempt to reconcile science and religion is like an endeavor to measure two constantly-expanding scales by comparison with each other. ”

“ THE Signal Service of the United States performs a great service to science by inculcating the value of scientific investigations. Observations in meteorology were formerly buried in the proceedings of learned societies, and met the eyes only of a few scientific men: now they are discussed at the breakfast-tables of a million people. The departments of physics in our universities and technical schools have reason to thank the Signal Service for leading the public mind to see the importance of physical investigations to the ordinary pursuits of mankind. ”

“ When a body loses its heat, or its electrical charge, we can readily form the equation of transformation. With matter endowed with life we must join, by an additive or subtractive sign, an unknown function which we may term the life-function. In discussing such an equation of transformation of energy, we must refuse to admit such a term depending on the life-function, on the ground that we are dealing with matter and material forces, and that there is no energy distinct from that communicated by chemical processes. ”

“ It may be that he considers that the religious agitation in Germany has nothing to do with the prerogatives of emperor or pope: but that bigoted religion and science are the true antagonists, and, with his customary insight into the scientific tendencies of the age, he is eager to be the first in the field. There is much in the spirit of protest which the Belfast address breathes that appeals to the mind of every scientific man.
Ministers who are only general readers in science can have no conception of the scientific spirit which comes through investigation. ”

“ It is a clear day in early summer; there are no clouds to be seen, save a rift away on the horizon in the west. The spot of light moves gradually over the scale, indicating that there is a slight positive charge of electricity in the atmosphere. Now it is stationary, and we are about to record the reading of the scale, when the spot of light gives a quick jump and then returns to nearly its original position. Perhaps some movement of ours has deranged the instrument. ”

“ There is a cultivated interest which arises only from familiarity with methods, processes, and instruments. A minister lives apart from the seething turmoil and progress of the scientific world; and, if he should attempt to dispute with innovators, he will meet the same fate as any comparative recluse who attempts to dictate to the world from his retirement. ”

“ There are men of this class who accept what they call progress, without inquiring into the causes of it, and who have never thought of physics as a science to which business is indebted for its successful prosecution. ”

“ PHYSICS is a comprehensive term for the laws of the physical universe, and is gradually superseding the old term natural philosophy which held together in a disconnected manner various facts in mechanics, light, heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism. Under the head of Natural Philosophy most of us were taught that a body falling from the vertex of an inclined plane acquires the same velocity as it would if it rolled down the plane. ”

“ THE belief that great fires are followed invariably by rain-storms is wide-spread, and the great fires of the present year in America, it is claimed, afford no exception to the law. The attitude of scientific men in regard to so-called popular fallacies and superstitions is not, in general, a praiseworthy one. A belief needs often only to be widespread among the people at large to be denounced. Science is but another word for truth, and even popular traditions deserve to be examined with care. ”

“ It supplies a tonic which minds much accustomed, from the exclusive study of language, to take things for granted and to look no further than the grammar and dictionary stand much in need of, and also corrects a certain credulity and superstition which is rampant, even in our time, and to which it is well to devote a few words in connection with the subject of scientific training. There is a strong undercurrent of superstition and belief in supersensible or wonderful and not-to-be-explained marvels which makes its way beneath the crust of society. ”

“ One of the greatest questions which one finds is perplexing the general reader of popular science, who is also an independent thinker on religious questions, is that of the survival, so to speak, of the human mind and all that betokens the mental and moral power of man after death. ”

“ If the young student of theology has had a rigid scientific training, it will prove of great advantage to him in the future. Leading minds in the Church recognize that, if the materialism arising from the spread of scientific ideas, received at second hand and fondled until they have deadened religious faith, is to be combated successfully, it must be attacked by men who are not mere superficial readers, who get up their knowledge of science as they would the history of the Reformation. ”

“ Provided, therefore, with these modern and more refined means of observation, we are in a condition to study the fluctuations of that subtile manifestation of energy which is ever present in the air, and seems to lurk in all matter. The influence of the electrical state of the air upon atmospheric changes is doubtless far-reaching. We are accustomed to think of thunder-storms as the only manifestations of atmospheric electricity ”

“ Generally speaking, however, most men who have more than the ordinary knowledge of science have had their enthusiasm awakened out of school, and by actually working with apparatus, or handling specimens, have taught themselves.
The opponents of the study of physics in the secondary schools generally regard it as of less importance than the mathematical or grammatical studies, and class it among what they regard as superfluous subjects, the number of which has very much increased of late years. ”

“ Many teachers, therefore, comply with the letter of the law, and with one of the many text-books called Natural Philosophy shorten the popular exposition of the subject to a minimum and demand a certain number of problems under the lever, the screw, the inclined plane, and the pendulum. This mechanical teaching succeeds to a certain extent with the bright boys of some methematical tendencies; but it fails with the great majority, who speedily get a disgust for the whole subject. ”

“ Nothing is so characteristic of modern methods in physical science as continuous registration of physical phenomena. Early observers were forced to content themselves with scattered observations taken at different intervals, and important variations might occur at the times when no observer was watching the apparatus. Now the movements of the human heart can be recorded by a little apparatus which will combine in one curve a thousand continuous observations, and the slightest anomalous fluctuations can be studied from the record which is obtained. ”

“ The student collects, so to speak, his thoughts about the picture of a complicated machine; his ideas of the pressure of gases or rarefied air are complicated by the imperfect remembrance of certain valves. Electricity of high tension means something evoked by an electrical machine. These pieces of apparatus which I have mentioned form a salient point of attack upon the system of instruction in physics too common in many schools. A good air-pump is difficult to keep in order, and finds its true place only in the private laboratory of an investigator, or in a college collection of apparatus. ”

“ Any plan of education which prevents a man or woman from becoming the dupe of those who pretend to use natural or supernatural forces is to be commended. One of the quickest ways of training the mind in the logical process which I have indicated is to undertake some simple investigation in physics. Here mere observation is combined with a careful study of the interaction of various forces, and the mind must assign a logical weight to different observations. ”

“ What is the most economical means of cutting the greatest number of lines of force of the greatest intensity in the unit of time? With the most improved forms of the magneto-electric machine, we are, however, in a condition to produce an electric light of a reasonable degree of constancy and cheapness. If it is a desideratum that steamships should be provided with more powerful lights than those now in use, the electric light is the one to which attention is naturally directed. ”

“ The song of a bird can be resolved into waves of motion which, although they cease after a moment, and the consequent vibrations of the human ear die away, are still exerting an influence upon matter. ”