Reflections on the Decline of Science in England

Of the Copley medals.

An important distinction exists between scientific communications, which seems to have escaped the notice of the Councils of the Royal Society.  They may contain discoveries of new principles,—­ of laws of nature hitherto unobserved; or they may consist of a register of observations of known phenomena, made under new circumstances, or in new and peculiar situations on the face of our planet.  Both these species of additions to our knowledge are important; but their value and their rarity are very different in degree.  To make and to repeat observations, even with those trifling alterations, which it is the fashion in our country (in the present day) to dignify with the name of discoveries, requires merely inflexible candour in recording precisely the facts which nature has presented, and a power of fixing the attention on the instruments employed, or phenomena examined,—­a talent, which can be much improved by proper Instruction, and which is possessed by most persons of tolerable abilities and education.* To discover new principles, and to detect the undiscovered laws by which nature operates, is another and a higher task, and requires intellectual qualifications of a very different order:  the labour of the one is like that of the computer of an almanac; the inquiries of the other resemble more the researches of the accomplished analyst, who has invented the formula:  by which those computations are performed.

[That the use even of the large astronomical instruments in a national observatory, does not require any very profound acquirements, is not an opinion which I should have put forth without authority.  The Astronomer-Royal ought to be the best judge.

On the minutes of the Council of the Royal Society, for April 6, 1826, with reference to the Assistants necessary for the two mural circles, we find a letter from Mr. Pond on the subject, from which the following passage is extracted: 

“But to carry on such investigations, I want indefatigable, hard-working, and above all, obedient drudges (for so I must call them, although they are drudges of a superior order), men who will be contented to pass half their day in using their hands and eyes in the mechanical act of observing, and the remainder of it in the dull process of calculation.”]

Such being the distinction between the merits of these inquiries, some difference ought to exist in the nature of any rewards that may be proposed for their encouragement.  The Royal Society have never marked this difference, and consequently those:  honorary medals which are given to observations, gain a value which is due to those that are given for discoveries; whilst these latter are diminished in their estimation by such an association.

I have stated this distinction, because I think it a just one; but the public would have little cause of complaint if this were the only ground of objection to the mode of appropriating the Society’s medals.  The first objection to be noticed, is the indistinct manner in which the object for which the medals are awarded is sometimes specified.  A medal is given to A. B. “for his various papers.”

There are cases, few perhaps in number, where such a reason may be admissible; but it is impossible not to perceive the weakness of those who judge these matters legibly written in the phrase, “and for his various other communications,” which comes in as the frequent tail-piece to these awards.  With a diffidence in their own powers, which might be more admired if it were more frequently expressed, the Council think to escape through this loop-hole, should the propriety of their judgment on the main point be called in question.  Thus, even the discovery which made chemistry a science, has attached to it in their award this feeble appendage.

It has been objected to the Royal Society, that their medals have been too much confined to a certain set.  When the Royal medals were added to their patronage, the past distribution of the Copley medals, furnished grounds to some of the journals to predict the future possessors of the new ones.  I shall, doubtless, be told that the Council of the Royal Society are persons of such high feeling, that it is impossible to suppose their decision could be influenced by any personal motives.  As I may not have had sufficient opportunities, during the short time I was a member of that Council, to enable me to form a fair estimate, I shall avail myself of the judgment of one, from whom no one will be inclined to appeal, who knew it long and intimately, and who expressed his opinion deliberately and solemnly.

The late Dr. Wollaston attached, as a condition to be observed in the distribution of the interest of his munificent gift of 2,000L. to the Royal Society, the following clause:—­“And I hereby empower the said President, Council, and Fellows, after my decease, in furtherance of the above declared objects of the trust, to apply the said dividends to aid or reward any individual or individuals of any country, SAVING only that no person being A member of the council for the time being, shall receive or PARTAKE of such reward.”

Another improvement which might be suggested, is, that it is generally inexpedient to vote a medal until the paper which contains the discovery is at least read to the Society; perhaps even it might not be quite unreasonable to wish that it should have been printed, and consequently have been perused by some few of those who have to decide on its merits.  These trifles have not always been attended to; and even so lately as the last year, they escaped the notice of the President and his Council.  The Society was, however, indebted to the good sense of Mr. Faraday, who declined the proffered medal; and thus relieved us from one additional charge of precipitancy. [When this hasty adjudication was thus put a stop to, one of the members of the Council inquired, whether, as a Copley medal must by the will he annually given, some other person might not be found deserving of it.  To which the Secretary replied, “We do not intend to give any this year.”  All further discussion was thus silenced.]

Perhaps, also, as the Council are on some occasions apt to be oblivious, it might be convenient that the President should read, previously to the award of any medals or to the decision of any other important subjects, the statutes relating to them.  He might perhaps propitiate their attention to them, by stating, how much it importeth to the CONSISTENCY of the council to be acquainted with the laws on which they are about to decide.

If those who have been conversant with the internal management of the Council, would communicate their information, something curious might perhaps be learned respecting a few of these medals.  Concerning those of which I have had good means of information, I shall merely state—­ of three of them—­that whatever may have been the official reasons for their award, I had ample reasons to convince me of the following being the true causes:—­

First.—­A medal was given to A, at a peculiarly inappropriate time—­because he had not had one before.

Second.—­Subsequently a medal was given to B, in order to DESTROY the impression which the award of the medal to A had made on the public the preceding year.

Third.—­A medal was given to C, “BECAUSE we think he has been ill used.”

I will now enter on an examination of one of their awards, which was peculiarly injudicious.  I allude to that concerning the mode of rendering platina malleable.  Respecting, as I did, the illustrious philosopher who invented the art, and who has left many other claims to the gratitude of mankind, I esteem it no disrespect to his memory to place that subject in its proper light.

An invention in science or in art, may justly be considered as possessing the rights of property in the highest degree.  The lands we inherit from our fathers, were cultivated ere they were born, and yielded produce before they were cultivated.  The products of genius are the actual creations of the individual; and, after yielding profit or honour to him, they remain the permanent endowments of the human race.  If the institutions of our country, and the opinions of society, support us fully in the absolute disposal of our fields, of which we can, by the laws of nature, be only the transitory possessors, who shall justly restrict our discretion in the disposal of those richer possessions, the products of intellectual exertion?

Two courses are open to those individuals who are thus endowed with Nature’s wealth.  They may lock up in their own bosoms the mysteries they have penetrated, and by applying their knowledge to the production of some substance in demand in commerce, thus minister to the wants or comforts of their species, whilst they reap in pecuniary profit the legitimate reward of their exertions.

It is open to them, on the other hand, to disclose the secret they have torn from Nature, and by allowing mankind to participate with them, to claim at once that splendid reputation which is rarely refused to the inventors of valuable discoveries in the arts of life.

The two courses are rarely compatible, only indeed when the discoverer, having published his process, enters into equal competition with other manufacturers.

If an individual adopt the first of these courses, and retaining his secret, it perish with him, the world have no right to complain.  During his life, they profited by his knowledge, and are better off than if the philosopher had not existed.

Monopolies, under the name of patents, have been devised to assist and reward those who have chosen the line of pecuniary profit.  Honorary rewards and medals have been the feeble expressions of the sentiments of mankind towards those who have preferred the other course.  But these have been, and should always be, kept completely distinct. [It is a condition with the Society of Arts, never to give a reward to any thing for which a patent has been, or is to be, taken out.]

Let us now consider the case of platina.  A new process was discovered of rendering it malleable, and the mere circumstance of so large a quantity having been sent into the market, was a positive benefit, of no ordinary magnitude, to many of the arts.  The discoverer of this valuable process selected that course for which no reasonable man could blame him; and from some circumstance, or perhaps from accident, he preserved no written record of the manipulations.  Had Providence appointed for that disorder, which terminated too fatally, a more rapid career, all the knowledge he had acquired from the long attention he had devoted to the subject, would have been lost to mankind.  The hand of a friend recorded the directions of the expiring philosopher, whose anxiety to render useful even his unfinished speculations, proves that the previous omission was most probably accidental.

Under such circumstances it was published to the world in the Transactions of the Royal Society.  But what could induce that body to bestow on it their medal?  To talk of adding lustre to the name of Wollaston by their medal, is to talk idly.  They must have done it then as an example, as a stimulus to urge future inquiries in the career of discovery.  But did they wish discoveries to be so endangered?

The discoveries of Professor Mitscherlick, of Berlin, had long been considered, by a few members of the Society, as having strong claims on one of its honorary rewards; but difficulties had arisen, from so few members of the Council having any knowledge of discoveries which had long been familiar to Europe.  The Council were just on the point of doing justice to the merits of the Prussian philosopher, when it was suggested that its medal should be given to Dr. Wollaston, and they immediately altered their intention, and thus enabled themselves to reserve their medal to Professor Mitscherlick for another year; at which period, for aught they knew, his discoveries might possess the additional merit of having been made prior to the limit allowed by their regulations.  That medal was, in fact, voted at a meeting, at which no one member present was at all conversant with the subjects rewarded.  I shall, however, say no more on this subject.  They erred from feeling, an error so very rare with them, that it might be pardoned even for its singularity.

I will, however, add one word to those whose censures have been unjustly dealt, to those who have reproached the philosopher for receiving pecuniary advantage from his inventions.

Amongst the many and varied contrivances for the demands of science, or the arts of life, with which we were enriched by the genius of Wollaston, was it too much to allow him to retain, during his fleeting career, one out of the multitude, to furnish that:  pecuniary supply, without which, the man will want food for his body, and the philosopher be destitute of tools for his inventions?  Had he been, as, from the rank he held in science, he certainly would have been in other kingdoms, rich in the honours his country could bestow, and receiving from her a reward in some measure commensurate with his deserts,—­then, indeed, there might have been reason for that reproach; but I am convinced that, in such circumstances, the philosopher would have balanced, with no “niggard” hand, the claims of his country, and would have given to it, unreservedly, the produce of his powerful mind.