Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen

by Clement King Shorter

But political economy is merely a branch of the larger science of sociology, and for the first general treatment of the whole science, since Comte, we turn to the most characteristic philosopher of the century. Herbert Spencer1820- was born at Derby, where his father was a teacher of mathematics. From his father and uncle, the latter a Congregational minister, he received his early education. Articled at seventeen years of age to a civil engineer, he followed that profession with some success for seven or eight years, when he gradually drifted into literature—a series of letters by him "On the Proper Sphere of Government" appearing in the Nonconformist for 1842. A few years later, he wrote for the Westminster Review, at the house of the editor of which magazine he met George Eliot in 1851, and began the most famous friendship of his life. It was also in 1851 that he published his first work, "Social Statics," and four years later his "Principles of Psychology." In 1861 he published his work on "Education," and the following year his "First Principles." Between that time and 1896 he has slowly built up a system of synthetic philosophy, in a dozen bulky volumes, which has secured him a very large following not only in England, but throughout the Continent and America. His "Descriptive Sociology" is the production of many writers, who have worked under his direction, collecting facts from travellers and scientists all over the world.

To have placed Psychology and Ethics on a scientific basis in harmony with the discoveries of the century is a truly great achievement. Many years have now passed away since Herbert Spencer claimed the whole domain of knowledge as his own, and undertook to revise, in accordance with the latest lights, the whole sphere of philosophy. What must have seemed intolerable presumption in 1860 became in 1896 a completed task. In universality of knowledge he rivals Aristotle and Bacon at a time when the sphere of learning is immensely larger than in their epochs. It is not within the province of this survey of literature to go through the twelve large volumes of his works in detail. We would rather point out that, to the unphilosophical reader, who would willingly know something of Spencer's literary powers, the "Study of Sociology," which he wrote for the "International Scientific Series," and the treatise on "Education" are books which all who read must enjoy.

To him, with Mill, belongs the glory of restoring to Great Britain the old supremacy in philosophy given to her by Bacon, continued by Locke, Hume, and Berkeley, but temporarily interrupted by Kant and Hegel.

Another writer who has attempted to combine psychology with physiology is Alexander Bain1818-, who was for many years Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen, and twice Lord Rector. Bain assisted Mill in the preparation of his "Logic," and has himself written a treatise on that science, also lengthy works on "The Senses and the Intellect," and "The Emotions and the Will." Perhaps his work on "Mental and Moral Science" is his best-known contribution to student literature. Although he is the author of books on grammar and composition, Professor Bain's style is always oppressively heavy and unattractive. As Spencer and Bain combined psychology with physiology, so it was the effort of Boole and De Morgan to extend the scope of logic by an ingenious application of mathematics.

The leader for many years of the "Hegelian" school of philosophy at Oxford, which has long held the field against Mill on the one hand and Spencer on the other, was Thomas Hill Green1838-1882, who was appointed Whyte Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1877, and who published the same year a series of articles in the Contemporary Review, on "Mr Herbert Spencer and Mr G. H. Lewes: their Application of the Doctrine of Evolution to Thought." He was preparing for publication his "Prolegomena to Ethics" at the time of his death, and the work was finally edited by Professor A. C. Bradley, who has himself written a treatise on logic, and whose Hegelian work, entitled "Ethical Studies," is of the highest interest. Green was a moral force in Oxford, quite apart from his philosophical speculation, as the following extract from one of his lectures will indicate:—"I confess to hoping for a time when the phrase, 'the education of a gentleman,' will have lost its meaning, because the sort of education which alone makes the gentleman in any true sense will be within the reach of all. As it was the aspiration of Moses that all the Lord's people should be prophets, so with all seriousness and reverence we may hope and pray for a condition of English society in which all honest citizens will recognize themselves and be recognized by each other as gentlemen."

George Henry Lewes1817-1878, whose name is frequently joined with that of Spencer by his association of biology with ethics and psychology, was the son of Charles Lee Lewes, the actor, and was one of the most versatile writers of our times. His first important work was the "Biographical History of Philosophy," originally published in 1845 in Knight's Shilling Library, but amplified without improvement into two substantial volumes in 1867. Lewes's distaste for the ordinary metaphysics, and the severity of his criticism on Hegel, have rendered this work the bête noir of all transcendental students; but it remains the one English "History of Philosophy" of any pretension. More unqualified praise may be given to the "Life of Goethe," which Lewes published in 1855. Perhaps no other man then living could have shown himself competent to deal with Goethe's many-sidedness—to discuss "Faust" and "Tasso," "Hermann und Dorothea" at one moment, the poet's biological and botanical discoveries the next, and to estimate at their true worth the speculations on colours, which Goethe held to be more calculated than his poems to secure him immortality. The book remains the standard life of the great Weimar sage in this country, and is popular in Germany, in spite of a vast Goethe literature which has been published since its appearance. In addition to these great works Lewes wrote two novels, one of which, "Ranthorpe," Charlotte Brontë praised enthusiastically. He edited the Fortnightly Review, and also initiated a craze for aquaria, by his "Seaside Studies;" he endeavoured, indeed, to popularise many of the sciences, particularly physiology. His last years were devoted to philosophical questions, and his "Problems of Life and Mind" were published in fragments, the concluding volume, under George Eliot's editorship, after his death.

The earliest writer of the era to popularise science was Sir David Brewster1781-1868, an eminent physicist, in whose Edinburgh Cyclopædia Carlyle commenced his literary career. His "Life of Newton," "Martyrs of Science," and "More Worlds than One" are still widely read. Michael Faraday1791-1867, another famous physicist, is still better remembered by our own generation, principally for his popular lectures at the Royal Institution, where he was superintendent of the laboratory for forty-eight years. He was a blacksmith's son, and was originally apprenticed to a bookbinder. After his discovery of magneto-electricity, he had, he told Tyndall, a hard struggle to decide whether he should make wealth or science the pursuit of his life. Tyndall calculates that Faraday could easily have realised £150,000; but he declared for science and died a poor man.

John Tyndall1820-1893, who once said that it was his great ambition to play the part of Schiller to this Goethe, succeeded Faraday at the Royal Institution, and wrote about him eloquently in his "Faraday as a Discoverer." Tyndall was born at Leighlin Bridge, Carlow, Ireland, in 1820. His father was a member of the Irish constabulary. His services to many branches of science were great; but he concerns us here not so much by his treatises on electricity, sound, light, and heat, or by his discoveries in diamagnetism, as by his "Lectures on Science for Unscientific People," which, Huxley said, was the most scientific book he had ever read, and which has yet the transcendent merit of giving enjoyment as well as instruction, even to the readers of three-volume novels. In 1856 Tyndall made a journey to Switzerland, in company with Professor Huxley, and the friends afterwards wrote a treatise "On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers." Geological treatises may be said to have given the fullest play to the literary side of science. The work of Robert Bentley and Sir Joseph Hooker in botany, of Michael Foster, St George Mivart, and Francis Maitland Balfour in biology, is, it may be, equal or superior to that of the bulk of the writers whose achievements we have chronicled; but it is not a part of literature. Burdon Sanderson, Balfour Stewart, and a host of other men, have done incalculable service in the Victorian era—service, it is to be feared, which scarcely obtains as generous recognition as the cheap generalisations of smaller men; but scientific text-books, however important, are scarcely within the scope of these chapters. Geology, on the other hand, is, as it were, a conglomerate of the sciences, and lends itself readily to the most eloquent literary expression. Few writers have been more widely read than Hugh Miller1802-1856, a Cromarty stone-mason, whose first enthusiasm for study of the rocks arose from following his trade, but whose life was mainly devoted to journalism, and to editing The Witness. His "Old Red Sandstone," "Footprints of the Creator," and "The Testimony of the Rocks" were effective in kindling a taste for natural science.

The special study which Miller gave to the Red Sandstone rocks was extended by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison1792-1871 to the Silurian System, and his work entitled "Siluria" has passed through many editions. Scotland seems to have been the nursery of geologists, for Miller and Murchison, Lyell and the brothers Geikie, were all born north of the Tweed. Sir Charles Lyell1797-1875 was born at Kinnordy, in Forfarshire, and educated at Midhurst, and at Exeter College, Oxford. Called to the bar, he went the Western Circuit for two years, but, when attending some of Dr Buckland's lectures, he became attached to geology. His "Principles of Geology," first published in 1830, caused a revolution in the science. Never before had there been presented such a connected illustration of the influences which had caused the earth's changes in the unresting distribution of land and water areas. Much of Lyell's great work reads like a fairy tale; much might have been thought the fruit of an imaginative rather than of a scientific mind. Lyell's smaller book, the "Student's Elements of Geology," was injured in literary merit by the progressive study of the science of which he had been the second father. The constant addition of fresh knowledge, and his conversion to Darwin's views, necessitated the continual rewriting of parts and further revision by other hands after the author's death. "The Antiquity of Man" (in defence of Darwin's theory) is of more value from a literary standpoint. Before the beginning of the reign William Buckland1784-1856, Dean of Westminster, by whose lectures Lyell had so much profited, had written his famous Bridgewater Treatise on "Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology." His son, Frank Buckland1826-1880, wrote clever and readable books on "Natural History," and had genuine enthusiasm for the study of animal life; but he was charged with having vulgarised the studies in which he took so keen an interest. The most distinguished living geologist is Sir Archibald Geikie, who is now director-general of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. His "Text Book," which was first published in 1882, is a model of lucid writing, and his essays are among the most pleasant literary products of the age. His brother, James Geikie, has written an important work on glaciation, entitled "The Great Ice Age."

But the scientific literature of the past sixty years might almost be said to be summarised in the work of Charles Darwin1809-1882. A funeral in Westminster Abbey, amid the mourning of many nations, closed the career of one whose life-work had often been greeted with scorn. "Our century is Darwin's century," said a leading German newspaper (Allgemeine Zeitung) at his death, and the statement is no exaggeration. Those who witnessed the long stream of prelates and nobles who filed through the Abbey at his funeral, the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Tait) and the present Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury) among the number, could not but recall the reception of the great investigator's theory twenty years before. Bishop Wilberforce in particular denounced it in the Quarterly Review as "a flimsy speculation." Darwin's antecedents were of a nature such as, on the principle of heredity, a great man should possess. His paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a poet, whose "Botanic Garden" may still be read with interest. His maternal grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter. Darwin was the son of a doctor of Shrewsbury, and was educated at the Grammar School of that city and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Here his natural history studies were sympathetically directed by Professor Henslow, the botanist, by whose recommendation he was selected to accompany the Beagle on its expedition to survey the South American coast. The results of his travels were embodied in his first important work, "Journals of Researches during a Voyage round the World," which was published in 1839, and was republished under the title of "A Naturalist's Voyage round the World." In the same year he married his cousin, Miss Wedgwood, and, after a few years of London life, took up his residence in a pleasant country house at Down, near Beckenham, in Kent. Here he pursued his remarkable investigations until his death, surrounded by his accomplished children, and finding, as he told a friend, his highest emotional gratification in the joys of family life and a love of animate nature. Two of his sons, George Howard Darwin and Francis Darwin, have done good work in science, the one in geology and astronomy, the other in botany. Darwin himself wrote also on the "Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs," revolutionising the popular view concerning these remarkable phenomena. Discovering that reef-building polyps cannot live at depths of more than twenty fathoms, he found it necessary to explain the presence of rocks built by them which rise from more than 2000 feet below the surface of the sea. This he did on the hypothesis of a gradual subsidence of the sea-floor whilst the polyps are at work. This view has since been generally accepted by geologists, although somewhat modified by Dr John Murray's observation in the Challenger expedition, that the reefs are not always of solid coral, and that they may in many cases have been formed on the cones of extinct volcanoes.