Post-Prandial Philosophy

11. "Mere Amateurs"

"He was a mere amateur; but still, he did some good work in science."

Increasingly of late years I have heard these condescending words

uttered, in the fatherland of Bacon, of Newton, of Darwin, when some

Bates or Spottiswoode has been gathered to his fathers. It was not so

once. Time was when all English science was the work of amateurs--and

very well indeed the amateurs did it. I don't think anybody who does me

the honour to cognise my humble individuality at all will ever be likely

to mistake me for a _laudator temporis acti_. On the contrary, so far as

I can see, the past seems generally to have been such a distinct failure

all along the line that the one lesson we have to learn from it is, to

go and do otherwise. I am one on that point with Shelley and Rousseau.

But it does not follow, because most old things are bad, that all new

things and rising things are necessarily and indisputably in their own

nature excellent. Novelties, too, may be retrograde. And even our

great-grandfathers occasionally blundered upon something good in which

we should do well to imitate them. The amateurishness of old English

science was one of these good things now in course of abolition by the

fashionable process of Germanisation.

Don't imagine it was only for France that 1870 was fatal. The sad

successes of that deadly year sent a wave of triumphant Teutonism over

the face of Europe.

I suppose it is natural to man to worship success; but ever since 1870

it is certainly the fact that if you wish to gain respect and

consideration for any proposed change of system you must say, "They do

it so in Germany." In education and science this is especially the case.

Pedants always admire pedants. And Germany having shown herself to be

easily first of European States in her pedant-manufacturing machinery,

all the assembled dominies of all the rest of the world exclaimed with

one voice, "Go to! Let us Germanise our educational system!"

Now, the German is an excellent workman in his way. Patient, laborious,

conscientious, he has all the highest qualities of the ideal

brick-maker. He produces the best bricks, and you can generally depend

upon him to turn out both honest and workmanlike articles. But he is not

an architect. For the architectonic faculty in its highest developments

you must come to England. And he is not a teacher or expounder. For the

expository faculty in its purest form, the faculty that enables men to

flash forth clearly and distinctly before the eyes of others the facts

and principles they know and perceive themselves, you must go to France.

Oh, dear, yes; we may well be proud of England. Remember, I have already

disclaimed more than once in these papers the vulgar error of

patriotism. But freedom from that narrow vice does not imply inability

to recognise the good qualities of one's own race as well as the bad

ones. And the Englishman, left to himself and his own native methods,

used to cut a very respectable figure indeed in the domain of science.

No other nation has produced a Newton or a Darwin. The Englishman's way

was to get up an interest in a subject first; and then, working back

from the part of it that specially appealed to his own tastes, to make

himself master of the entire field of inquiry. This natural and

thoroughly individualistic English method enabled him to arrive at new

results in a way impossible to the pedantically educated German--nay,

even to the lucidly and systematically educated Frenchman. It was the

plan to develop "mere amateurs," I admit; but it was also the plan to

develop discoverers and revolutionisers of science. For the man most

likely to advance knowledge is not the man who knows in an encyclop*********-work fashion the whole circle of the sciences, but the man who

takes a fresh interest for its own sake in some particular branch of

inquiry.

Darwin was a "mere amateur." He worked at things for the love of them.

So were Murchison, Lyell, Benjamin Franklin, Herschel. So were or are

Bates, Herbert Spencer, Alfred Russel Wallace. "Mere amateurs!" every

man of them.

In an evil hour, however, our pastors and masters in conclave assembled

said to one another, "Come now, let us Teutonise English scientific

education." And straightway they Teutonised it. And there began to arise

in England a new brood of patent machine-made scientists--excellent men

in their way, authorities on the Arachnida, knowing all about everything

that could be taught in the schools, but lacking somehow the supreme

grace of the old English originality. They are first-rate specialists, I

allow; and I don't deny that a civilised country has all need of

specialists. Nay, I even admit that the day of the specialist has only

just begun. He will yet go far; he will impose himself and his yoke upon

us. But don't let us therefore make the grand mistake of concluding that

our fine old English birthright in science--the birthright that gave us

our Newtons, our Cavendishes, our Darwins, our Lyells--was all folly and

error. Don't let us spoil ourselves in order to become mere second-hand

Germans. Let us recognise the fact that each nation has a work of its

own to do in the world; and that as star from star, so one nation

differeth from another in glory. Let each of us thank the goodness and

the grace that on his birth have smiled, that he was born of English

breed, and not a German child.

"Don't you think," a military gentleman once said to me, "the Germans

are wonderful organisers?" "No," I answered, "I don't; but I think

they're excellent drill-sergeants."

There are people who drop German authorities upon you as if a Teutonic

name were guarantee enough for anything. They say, "Hausberger asserts,"

or "According to Schimmelpenninck." This is pure fetichism. Believe me,

your man of science isn't necessarily any the better because he comes to

you with the label, "Made in Germany." The German instinct is the

instinct of Frederick William of Prussia--the instinct of drilling. Very

thorough and efficient men in their way it turns out; men versed in all

the lore of their chosen subject. If they are also men of transcendent

ability (as often happens), they can give us a comprehensive view of

their own chosen field such as few Englishmen (except Sir Archibald

Geikie, and he's a Scot) can equal. If I wanted to select a learned man

for a special Government post--British Museum, and so forth--I dare say

I should often be compelled to admit, as Government often admits, that

the best man then and there obtainable is the German. But if I wanted to

train Herbert Spencers and Faradays, I would certainly _not_ send them

to Bonn or to Berlin. John Stuart Mill was an English Scotchman,

educated and stuffed by his able father on the German system; and how

much of spontaneity, of vividness, of _verve_, we all of us feel John

Stuart Mill lost by it! One often wonders to what great, to what still

greater, things that lofty brain might not have attained, if only James

Mill would have given it a chance to develop itself naturally!

Our English gift is originality. Our English keynote is individuality.

Let us cling to those precious heirlooms of our Celtic ancestry, and

refuse to be Teutonised. Let us discard the lessons of the Potsdam

grenadiers. Let us write on the pediment of our educational temple, "No

German need apply." Let us disclaim that silly phrase "A mere amateur."

Let us return to the simple faith in direct observation that made

English science supreme in Europe.

And may the Lord gi'e us Britons a guid conceit o' oorsel's!