12 February: Boreham on Charles Darwin The Integrity of Science This, the birthday of Charles Darwin, furnishes an opportunity of stressing the essential virtue of the phase of life that Darwin so conspicuously adorned. Darwin was only 22 when, through the influence of his old teacher, Prof. J. S. Henslow, he was invited to set out on a five-year cruise as naturalist without pay on H.M.S. Beagle. The tall young student's first reactions to the novel idea were by no means favourable. He eyed the project dubiously. Few ambitious youths of 22 lightly forgo, for five long years, the opportunity of earning money. But, the longer he pondered it, the more attractive the adventure seemed, and he finished up by accepting the invitation with schoolboy enthusiasm. To the last day of his long and useful life he congratulated himself on that decision. "The voyage of the Beagle," he would tell his friends, "stands out as the most important event in my life; it determined my whole career." Moreover, it enriched our literature with several volumes, the direct outcome of observations made in the course of the tour. In addition to "The Voyage of the Beagle," one of the most fascinating and informative travel stories ever penned, the enterprise led also to the writing of "The Zoology of the Beagle" and other masterpieces. The "Quarterly Review" said of "The Voyage of the Beagle" that it contains ample material for deep thinking; it abounds in the vivid description that fills the mind's eye with brighter pictures than any painter can present; whilst it is marked by the charm arising from the freshness of heart which is thrown over these virgin pages by a strong intellectual man and an acute and profound observer. The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth Prof. J. A. Thomson defines the scientific temper as consisting of three cardinal and fundamental virtues. A man must have, he says, a clear and unbiased vision; he must exhibit a caution that can never be marred by impatience to reach a conclusion; and he must possess a genuine passion for facts. Huxley spoke of "that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater treasure than much learning, a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge." It is to the everlasting credit of the world of science that it has frequently produced monumental examples of this intellectual chastity; but, among those illustrious names, there is none that, in the sheer transparency of his soul and in his absolute loyalty to his vision, shines with a brighter lustre than Darwin's. With Darwin, honesty was an instinct. In his earliest autobiographical records he tells the stark truth about himself with brutal candour. One of his sons, Sir Francis Darwin, as a small boy, once asked his father, in the presence of a number of famous men and women, if he was ever tipsy. Most men so situated would have hedged, prevaricated, or turned the question aside as a joke. But not Darwin. "I am ashamed to say that I once was-at Cambridge," he replied, with characteristic frankness and circumstantial exactitude. Sir Francis Darwin confesses, in his biography of his renowned sire, that the stark veracity and crystalline honesty of that straightforward answer made an indelible impression on his own childish mind. Once as a boy, Darwin pitilessly thrashed a puppy. He was moved to this act of tyranny by the sheer exuberance of power. He was the master; the puppy was his slave. A minute later he felt thoroughly ashamed. In the ordinary way, the incident would have passed into oblivion. But Darwin felt that the man who writes an autobiography must tell the whole truth: and he therefore pillories himself for all the world to see. Does The Exception Prove The Rule? This admirable trait marked all his researches. Through long years of patient investigation, Darwin would discover that thousands of specimens in given circumstances behave in a particular way. The evidence would appear overwhelming; but just as he was about to generalise on these harmonious observations, and to announce the confident conclusion to which all the facts so steadily pointed, he would suddenly come upon a specimen that, under identically similar conditions, behaved in a radically different way. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have dismissed the recalcitrant phenomenon with the cheap sophistry that the exception proves the rule. But so plausible a way of escape is inconsistent with the best traditions of science; and Darwin, with impeccable fidelity to truth, immediately abandoned the premature conclusion as untenable. "The little beast is doing just what I did not want him do," Darwin would exclaim, and, without a moment's delay, he would evacuate the position to which years of research had led him. One evening towards the end, Darwin entertained Prof. G. J. Romanes at his Kentish home. His son, Sir Francis Darwin, was also present. The conversation, turning to the ability of magnificent scenery to awaken emotions of reverence, Darwin casually remarked that he had never experienced that sensation so powerfully as when standing on the slopes of the Cordilleras. Shortly afterwards he retired for the night. But a couple of hours later, clad in dressing-gown and slippers, he reappeared to tell the two younger men, who were still lingering beside the fire, that he had unwittingly misled them. "It was in the forests of Brazil," he said, "and not among the Cordilleras, that I was most overcome by the sensation of reverence. I could not sleep until I had corrected myself. It might conceivably affect your conclusions." It was a small thing, a mere matter of personal taste and sentiment; but the old man, true to the last to the finest traditions of the scientific temper, felt that his memory had betrayed him into a position from which he must frankly and openly withdraw. There, as in a cameo, is reflected both the spirit of Charles Darwin and the spirit of all true science. F W Boreham posted by Geoff Pound 11 February: Boreham on Thomas Edison Possibility Thinker In the most modest and unpretentious circumstances, Thomas Alva Edison was born in Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was scarcely out of his cradle when he formed the conviction that nothing thinkable is impossible; and, at the age of eighty-four, he died translating into concrete actualities the wildest and weirdest conceptions of his restless brain. Multitudinous and bewildering as were his countless inventions, it is impossible to lay down the list of his countless and almost incredible triumphs without feeling that the mind that could wrestle with such problems, and produce such wonders, was itself, far and away, the most miraculous piece of mechanism of them all. Like Faraday, on whom, to some extent, he modelled his career, he owed practically nothing to his education. He spent three months at school. His mother, and his own sharp eyes, taught him all that he came to know. Having once learned to read, he felt that the world was at his feet. As a small boy he devoured the entire contents of an Encyclopedia, Hume's History of England, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Newton's Principia, and he one day entered the Public Library at Detroit with the avowed intention of absorbing the entire contents of the institution, book by book! Every experience that came his way became grist to his mill. He began life by selling newspapers and fruit on a railway train. He was soon printing a paper of his own on that selfsame train. A little later, to further some of his other experiments, he added a laboratory to his travelling equipment; had the misfortune to set the van on fire; was severely cuffed by the angry guard; and the blow burdened him with lifelong deafness. Touching Life At A Thousand Points The precise number of his inventions will never be known. More than a thousand of his amazing contrivances were patented in the United States alone. In his 24th year he had 45 distinct inventions simultaneously under way, and the Patent Commissioner described him as "the young man who keeps the path to the Patents Office hot with his footsteps. "He allowed no grass to grow under his feet. At four o'clock one afternoon he made an important discovery; he immediately rushed to his solicitor, who instantly cabled particulars to London; and, next day, he was informed that his idea was under serious consideration in England. In an essay on Edison, Mr. Lionel Elvin remarks that he himself is writing on a typewriter by the light of an incandescent electric lamp. The room contains a gramophone, a wireless set and a telephone. As soon as his manuscript is complete, he intends to ring up a cinema to reserve seats for the evening. He will find his way to the theatre by electric train and then go home by taxi. And for all these things-the typewriter, the lamp, the gramophone, the radio, the telephone, the moving pictures, the electric train and the automobile-he is indebted to Edison. Thomas Edison represents in his own person the new trend in scientific thought. More than three centuries ago, Lord Bacon hurled the thunderbolts of his vigorous denunciation into the academies of the scientists and the portals of the philosophers, charging these learned speculators with making no real contribution to the practical welfare of the race. "Words, and more words, and nothing but words," he complained, "has been the fruit of the toil of the most renowned sages of sixty generations." The old philosophy had been singularly shy of meddling in matters that might serve some utilitarian end, lest it should be supposed that academic pursuits were simply followed for the sake of the vulgar purposes that they promoted. Science Looks At Life, Transfigures Everything For many hundreds of years the most capable thinkers were content to deal in nebulous theories, abstract speculations, mystifying hypotheses and occult disquisitions. Science was in the world like a spider in the water, with its own native atmosphere gathered closely about it and fearful lest any general admixture should take place between the element that was the breath of its own nostrils and the turbid body of affairs beyond it. Even Seneca ridiculed the thinkers who applied their powers to increasing the comfort of their homes. "The invention of such appliances," he said, "is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not for her to teach men how to use their hands; her mission is to form the soul." It was against this pernicious doctrine that, in season and out of season Bacon protested. And with good effect. In a telling essay Macaulay has shown how Bacon's gospel transfigured civilisation. It has lengthened human life, he says; has mitigated pain; has extinguished diseases; has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new security to shipping; has spanned huge rivers, has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; has extended the range of human vision, has multiplied the power of the human muscles; has accelerated motion; has annihilated distance; has facilitated intercourse; has enabled man to descend into the depths of the sea; to soar into the sky, to penetrate the noxious recesses of the earth; and to traverse land, sea and air at incredible rates of speed. In this cavalcade of achievement, no one scientist has played a braver part than Thomas Alva Edison. One of the most impressive pages of the New Testament describes the way in which the scientists of an earlier day laid their tributes of gold and frankincense and myrrh at the divine feet. Lives like those of Faraday and Edison prove that, when that act of adoration has once been sincerely performed, science turns from the presence of Deity to the service of Humanity, transforming every phase of human experience in the process. F W Boreham ~~~ Posted by Geoff Pound: F. W. Boreham died before completing this book. Several years after his death in 1959, Dr. Boreham's son, Frank, donated to Whitley College: The University of Melbourne, an assortment of Boreham memorabilia, including the famous author's personal copies of his books, numerous books from his library, several scrapbooks containing the newspaper editorials and the papers drafting out the style of this book. Due to a lack of space, the Boreham treasures were kept for many years in the Whitley College archives. A chance remark between Frank Boreham Jnr. and myself, led to the discovery of the draft papers for this book and thus after more than thirty years, Boreham's dream has been reawakened! For twelve years I served at Whitley College and during this time I led several Boreham Bus Tours, gave lectures on Boreham's life and work and wrote a doctoral thesis on Boreham's work as an editorialist. I now live in the UAE and am working as a freelance writer. I have created The Official F W Boreham Blog Site which is a growing source of items on the life and work of F W Boreham. This can be found at: http://fwboreham.blogspot.com ~~~
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