True aim and method of research.
To anyone who knows the business of investigation practically, Bacon's notion of establishing a company of investigators to work for 'fruits,' as if the pursuit of knowledge were a kind of mining operation and only required well-directed picks and shovels, seems very strange.[C] In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. And, in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it is to that one or two that we must look for light and guidance. Newton said that he made his discoveries by 'intending' his mind on the subject; no doubt truly. But to equal his success one must have the mind which he 'intended.' Forty lesser men might have intended their minds till they cracked, without any like result. It would be idle either to affirm or to deny that the last half-century has produced men of science of the calibre of Newton. It is sufficient that it can show a few capacities of the first rank, competent not only to deal profitably with the inheritance bequeathed by their scientific forefathers, but to pass on to their successors physical truths of a higher order than any yet reached by the human race. And if they have succeeded as Newton succeeded, it is because they have sought truth as he sought it, with no other object than the finding it.
Progress from 1837 to 1887.
I am conscious that in undertaking to progress give even the briefest sketch of the progress of physical science, in all its branches, during the last half-century, I may be thought to have exhibited more courage than discretion, and perhaps more presumption than either. So far as physical science is concerned, the days of Admirable Crichtons have long been over, and the most indefatigable of hard workers may think he has done well if he has mastered one of its minor subdivisions. Nevertheless, it is possible for anyone, who has familiarised himself with the operations of science in one department, to comprehend the significance, and even to form a general estimate of the value, of the achievements of specialists in other departments.
Nor is their any lack either of guidance, or of aids to ignorance. By a happy chance, the first edition of Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences' was published in 1837, and it affords a very useful view of the state of things at the commencement of the Victorian epoch. As to subsequent events, there are numerous excellent summaries of the progress of various branches of science, especially up to 1881, which was the jubilee year of the British Association.[D] And, with respect to the biological sciences, with some parts of which my studies have familiarised me, my personal experience nearly coincides with the preceding half-century. I may hope, therefore, that my chance of escaping serious errors is as good as that of anyone else, who might have been persuaded to undertake the somewhat perilous enterprise in which I find myself engaged.
There is yet another prefatory remark which it seems desirable I should make. It is that I think it proper to confine myself to the work done, without saying anything about the doers of it. Meddling with questions of merit and priority is a thorny business at the best of times, and unless in case of necessity, altogether undesirable when one is dealing with contemporaries. No such necessity lies upon me, and I shall, therefore, mention no names of living men, lest, perchance, I should incur the reproof which the Israelites, who struggled with one another in the field, addressed to Moses—'Who made thee a prince and a judge over us.'
The aim of physical science
Physical science is one and indivisible. Although, for practical purposes, it is convenient to mark it out into the primary regions of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, and to subdivide these into subordinate provinces, yet the method of investigation and the ultimate object of the physical inquirer are everywhere the same.
the discovery of the rational order of the universe