Pieter Harting

“ All that is required for such adventurers is an elastic conscience, a good deal of “brass,” and a certain knack not to squeeze people’s credulity too much, but to blind the masses by an artificial coating of truth. In former times—before science had to dispose of its enormous resources—had any one proposed to fetch tin from the moon, the commonest clown would have looked upon him as an addle-pate ”

“ Has not the introduction of compulsory education been accompanied by great, almost insuperable obstacles?”
“That these obstacles were at least not insuperable you may easily gather from the fact that, even in the nineteenth century, the compulsory measure existed in some parts of Germany, and met with no opposition. Of course, on its application to other countries, some difficulties had at first to be surmounted; for all novelties meet with opposition somewhere, and all changes are fraught with more or less evil somehow. ”

“ From my own personal knowledge of what has come to pass [20] in the field of industry during the last two centuries, I could adduce a good many more examples to show that many of your nineteenth-century discoveries, which for a long time afterwards merely bore a purely scientific significance or character, have now become prolific sources of material benefit to society at large. Nor does any one now-a-days doubt the importance of pure science; all governments look upon it as an urgent duty on their part to promote the same wherever they can ”

“ Fortunately for me, Bacon had heard my question, and he at once supplied me with the necessary information. “You have guessed rightly,” said he; “when, after many years’ waiting, there came at last a bill regulating the higher education in the Netherlands, some wealthy inhabitants of the city of Utrecht, at their own expense, founded this [84] magnificent and imposing building, and by so doing furnished a living illustration of their interest in science, and of their affection for the alma mater to which many of them owed their education and social position.” ”

“ The North-American papers had of late been indulging in the most extravagant terms of praise with regard to a lady singer who, according to the Yankee critics, was possessed of a voice such as no mortal had ever yet heard of, surpassing in compass and quality everything that could be imagined; a talent whereby all the artists of former ages—if history could be relied on—ladies like Catalani, Malibran, Henriette Sonntag, Jenny Lind, or the Pattis, were really no more in comparison than a cricket to a nightingale. ”

“ For a long time past we had had speculums for the eye, for the ear, for the throat, etc.; why should we not succeed in inventing a speculum for the brain? There were already self-registering thermometers, barometers, magnetometers, photometers, etc.; why should we not have the self-registering enkephalometer? machines which [88] in a few minutes, and by means of a few figures, would indicate the exact degree and amount of knowledge acquired by the individual to whose cerebrum the instrument might be applied! What a splendid invention, both for examiners and candidates, this would have been! ”

“ I ventured to continue to speak my thoughts aloud.
“If any art more than another,” said I, “is calculated to illustrate the fact that the most important discoveries—such as have been most universally brought to bear upon the joint social condition of mankind—have simply resulted from the inventions of scientific men who never dreamt of the practical application of their discoveries; if any such thing exists, surely it is the telegraph. ”

“ What you want in order to stimulate higher education in the higher sense of the word is a staff of competent tutors supplied with ample means for advancing and furthering knowledge in every possible direction; encouragement for all efforts to cultivate sound science, and nothing but the most beneficial results will accrue to society at large. Universities, at the dawn of their existence, were, as a rule, endowed with certain rights and privileges, like moral corporations ”

“ The only thing quite inexplicable to me was this, how could there be people left in the twenty-first century so credulous as to believe in the exploration of tin mines in the moon by us, the inhabitants of the earth? When I put this question to Bacon, the following was his reply: “My dear sir, on this point, as on many others, men have not much altered. At all times there have been dupes, the victims of those that preyed upon them and of their own cupidity. ”

“ It was further discovered that it was a gross error to suppose that government examinations were to be the stimulants for university study; in fact, that what was wanted was not means of discouragement, but of encouragement. The human mind is like a liquid given to fermentation. ”

“ Moreover, so immense is the quantity of vital or working power of the water falling down on the surface of our earth, and also of the atmospheric currents, that the locomotive power of all existing steam-engines is comparatively trifling by the side of them. One single great cataract has more working power than all the steam-engines of Europe together, and one single thunder-storm may produce [30] such frightful destruction that it would be ridiculous to measure them by horse-power. ”

“ Opposite man’s violence is to be found woman’s cunning, and the ultimate chances of success are pretty well balanced on both sides; but to whichsoever victory may fall, it can only be bought at the price of domestic peace and bliss, and of all those nobler qualities which then only will be properly developed when both sexes keep within the sphere allotted them by nature and disposition. Whatever we have gained in direct political influence we have lost in the indirect influence on the hearts of men, and it remains to be seen whether the gain has been greater than the loss. ”

“ Then it was, since necessity is the mother of invention, that every one contrived to devise a new means of locomotion, until, after innumerable unsuccessful experiments, a power was finally arrived at in every way practical and satisfactory, whilst inexhaustible in its sources. ”

“ Then, again, numberless acres of waste land have long been, and are still being, cultivated; whilst progressive science has rendered imperishable services to the practical agriculturist by pointing out to him various new modes and processes whereby to increase the crops and fruits of his fields. Thus, for example, we know now everything connected with the quality and quantity of all matters used in the cultivation of vegetables; moreover, every agriculturist has become, in our days, a manufacturer. ”

“ Is it not the height of folly and absurdity to attempt to determine by law at what period of life a man will just have sense enough to be entrusted with the performance of a duty which is the birth-right of every free-born citizen? Such [114] laws are arbitrary and obsolete, a logical inconsistency, diametrically opposed to the grand and fundamental principle of equality before the law—aye, and a last remnant of those forms of paternal government which already in the nineteenth century began to be ridiculed and condemned ”

“ A moral ascendancy is on the whole the most powerful, and that maintains itself best by fair and just treatment of the weaker by the stronger. I for one feel perfectly convinced that the only reason why your country has even kept the island as long as it has, was exclusively owing to the few necessary reforms which your government consented to make in the nineteenth century. ”

“ If, now, a voltaic current is made to pass along that wire, the bar becomes a most powerful electro-magnet, which, when free in its movements, like the needle of a compass, adopts a direction from south to north, with a slight easterly deviation, and also a certain inclination. When driven out of its natural direction by another power, the needle will endeavour to resume its original inclination. As, now, the magnet and the vessel are so joined together as virtually to form but one body, the balloon, or rather the ship, is in itself a gigantic compass. ”

“ I had already inferred from the latter part of his remarks that he was a native of Rotterdam, and this suggested to me the idea of once more looking through the telescope, and turning my looks towards the city where I had passed the earlier part of my youth. At first I did not feel at home at all. So much had the city of the Meuse enlarged itself into every direction, and so densely populated was the whole province of South Holland, that the towns of Leiden, the Hague, [83] Delft, Schiedam, and Rotterdam seemed to form but one large city. ”

“ You will probably admit that for any properly managed society to exist, every member of the same has to sacrifice a portion of his individual liberty in the interests of the whole of which he forms part. In many cases such sacrifices are borne without any reluctance or opposition; then, namely, when they are visibly and amply compensated by the many advantages involved in our living in a well-regulated society. With regard to the much-vaunted rights of parents, it should never be lost sight of that the children have their rights as well ”

“ If you suppose that we have now, as formerly, many indigent people and others occasionally starving in some of the over-peopled districts, then, of course, you are right; but I do not grant that, on the whole, pauperism has been on the increase; I am rather inclined to believe the contrary, although during the last two hundred years the population of Europe has almost doubled itself. ”

“ Davy’s remarkable experiments taught him the refrigerating power of metal gas, did this not ultimately lead to the invention of the safety lamp? and not only has the latter already preserved thousands of human lives, but, more than that, the principle of Davy’s invention has actually become the basis upon which all steam-engines are constructed, as well as those by which ice can be made at any time. With regard to the invention of the art of photography, how could it have become a reality, a possibility, without the number of purely scientific discoveries that preceded it ”

“ Now, when the mill stops, it becomes a useless machine; for then the work of the men is stopped, and ultimately their wages. Much valuable time is lost, and time is known to be money. Add to this that a steam-engine may be worked unremittingly, so that the manufacturer can be sure to finish any given work in any stipulated time, and it must be clear enough why the powers of water and wind got to be superseded by steam-power, on account of the latter’s superior regularity. ”

“ From time immemorial people knew the two motive forces of flowing water and of streaming air, or wind. When the steam-engines came into use, the latter had gradually superseded the former, partly because rapidly flowing or falling water is not always procurable, partly also because the supply of water, as well as its power, depends on the quantities of rain falling in the higher districts. The latter inconvenience, the variability of power, made itself still more strongly felt in the application of the wind. ”

“ No more War!
As I looked about me, it so happened that my eye fell upon some wide tubes peeping out from the sides and the hold of the vessel. I first thought that these were a new kind of cannon; so I asked whether we were on board of a man-of-war? Miss Phantasia smiled, but her smile was a bitter one immediately followed by a sigh. “War!” she echoed, “those chivalrous times we only know from history; our modern men are manufacturers, merchants, engineers, scholars, legislators, and so forth ”

“ And hence the number of scholars has so increased lately at your universities, that there no longer exists the semblance of necessity for admitting others to the exercise of the learned professions, than those who have enjoyed academical education. ”

“ Naturally enough, a greater demand has set in among the working classes for knowledge and intellectual culture, and this has shown itself in the same proportion as the demand for mere handicraft has subsided.”
“Pity, though,” said I, “for those who cannot make use of the library.”
“Cannot!” exclaimed my guide; “but the doors are open to every one.”
“Except to those who are unable to read, I suppose.”
“Unable to read!” retorted Bacon; “but we are in Europe, my dear sir, not among the Hottentots or Bushmen! ”

“ Miss Phantasia appears to have convinced herself that the time would come when the absence or rarity of intermediate species, the great stumbling-block in the grand Darwinian theory, would no longer have to be accounted for negatively by the “poorness of our palæontalogical collections,” and the “imperfectness of the genealogical record.” Bacon, though apparently familiar with, and not averse to, Mr. Darwin’s theory of evolution, does not seem to follow the doctrine out in its application to the human race. ”

“ We have therefore parted on the very best of terms, and the only bond that still joins us together is that of reciprocal commercial interests. The vast Southland has become a powerful government; and if ever—improbable as it is—civilization should migrate from Old Europe, it still would know where to find a centre. You will soon become aware of this on our landing.”
We were rapidly moving. New Zealand disappeared from our horizon, and in opposite direction other districts seemed to emerge from the sea. That was New Holland, the great Southland, the goal of our voyage. ”

“ Woman, demanding as a right that which men had hitherto withheld from her, forfeited thereby the privileges at one time acceded to her by men. In the old works of fiction, which to us are the sources whence we draw the morals of bygone days, the man figures [117] conspicuously as the protector of woman; any man laying any claim to the title of a gentleman treated a woman with respect and affability; hers was the place of honour in society; she was both loved and respected, respected on account of her belonging to the weaker sex, loved as man’s helpmate, not his competitor or rival. ”

“ So far as I could see, the northern and north-eastern districts had almost doubled their [93] population, for the towns looked twice their original size; but what struck me most was that the city of Arnhem looked apparently deserted. I was the more surprised at this, because I remembered quite well that about the middle of the nineteenth century the place had been rapidly increasing, both in extent and prosperity, owing to the many “old residents” who, having returned with colossal fortunes from India, purposed to pass the remainder of their days in this beautiful neighbourhood. ”