200 COLLOQUY VIII. STEAM-WAR-PROSPECTS OF EUROPE. "THE ancients," says* Dr. Arbuthnot, "had more occasion for mechanics in the art of war, than we have; gunpowder readily producing a force far exceeding all the engines they had contrived for battery. And this, I reckon, has lost us a good occasion of improving our mechanics; the cunning of mankind never exerting itself so much as in their arts of destroying one another." Since Arbuthnot's Since Arbuthnot's age the desire of gain has produced greater improvements in mechanics than were ever called forth by the desire of conquest. And yet the great inventions of the world have arisen from a worthier origin than either; they have generally been the work of quiet, unambitious, unworldly men, pursuing some favourite branch of science, patiently, for its own sake. Steam, said I to Sir Thomas when he visited * Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning. me next, has fearfully accelerated a process which was going on already but too fast. Could I contemplate the subject without reference to that Providence which brings about all things in its own good time, I should be tempted to think that the discovery of this mighty power had come to us, like the possession of great and dangerous wealth to a giddy youth, before we knew how to employ it rightly. SIR THOMAS MORE. It is, however, a power which had long been known before it was brought into use for general purposes. In Justinian's reign, the philosopher, Anthemius, employed it in his extraordinary devices for annoying a next-door neighbour, and Pope Silvester made an organ which was worked by it. MONTESINOS. Even at a much later period, extraordinary experiments excited little attention at the time they were made, though they are now looked back upon with wonder, as having anticipated some of the most remarkable discoveries of the present age. A Portugueze ascended in some kind of balloon at Lisbon, more than an hundred years ago. In cases of public display like this, or of public notoriety such as those earlier and more remarkable ones which you have in stanced, we may, with some reason, wonder that no consequences followed,.. that the same age in which the knowledge implied in such experiments was to be found, should not have produced minds capable of pursuing them to some great and useful result. So, too, with regard to the invention of printing: the ancients missed it, though the sepulchral lamps show us that Greek potters imprinted their names upon their ware; and though, among their gallants, it was the custom for an amorist to impress the name of his mistress in the dust, or upon the damp earth, with letters fixed upon his shoe. It is not surprizing that the prism should, for generations, have been given to children as a plaything, and sent out, among other baubles, as a toy for savages, before Newton used it as an instrument of science, because it required an intellect like Newton's to analyse the phenomenon which it presented: but in these cases the application was direct and easy, and to purposes of common and obvious utility. SIR THOMAS MORE. Some discoveries have been the effect of mere chance,.. that of glass for example, which has given astronomers the telescope, entomology its animalcular world, old age its second sight, and which contributes to the comfort of every class in society, not less than to the luxuries and elegancies of those who are most favoured by fortune. Others have been the result of fortuitous experiments in the use of herbs and mineral substances; and these found their way slowly into general use, because some selfish interest not unfrequently withheld them for its own purposes. Your manufacturers and artificers have their secrets at this day, as the priests of Greece and Egypt had theirs,.. MONTESINOS. And the monks and friars of the middle ages. SIR THOMAS MORE. Remember that one mighty discovery was withheld by a friar, in mercy to mankind. MONTESINOS. No finer proof of foresight and true greatness of mind has ever been given than in that illustrious instance; for Roger Bacon's motives cannot be mistaken. He desired the praise of knowledge, and yet was contented to forego the honour of this discovery, till a secret, of which he anticipated the destructive application, should be brought to light by some future experimentalist, less humane, or less considerate than himself. But no merit must be claimed for the friars on his score. It is for his country, not his order, to glory in the man whom that order condemned to imprisonment, not for his supposed skill in magic, but for those opinions* which he derived from studying the Scriptures, wherein he was versed beyond any other person of his age. SIR THOMAS MORE. In what a different state of feeling did Johannes de Rupescissa speculate upon chemical discoveries, when he advised that the art of composing his cordial corroborative, of which brandy was the chief constituent, should be kept carefully as a state secret, lest it should come to the knowledge of the enemies of the church; and that, as a sure means of rendering * Erat hic vir miri ingenii, subtilioris quam felicis; nulla erat litterarum facultas in qua non esset exercitatissimus, et in sacrâ Scripturá ultra omnes versatissimus. Sed ea quorundam indoles, ut dum non plus sapiant, quam oporteat, atque ultra communem receptamque doctrinam quidquam novi non dicant, nihil se dixisse putent. Non ea debet esse in sacris doctrinis libertas dicendi vel opinandi; in aliis liberalibus scientiis quod novum, gratum; in istis quod vetustum, securum. Suá antiquitate sacræ litteræ commendantur; sat suâ vetustate consistunt.—Wadding, A.D. 1278, § 26. It is evident from this passage, that the annalist of the Friars Minorite regarded Roger Bacon more as a heretic than as the greatest and wisest man of his order and his age. * L. 8. de Remediis Generalibus. c. 8. P. 133. Basilicæ, 1561. The chapter will be found among the supplementary notes to this volume. |