Aspects of science

The indifference of the Englishman is, considered pragmatically, the same thing as tolerance. It bestows freedom and leaves every man, within fairly wide limits, at ease to pursue his bent. There is doubtless a relation between this English characteristic and the fact that England, above any other country, is the home of the amateur. In England, compared with the Continent, there are comparatively few men whose dominant activity is their exclusive activity. There are many fair specialists, but there are few specialised men. There are countries such as France, where the Gemeinplatz of intelligent men is probably larger and more richly furnished than it is in England, but it is comparatively difficult to meet the type of man who is an eminent lawyer, an authority on Eastern poisons, and a really good judge of horseflesh. Such manifestations of a national quality may sometimes appear almost grotesque, but we believe that the quality of which they are partial manifestations is the most splendid and individual characteristic of the English intellect. It is not a quality which produces many thrice-armed specialists, but it is a quality which produces a great number of amateurs. The English amateur in the arts belongs to a family well worth consideration, but our more immediate concern is with the amateur in science.

There was a time when the scientific amateur abounded in England. In the time of Huxley and his contemporaries, as we see from their letters, amateur zoologists, botanists, and, more rarely, amateur mathematicians and physicists, were scattered all over England and occasionally had something of interest, or even of value, to report. In the days when R. A. Proctor edited Knowledge the country seemed to be full of reverend gentlemen who owned small observatories and home-made telescopes. This large and interesting family seems now to be making towards extinction. The increasing complexity of the various sciences, to say nothing of the variety and cost of modern apparatus, has made anything but trifling discoveries difficult to the verge of impossibility for an amateur equipment. Perhaps the amateur who has suffered least from these changes is the amateur astronomer. There is good reason for supposing that his numbers have increased. In this branch of science the English amateur has always been particularly strong, and this cannot be attributed to the official encouragement accorded astronomy in this country. There are many more amateur astronomers in England than in France, although astronomy counts for more in France than in England, and although, since Newton, France has played the leading rôle in the history of astronomy.

The popularity of amateur astronomy in England certainly needs explanation, for it is a pursuit attended by many disappointments in so capricious a climate, and Englishmen have few opportunities of seeing a really impressive display of stars. Perhaps the Englishman is sufficient of a Northerner to be profoundly attracted by the sheer vastness and the mystery of stellar phenomena. Then the actual telescope and its accessories probably appeal to the English love of mechanism. There are few instruments more delightful in themselves than a properly mounted telescope of moderate aperture. Its adjustment affords a pleasure as refined as that given by operating a small hand printing-press, and superior to that of mending a bicycle. Every telescope has its distinctive “performance,” and one can grow as enthusiastically partisan about makes of telescopes as one can about makes of motor-cars or pianos. Whether or not these be the reasons it is certain that astronomy is the science which most attracts the English amateur. The existence of the British Astronomical Association, an amateur society with some hundreds of members, is sufficient proof of this. It would perhaps be difficult to justify by the results the amount of time and money spent in amateur stargazing, if one estimated results from the severe standpoint of the professional astronomer. But if one adopts a broader outlook and estimates the results in rather more human terms, then there is probably no pursuit which affords more innocent pleasure and provides, in itself, a more liberal education. It is said that the vast photographic telescopes of the present day have rendered the small instrument valueless. Even Mr. Hinks, in his excellent volume Astronomy in the Home University Library, says that the would-be amateur would do well to hesitate before buying a small telescope, and that a measuring machine, to measure photographs taken by big instruments, would be a far better investment. This is the severely professional point of view; it is to mistake the psychology of the amateur observer. The amateur likes to think that he might some day make a discovery, but that is only by the way. His real joy is in doing precisely what the professional cannot do, and that is to enjoy the spectacle of the heavens. The ordinary run of work in a big observatory is not much more exciting than work in an ordinary business office. To sit up half the night measuring photographs would conceivably add to scientific knowledge, and there are doubtless stern men who are willing to do it. These, like computers, are the martyrs of science. The average amateur will continue to prefer his present pleasant, if ineffectual, method of adding to scientific knowledge. It is to be feared that, as one result of the war, this amiable occupation will decline. A little before the war the amateur could purchase a modest but thoroughly good, instrument at a reasonable price. The same instrument to-day would cost at least twice as much, and there would probably be an interval of several months between the order and the delivery. One large firm of optical instrument makers announces that it is not now making astronomical telescopes at all. At the present time, when astronomy is entering on perhaps the most pregnant phase in its history, and when men are more than ever attracted by anything which promises escape from the fret of daily life, this lessening of the opportunities for acquaintance with the most serene of the sciences is a minor calamity. The decline in amateur astronomy will probably have no appreciable reaction on the progress of science, but it will lead to a real, if small decrease in the intellectual pleasures and spiritual wealth of the nation.