agriculture? What has it done for machinery? What for facilitating the means of transport-what for erecting public workswhat improvements, in effect, have any of the arts of common life in France, derived from the investigations of her abstruse inquirers? Will all those improvements put together equal in refinement and convenience any single process connected with the arts which England owes to her science and her ingenuity? This is the practical point to which we must come at last. Eloquence and address may induce us for a moment to give the palm to the nation where science, in its most recondite haunts, is sought after and cultivated, under the patronage of the State. It is nevertheless a fact, that amongst a community where no encouragement of this description is afforded, where rather, for the want of adequate incitement, the spirit of lofty investigation is faint and nearly dead, the good results which are to be expected from the utmost activity of that spirit are in greater abundance, and far superior in quality to any that can be found in countries, where these inquiries into abstract truths have been most promoted. Until, therefore, Mr. Babbage furnishes us with a better mode of explaining the causes of the difference, we must be allowed still to believe that that system is the best, which is attended with the greatest amount of practical advantages. We could state our objections to the French Institute, but we refrain from doing so, being content to take Mr. Babbage's argument as it stands.

But how is it that any extraordinary temptation is required to induce men to cultivate the higher departments of science? We always understood it to be the distinguishing prerogative of minds framed for such inquiries, that they looked upon all sublunary honours with indifference. They are called, par excellence, Philosophers; and for such sages to be languishing for blue ribbons, and titles of honour, is really a condescension which we never expected from such a quarter. We may, however, rest assured that the man who feels an impulse to make the more abstruse parts of mathematics, or any other branch of science, his study, will never scarcely derive an additional motive for the pursuit, from any encouragement that governments can give; neither is it possible that he will be restrained from gratifying his taste by the absence of extraordinary incitement. Lagrange, Euler, and La Place, would have been the same great masters of science, had they the fortune to have been born on English ground.

It is strange, we think, that Mr. Babbage should arraign the government of the country, for the negative offence of withholding its encouragement from the cultivators of theoretic science, and yet that he should say nothing of the mischief which the same government actually commits by its acts of positive interference with the freedom of practical science. We say nothing of its taxes on literature alone, which, however, are very great obstacles to the advance of intelligence; but we might adduce the imposts

on various articles which are the subject of scientific experiment *. We confidently say, that these are some of the facts that ought to have been mentioned amongst the causes of any decline of science which may have taken place in our country. Mr. Babbage, too, might have spared a few more animadversions, and those in a strain of more just severity than he has indulged in, on the imperfect state of education in England as respects the promotion of science. He has a chapter, indeed, on this subject, but it is written with the timidity of a man who seems sensible of the presence of some powerful restraint. He says at its commencement That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it, is a principle too obvious to require investigation.' We are not quite satisfied that this is true in England. We cannot

trace the slightest connection between the general system of instruction and the state of knowledge that exist in this country at the present moment. On the contrary, we fear that there is too decided a variance between them. If we consider who were the men that raised the reputation of our practical science. to the unexampled height which it has attained-if we inquire into the lives of a Davy, a Watt, an Arkwright, a Smeaton. a Hutton, a Brindley, a Herschell, a Wedgewood, a Rennell, and though last not least a Rennie, we shall soon have our notions, corrected as to the sympathy that exists between the state of knowledge and the general system of instruction adopted in England. The men we have named were some of the persons whose scientific ingenuity has adorned the physical aspect of our country, and who have multiplied its comforts and conveniences by the well-directed application of their minds to science. And yet, almost to a man, they were self-taught-not one of them was ever enrolled on the list of a University-not one, we almost venture to affirm, ever heard a lecture on the Calculus of Functions.

From general topics, Mr. Babbage at last descends to the consideration of the present state of the Royal Society. On the part of the public and of every well organized mind in the country, we are ever ready to return thanks for the exposure of an abuse in any

* "Since the valuable discovery of John Dollond in 1758, the achromatic telescope, no improvement has been made in it in England, and the reason is, that no experiments can be made on flint glass in this country without the payment of an exorbitant tax, and submitting to the vexatious intrusions of the tax-gatherer. It is a curious fact that, on a single pound of glass melted fifty times, the duty on 50lbs. must be paid. It has occurred, in more instances than one, that scientific young men, enthusiastically committing themselves to the task of making improvements in achromatic glasses, have been suddenly arrested in their progress by some more experienced of their friends, who informed them of their liability to the excise."-Tradesmen and Mechanics' Almanack for 1831.

institution, in the proceedings of which, the public is fairly interested. But let us ask if Mr. Babbage has not viewed the Society with a jaundiced eye? Has he not really visited that institution with the punishment which is due only to the general temper of the country, and which is certainly not in a disposition to fall prostrate before the wonders of his calculus. We join our critic in reprobating many of the contemptible arts, so unworthy of a scientific establishment, which he charges on the council of the Royal Society. Several of these accusations are, in our opinion, not only too rigidly enforced, but are altogether too insignificant to be brought forward with all the circumstances of a public impeachment-one of this class we shall mention.

'There are certain duties which the Royal Society owes to its own character as well as to the public, which having been on some occasions apparently neglected, it may be here the proper place to mention, since it is reasonable to suppose that attention to them is within the province of its Secretaries.

The first to which I shall allude, is the singular circumstances attending the fact of the Royal Society having printed a volume of Astronomical Observations which were made at the Observatory of Paramatta (New South Wales), bearing the title of "The Third Part of the Philosophical Transactions for the Year 1829."

own.

'Now this Observatory was founded at the private expense of a British officer; the instruments were paid for out of his purse; two observers were brought from Europe, to be employed in making use of these instruments, at salaries defrayed by him. A considerable portion of the observations so printed were made by these astronomers during their employment in his service, and some of them are personally his Yet has the Royal Society, in adopting them as part of its Transactions, omitted all mention either in their title-page, preface, or in any part of the volume, of the fact that the world owed these valuable observations to the enlightened munificence of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Brisbane; whose ardent zeal in the pursuit of science, induced him to found at his own private expense, an establishment which it has been creditable to the British Government to continue as a national institution. Had any kindred feelings existed in the Council, instead of endeavouring to shift the responsibility, they would have hastened to rectify an omission, less unjust to the individual than it was injurious to English science.'-pp. 60, 61.

Now the real truth is this; that the Royal Society, in printing these observations, has distinctly set forth, in plain legible print, that they constitute merely a supplement to the volume of Transactions-that they were placed before the public in the form which they assume, at the express request, and at the expense of the Colonial Department. We pass over the chapter on the scientific advisers, and the pendulum experiments, as we could not possibly expect to do justice to the very just, the able, acute and dignified castigation which Mr. Babbage inflicts on a pseudo astronomer in the employment of the society. But we wonder that his very just

indignation is not appeased, when he finds that the Society has put forth Lieutenant Foster's recantation, in which the mistakes of Captain Sabine are fully exposed. Could any conduct be more honourable than that of the Society in doing so? Mr. Babbage complains with reason of the union of several offices in one person. Mr. Pond, Captain Sabine, and Mr. Brande, are the persons who are implicated in the offence under this head. We have not the slightest objection to many parts of Mr. Babbage's criticism on the prodigality of the Society in providing engravings illustrative of Sir Everard Home's numerous papers in the Transactions. We think that the time has not elapsed within which the account of these expences ought in all fairness to be overhauled. Sir Everard, in all conscience, is bound to reimburse the Society, at least as to some portion of the cost of these engravings, since he had the use of the plates to take off impressions for his work on Comparative Anatomy. Mr. Babbage doubts if the importance of Sir Everard's communications be commensurate with their number. We, who take care to be provided with accurate information on all such matters, have no hesitation in saying, that it is not. Giving to that ancient Surgeon the fullest credit for his several most valuable researches, conceding the full measure of praise which is due to him, especially for his work on the prostate, we yet must say, that much too large a portion of his ostentatious labours has been undertaken without any adequate return to medical science. The subject of the principal papers of Sir Everard Home, which are printed in the Philosophical Transactions, happens to be of a nature that cannot with propriety be discussed in a Journal of such general circulation as ours. It may be sufficient to say, that Sir Everard's only misfortune is, that he sometimes meets with facts in his scientific inquiries, which no other man in existence has ever witnessed. His singular discovery in the uterus has baffled the penetration of every anatomist to this day. He has detected, also, in the kangaroo, a transverse and continuous muscle, stretching across the abdomen, between the superior extremities of the marsupial bones, and which acts, he says, as a sling to sustain the mamma. There is not a fibre in the said district of the kangaroo, which Mr. Morgan, of Guy's hospital, has not carefully dissected, and yet no muscle of the kind, nothing even that could be mistaken for a muscle of this sort, has been detected by his careful hand. Nor has any other anatomist that we know of been more fortunate than Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Babbage's observations on the distribution of the Royal medals, savours we think of a very strong prejudice against the Royal Society, or rather the Council. His late Majesty founded two gold medals of the value of fifty guineas each, to be given in such a manner as shall seem best calculated to promote the object for which the Society was instituted. The Council determine the

conditions on which these medals shall be granted-and it is a part of the conditions that the discoveries, or series of investigations, on account of which they are to be bestowed, shall be completed and made known to the Royal Society in the year preceding the day of their award. But what happens? The medals are given to Mr. Dalton and Mr. Ivory. But it could not be said that either of these gentlemen made discoveries or concluded a series of investigations "in the year preceding the day of the award," and therefore the bestowing of the medals upon these gentlemen was a violation of the laws of the Society worthy of the most decided reprobation! A charge more inconsistent with the spirit and tenor of his book could hardly have been imagined by Mr. Babbage. What is the complaint which reverberates from page to page of his volume, but that men such as Dalton and Ivory have been shamefully neglected by their country, and that in no quarter is there manisfested the least disposition to appreciate, much less to reward their successful labours. Such is Mr. Babbage's outcry. Is it not surprising then that the same man should find fault with the Society for stepping out of its prescribed course in order to pay a compliment to these philosophers?-We wonder that our author could not see in this extraordinary act of the Society an inclination that deserved the eulogy of every reasonable man, and not the less so because it was just that conduct which would invite the inculpation of its enemies. If an error it was, the Society did themselves more honour in committing it than they have done by many a deed which the world would call virtuous.

Mr. Babbage has some observations on the distribution of the Copley medals, which we deem worth some attention.

'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.'-pp 128, 129.

To the latter paragraph of this extract we beg the reader will