Applauds the opening of the Manchester Ship CanalManchester Ship Canal
CloseView the register entry >> as 'a monument of engineering ability' and 'an impressive token of man's growing mastery over the world in which he lives'. The 'strip of water which brings the ocean to the doors of the great inland city is an inscription twelve leagues long carved on the surface of the globe, recording the indomitable power of will which alone makes progress possible'. (4) Remarks that the death of John TyndallTyndall, John
(1820–93)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> 'may be taken to represent something of the nature of an epoch in the thought of our time'. Having been 'the fighting apostle of the doctrine of evolution', Tyndall 'lived to see the doctrine generally victorious'. Indeed, in 'the very year in which he died, his friend and master, Mr. Herbert SpencerSpencer, Herbert
(1820–1903)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, brought to a completion, amid general congratulation, the system of Synthetic PhilosophySpencer,
Herbert 1892–93. The Principles of Ethics, A System of
Synthetic Philosophy 9–10, 2 vols, London: Williams and Norgate
CloseView the register entry >> which is one colossal endeavour to interpret the known universe in terms of evolution'. With the 'hour of their triumph', however, 'begins the disclosure of their limitations', particularly in providing an 'adequate guidance for the moral life', an inadequacy acknowledged openly by both Spencer and Thomas H HuxleyHuxley, Thomas Henry
(1825–95)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> in his recent Romanes Lecture at Oxford. Concludes that the 'utterances of the chief philosopher and of the chief popular expositor of the evolutionary school combine with the death of its brilliant rhetorical fighting man to make 1893 a memorable year in the history of Evolution'. (12)
Review of Reviews, 9 (1894), 21–26.
Character Sketch. Professor Tyndall. By Grant Allen
Announces that with the death of John TyndallTyndall, John
(1820–93)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> 'the world has lost one of the prime leaders in the great revolution of the nineteenth century'. The 'still militant movement' that led this revolution twenty years ago was commonly identified with 'the united names of "SpencerSpencer, Herbert
(1820–1903)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, HuxleyHuxley, Thomas Henry
(1825–95)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, Tyndall"', and 'the succession of names in that once familiar trio was right and significant. The men were mentioned in the order of their relative importance'. Tyndall's subordinate role in this group was as 'the orator and the physicist. He had the gift of the gab. He could speak with tongues, where the other two could only think and write and permeate'. The 'name of DarwinDarwin, Charles Robert
(1809–82)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>' is 'not included' in this 'trinity of evolutionary leaders' because, lacking the 'philosophic roundness and completeness' of the others, he was a 'biological specialist' who 'stuck to his spécialité with that infinite patience and that infinite capacity for taking pains about detail which constitute genius [....] He knew his métier'. (21) Points out that Tyndall 'retained to the last no small physical traces of his Hibernian ancestry' and 'was a thoroughgoing Celt in physique and temperament'; the English lineage of his Ulster family only making them become '"more Irish than the Irish",—ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores' (21–22). Describes Tyndall's early career teaching at the 'middle class college' of QueenswoodQueenswood College, Stockbridge, Hampshire CloseView the register entry >>, although noting that 'some flavour of socialism still clung about' the old Owenite institution and that the college was 'progressive' enough to allow Edward FranklandFrankland, Sir Edward
(1825–99)
DSB
DNODNBB CloseView the register entry >> to 'set up in it the first practical laboratory ever introduced into a school in England' (22–23). Records that Tyndall's 'German training [at the University of MarburgUniversity of Marburg
CloseView the register entry >>] did marvels for him: that Teutonic schooling in method helped largely to counterbalance the natural weak points of the Celtic temperament', although he nevertheless 'retained to the last his Celtic vividness of insight'. Comments that when Tyndall returned to England in the early 1850s it 'was not so hard then as it is now for a rising man to attract attention', and soon 'London, that great heterogeneous London, accepted him frankly as the representative physicist', for while the 'orthodox physicists of the Universities and of the North' were geographically distant, 'Tyndall was there, on the spot, audible and visible. He was the Royal InstitutionRoyal Institution of Great Britain
CloseView the register entry >>. He was also Physics'. (23) Insists that Tyndall was 'Liberal in fibre and progressive in most directions' and was only led into conservative positions, especially on the question of Irish home rule, by the 'misfortune' of being 'born an Irish Protestant' and the deleterious 'influence of CarlyleCarlyle, Thomas
(1795–1881)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, the evil fairy of the last half century'. Also suggests that 'it is noteworthy that all the men of that first generation who spread the evolutionary doctrine among us are now reactionary in politics', while the 'younger brood whom they trained have gone on to be Radicals, Fabians, Socialists'. (25) Although 'it must be admitted that Tyndall's language gave a greater handle for the foolish accusation' of materialism 'than that of his more philosophic colleagues' (24), he should nevertheless be remembered as one who 'was not a materialist', but who saw the 'universe' as being 'full of terrible, and often as yet inexplicable, factors' (26).
Section: Leading Articles in the Reviews
Review of Reviews, 9 (1894), 28.
The Late Professor Tyndall. Professor Huxley on His Old Comrade
Contrasts the affectionate obituary of John TyndallTyndall, John
(1820–93)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> penned by the surviving member of 'the Great Twin Brethren of belligerent evolutionism' with 'a somewhat coldly-critical estimate' which suggests that Tyndall possessed only 'the instincts of the intelligent amateur' and 'left little impression upon science'.
Questions whether the production of occasional men of genius such as Johann W von GoetheGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von
(1749–1832)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> can be explained by the laws of heredity alone, or whether it requires 'what is called "evolution per saltum", or with a jump [...] that process, whatever it may be, which produces "sports" in plants'.
Reprobates the 'new science of Criminal Anthropology', as practised at 'the famous Elmira ReformatoryElmira Reformatory, New York State CloseView the register entry >> in the State of New York', for being 'based on the negation of moral freedom and responsibility' (150).
Review of Reviews, 9 (1894), 156.
How Voice Reveals Character. A Blind Doctor's Observations
Rejects the notion of Cesare LombrosoLombroso, Cesare
(1836–1909)
CBD CloseView the register entry >> that 'criminals are a separate race of humans who, by reason of backsliding or atavism [...] are born to take life', and suggests instead that 'crime is simply the result of self-hypnotism, [...] the man has become hypnotised by the evil suggestion that on a sudden flashed into his brain', he is 'a moral cataleptic, and was forced to obey the suggestion'.
Review of Reviews, 9 (1894), 175.
Omnipresent Omniscience. The Secret of Evolution, Instinct, Mesmerism
Reports a 'tragic event in Greenwich Park' where a 'French Anarchist, Martial BourdinBourdin, Martial
(1867/8–94)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> by name, was [...] blown to pieces by a bomb which he was carrying suspiciously near to the great ObservatoryRoyal Observatory, Greenwich CloseView the register entry >>', and speculates that the 'destruction of so renowned a scientific centre, if it was really intended, can only have been designed as a sensational advertisement of Anarchism' (222).
Science GossipHardwicke's Science Gossip: A Monthly Medium of Interchange and
Gossip for Students and Lovers of Nature
(1865–93)
Science Gossip: An Illustrated Monthly Record of Nature and
Country-Lore
(1893–1900+)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >>
In a 'symposium on the rational dress movement', Emily A Bruce, 'Speaking from her experience as a physician', declares 'that "more women die annually in our country from the effects of faulty dressing than from all the contagious diseases combined', and suggests the adoption of a 'modified Syrian dress' which affords 'ample room everywhere for absolute freedom of motion and for the ever-recurring physiological congestions of the digestive tract' (291).
Industry, Experiment, Political Economy, National Efficiency
After reporting the formation of a new ministry following the resignation of William E GladstoneGladstone, William Ewart
(1809–98)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> and the end of the civil war in Brazil, suggests that 'so far as the mass of men are concerned it is probable that a simple experiment carried on in a Lancashire ironworks [will] exceed all these imposing political and military events in intrinsic importance. Mr. William MatherMather, Sir William
(1838–1920)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, well-known as a public-spirited ironmaster, last month published a reportMather,
William 1894. The Forty-Eight Hours Week: A Year's Experiment and
its Results at the Salford Iron Works, Manchester (Mather & Platt,
Ltd.), Manchester: "Guardian" Printing Works
CloseView the register entry >> on an experiment as to the effect of the eight hours' system on the output of a great industrial establishment', and the 'scientific economic experiment' at the 'Salford Iron Works' has shown that the reduction of hours 'practically left the amount of work done unaltered' (333).
Relates that the question whether it is 'possible to increase the speed at which the Atlantic is crossed without destroying the comfort of the passengers' is one 'on which my fellow travellers had some very decided opinions. They reported that the LucaniaSS Lucania CloseView the register entry >> and CampaniaSS Campania CloseView the register entry >>, which are driven by engines of fully double the horse-power of our vessel the ColumbiaSS Columbia CloseView the register entry >>, produced such a vibration that nervous persons suffered more from nervous prostration than they did from sea-sickness [....] I confess I am very dubious as to the advantages of increasing the horse-power on board an Atlantic liner until science has discovered some means of decreasing the vibration of the engines' (411–12).
Complains that 'the MaximMaxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
(1840–1916)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> gun [...] has been foisted on the army without competitive trial with other machine guns', and insists that the now rejected 'GardnerGardner, William
(1844/5–87)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> gun [is] an infinitely superior and more reliable weapon'.
Reflects that 'Mr. Benjamin KiddKidd, Benjamin
(1858–1916)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, the almost unknown author of the universally-talked-of book on Social Evolution [....] is not so unknown' to readers of the Review of ReviewsReview of Reviews
(1890–1900+)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >>, 'for you will remember an interesting Benjamin Kidd, 'Our Scientific Causerie. Darwin's Successor at Home', Review of Reviews, 2 (1890), 647–50 which he contributed about three years ago to the pages of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS on WeismannWeismann, August Friedrich Leopold
(1834–1914)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> and Weismannism'. Kidd's first book, which he 'began [...] in 1888, and has worked at [...] steadily for six years', has now 'take[n] the reading world by storm', and has been described by its author as 'the scientific basis for the social gospel of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS'. Also prints a portrait of Kidd, which, readers are told, 'he—most reluctant—was good enough to have photographed especially for you'. (523)
Invention, Discovery, Military Technology, War, Engineering, Publishing, Technology, Patronage
Speculates as to whether it is 'possible that the invention of the German journeyman tailor DoweDowe, —— (German journeyman tailor)
(fl. 1894)
RR1/9/6/1 CloseView the register entry >> of an impenetrable breastplate, made apparently of cloth and asbestos, may [...] tend to postpone the much-dreaded war'. Dowe has 'discovered how to manufacture a material which stops rifle-bullets', and if the 'military authorities decide that their soldiers must be cloth-plated, there will be no war until the men have got their new suits'. Even then 'somebody else may discover something else, and the war may again be put off. M. TurpinTurpin, Eugène
(1849–1927)
WBI CloseView the register entry >>, for instance, is announcing the invention of a new engine of destruction which the Germans have snapped up. The invention and science of chemists and journeyman tailors may in the long run be more efficacious in postponing war than the exhortations of the churches or the efforts of the diplomatists'. (555) Records the official opening of the Manchester Ship CanalManchester Ship Canal
CloseView the register entry >>, and reports that the 'success of the Manchester Canal is now giving birth to other schemes of like nature. The talk now is of a canal to cost £6,000,000, which will enable Transatlantic liners to load and discharge in the heart of the West Riding. That is mere talk, at least as yet' (557–58). Also applauds the award of a knighthood to Isaac PitmanPitman, Sir Isaac
(1813–97)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, who is 'best known to the world as the inventor of the system of stenography by the aid of which almost every important speech now finds its way into print' (558).
Section: Leading Articles in the Reviews
Review of Reviews, 9 (1894), 588–89.
Mr. Kidd and Social Evolution. By Lord Farrer, Professor Drummond, and Others