Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  S —— . “Let down a cold tin tube into the cylinder when you want to condense the steam, and draw it up again as soon as the steam is condensed; or, if you could put a cylinder of ice up the great tube.”

  Some of the company next asked, if an horizontal plate of cold metal, made to slide up the inside of the cylinder, would condense the steam. The edges of the plate only would touch the cylinder; the surface of the plate might condense the steam.

  “But,” said Mr. — —”how can you introduce and withdraw it?”

  C —— (a girl of 12) then said, “I would put a cold vessel to condense the steam at the top of the cylinder.”

  Mr. —— . “So as to touch the cylinder, do you mean?”

  C —— . “No, not so as to touch the cylinder, but at some distance from it.”

  Mr. —— . “Then the cold air would rush into the cylinder whilst the steam was passing from the cylinder to your condenser.”

  C —— . “But I would cover in the cold vessel, and I would cover in the passage to it.”

  Mr. —— . “I have the pleasure of informing you, that you have invented part of the great Mr. Watt’s improvement on the steam engine. You see how it facilitates invention, to begin by stating the difficulty clearly to the mind. This is what every practical inventor does when he invents in mechanics.”

  L —— (smiling.) “And what I always do in inventing a mathematical demonstration.”

  To the good natured reader we need offer no apology; to the ill natured we dare attempt none, for introducing these detailed views of the first attempts of young invention. They are not exhibited as models, either to do honour to the tutor or his pupils; but simply to show, how the mind may be led from the easiest steps, to what are supposed to be difficult in education. By imagining ourselves to be in the same situation with children, we may guess what things are difficult to them; and if we can recollect the course of our own minds in acquiring knowledge, or in inventing, we may by retracing the same steps instruct others. The order that is frequently followed by authors, in the division and subdivision of their elementary treatises, is not always the best for those who are to learn. Such authors are usually more intent upon proving to the learned that they understand their subject, than upon communicating their knowledge to the ignorant. Parents and tutors must, therefore, supply familiar oral instruction, and those simple, but essential explanations, which books disdain, or neglect to give. And there is this advantage in all instruction given in conversation, that it can be made interesting by a thousand little circumstances, which are below the dignity of didactic writers. Gradually we may proceed from simple to more complicated contrivances. The invention of experiments to determine a theory, or to ascertain the truth of an assertion, must be particularly useful to the understanding. Any person, who has attended to experiments in chemistry and natural philosophy, must know, that invention can be as fully and elegantly displayed upon these subjects as upon any in the fine arts or literature. There is one great advantage in scientific invention; it is not dependent upon capricious taste for its reward. The beauty and elegance of a poem may be disputed by a thousand amateurs; there can be but one opinion about the truth of a discovery in science.

  Independent of all ambition, there is considerable pleasure in the pursuit of experimental knowledge. Children especially, before they are yet fools to fame, enjoy this substantial pleasure. Nor are we to suppose that children have not capacities for such pursuits; they are peculiarly suited to their capacity. They love to see experiments tried, and to try them. They show this disposition not only wherever they are encouraged, but wherever they are permitted to show it; and if we compare their method of reasoning with the reasonings of the learned, we shall sometimes be surprised. They have no prejudices, therefore they have the complete use of all their senses; they have few ideas, but those few are distinct; they can be analyzed and compared with ease; children, therefore, judge and invent better, in proportion to their knowledge, than most grown up people.

  Dr. Hooke observes, that a sensible man, in solving any philosophical problem, should always lean to that side which is opposite to his favourite taste. A chemist is disposed to account for every thing by chemical means; a geometrician is inclined to solve every problem geometrically; and a mechanic accounts for all the phenomena of nature by the laws of mechanism. This undue bias upon the minds of ingenious people, has frequently rendered their talents less useful to mankind. It is the duty of those who educate ingenious children, to guard against this species of scientific insanity.

  There are prejudices of another description, which are fatal to inventive genius; some of these are usually found to attend ignorance, and others sometimes adhere to the learned. Ignorant people, if they possess any degree of invention, are so confident in their own abilities, that they will not take the pains to inquire what others have thought or done; they disdain all general principles, and will rather scramble through some by-path of their own striking out, than condescend to be shown the best road by the most enlightened guide. For this reason, self-taught geniuses, as they are called, seldom go beyond a certain point in their own education, and the praise we bestow upon their ingenuity is always accompanied with expressions of regret: “It is a pity that such a genius had not the advantages of a good education.”

  The learned, on the contrary, who have been bred up in reverence for established opinions, and who have felt in many instances the advantage of general principles, are apt to adhere too pertinaciously to their theories, and hence they neglect or despise new observations. How long did the maxim, that nature abhors a vacuum, content the learned! And how many discoveries were retarded by this single false principle! For a great number of years it was affirmed and believed, that all objects were seen by the intervention of visual rays, proceeding from the eye much in the same manner as we feel any object at a distance from us by the help of a stick. Whilst this absurd analogy satisfied the mind, no discoveries were made in vision, none were attempted. A prepossession often misleads the industry of active genius. Dr. Hooke, in spite of the ridicule which he met with, was firm in his belief, that mankind would discover some method of sailing in the air. Balloons have justified his prediction; but all his own industry in trying experiments upon flying was wasted, because he persisted in following a false analogy to the wings of birds. He made wings of various sorts; till he took it for granted that he must learn to fly by mechanical means: had he applied to chemistry, he might have succeeded. It is curious to observe, how nearly he once touched upon the discovery, and yet, misled by his prepossessions, quitted his hold. He observed, that the air cells of fishes are filled with air, which buoys them up in the water; and he supposes that this air is lighter than common air. Had he pursued this idea, he might have invented balloons; but he returned with fatal perseverance to his old theory of wings. From such facts, we may learn the power and danger of prejudice in the most ingenious minds; and we shall be careful to preserve our pupils early from its blind dominion.

  The best preservation against the presumption to which ignorance is liable, and the best preservative against the self sufficiency to which the learned are subject, is the habit of varying our studies and occupations. Those who have a general view of the whole map of human knowledge, perceive how many unexplored regions are yet to be cultivated by future industry; nor will they implicitly submit to the reports of ignorant voyagers. No imaginary pillars of Hercules, will bound their enterprises. There is no presumption in believing, that much more is possible to science than ever human ingenuity has executed; therefore, young people should not be ridiculed for that sanguine temper which excites to great inventions. They should be ridiculed only when they imagine that they possess the means of doing things to which they are unequal. The fear of this deserved ridicule, will stimulate them to acquire knowledge, and will induce them to estimate cautiously their own powers before they hazard their reputation. We need not fear that this caution should repress their activity of mind; ambition wi
ll secure their perseverance, if they are taught that every acquisition is within the reach of unremitting industry. This is not an opinion to be artfully inculcated to serve a particular purpose, but it is an opinion drawn from experience; an opinion which men of the highest abilities and integrity, of talents and habits the most dissimilar, have confirmed by their united testimony. Helvetius maintained, that no great man ever formed a great design which he was not also capable of executing.

  Even where great perseverance is exercised, the choice of the subjects on which the inventive powers are employed determines, in a great measure, their value: therefore, in the education of ingenious children, we should gradually turn their attention from curious trifles to important objects. Boverick, who made chains “to yoke a flea,” must have possessed exquisite patience; besides his chain of two hundred links, with its padlock and key, all weighing together less than the third part of a grain, this indefatigable minute artificer was the maker of a landau, which opened and shut by springs: this equipage, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, with a dog between his legs, four inside and two outside passengers, besides a postilion riding one of the fore horses, was drawn with all the ease and safety imaginable by a well trained flea! The inventor and executor of this puerile machine, bestowed on it, probably, as much time as would have sufficed to produce Watt’s fire engine, or Montgolfier’s balloon. It did not, perhaps, cost the Marquis of Worcester more exertion to draw out his celebrated century of inventions; it did not, perhaps, cost Newton more to write those queries which Maclaurin said he could never read without feeling his hair stand on end with admiration.

  Brebeuf, a French wit, wrote a hundred and fifty epigrams upon a painted lady; a brother wit, fired with emulation, wrote upon the same subject three hundred more, making in all four hundred and fifty epigrams, each with appropriate turns of their own. Probably, Pope and Parnell did not rack their invention so much, or exercise more industry in completing “The Rape of the Lock,” or “The Rise of Woman.” These will live for ever; who will read the four hundred and fifty epigrams?

  The most effectual methods to discourage in young people the taste for frivolous ingenuity, will be, never to admire these “laborious nothings,” to compare them with useful and elegant inventions, and to show that vain curiosities can be but the wonder and amusement of a moment. Children who begin with trifling inventions, may be led from these to general principles; and with their knowledge, their ambition will necessarily increase. It cannot be expected that the most enlarged plan of education could early give an intimate acquaintance with all the sciences; but with their leading principles, their general history, their present state, and their immediate desiderata, young people may, and ought to be, made acquainted. Their own industry will afterwards collect more precise information, and they will never waste their time in vain studies and fruitless inventions. Even if the cultivation of the memory were our grand object, this plan of education will succeed. When the Abbé de Longuerue, whose prodigious memory we have formerly mentioned, was asked by the Marquis d’Argenson, how he managed to arrange and retain in his head every thing that entered it, and to recollect every thing when wanted? The Abbé answered:

  “Sir, the elements of every science must be learned whilst we are very young; the first principles of every language; the a b c, as I may say, of every kind of knowledge: this is not difficult in youth, especially as it is not necessary to penetrate far; simple notions are sufficient; when once these are acquired, every thing we read afterwards, finds its proper place.”

  V. Plutarch. Quintilian.

  Berington’s History of the Lives of Abeillard and Heloisa, page 173.

  Eloge de M. L’Abbé d’Alary.

  Marquis d’Argenson’s Essays, page 385.

  D’Alembert’s Eloge de M. d’Alary.

  Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii. page 145.

  Priestley on Electricity, page 317.

  Fuller, author of the Worthies of England. See Curiosities of Literature, vol. i.

  V. Chapter on Books, and on Geography.

  Dr. Darwin. Zoonomia.

  At the end of the History of Vision.

  “Nov. 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars. 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made.”

  Dr. Franklin’s Letters, page 322.

  Helvetius, “Sur l’Esprit.”

  See preface to L’Esprit des Romains considéré.

  See the account in the Monthly Review.

  He had tried to sing it to the tune of “Hope, thou nurse of young desire.”

  Priestley on Vision, vol. i. page 23.

  V. Hooke’s Posthumous Works.

  Hooke’s Mycrographia, p. 62.

  CHAPTER XXII. TASTE AND IMAGINATION.

  Figurative language seems to have confounded the ideas of most writers upon metaphysics. Imagination, Memory, and Reason, have been long introduced to our acquaintance as allegorical personages, and we have insensibly learned to consider them as real beings. The “viewless regions” of the soul, have been portioned out amongst these ideal sovereigns; but disputes have, nevertheless, sometimes arisen concerning the boundaries of intellectual provinces. Amongst the disputed territories, those of Imagination have been most frequently the seat of war; her empire has been subject to continual revolution; her dominions have been, by potent invaders, divided and subdivided. Fancy, Memory, Ideal presence, and Conception, have shared her spoils.

  By poets, imagination has been addressed as the great parent of genius, as the arbiter, if not the creator, of our pleasures; by philosophers, her name has been sometimes pronounced with horror; to her fatal delusions, they have ascribed all the crimes and miseries of mankind. Yet, even philosophers have not always agreed in their opinions: whilst some have treated Imagination with contempt, as the irreconcileable enemy of Reason, by others she has been considered with more respect, as Reason’s inseparable friend; as the friend who collects and prepares all the arguments upon which Reason decides; as the injured, misrepresented power who is often forced to supply her adversaries with eloquence, who is often called upon to preside at her own trial, and to pronounce her own condemnation.

  Imagination is “the power,” we are told, of “forming images:” the word image, however, does not, strictly speaking, express any thing more than a representation of an object of sight; but the power of imagination extends to objects of all the senses.

  “I hear a voice you cannot hear, Which says I must not stay. I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away.”

  Imagination hears the voice, as well as sees the hand; by an easy license of metaphor, what was originally used to express the operation of our senses, is extended to them all. We do not precisely say, that Imagination, forms images of past sounds, or tastes, or smells; but we say that she forms ideas of them; and ideas, we are told, are mental images. It has been suggested by Dr. Darwin, that all these analogies between images and thoughts have, probably, originated in our observing the little pictures painted on the retina of the eye.

  It is difficult certainly, if not impossible, to speak of the invisible operations of the mind or body, without expressing ourselves in metaphor of some kind or other; and we are easily misled by allusions to sensible objects, because when we comprehend the allusion, we flatter ourselves that we understand the theory which it is designed to illustrate. Whether we call ideas images in popular language, or vibrations, according to Dr. Hartley’s system, or modes of sensation with Condillac, or motions of the sensori
um, in the language of Dr. Darwin, may seem a matter of indifference. But even the choices of names is not a matter of indifference to those who wish to argue accurately; when they are obliged to describe their feelings or thoughts by metaphoric expressions, they will prefer the simplest; those with which the fewest extraneous associations are connected. Words which call up a variety of heterogeneous ideas to our minds, are unfit for the purposes of sober reasoning; our attention is distracted by them, and we cannot restrain it to the accurate comparison of simple proportions. We yield to pleasing reverie, instead of exerting painful voluntary attention. Hence it is probably useful in our attempts to reason, especially upon metaphysical subjects, to change from time to time our nomenclature, and to substitute terms which have no relation to our old associations, and which do not affect the prejudices of our education. We are obliged to define with some degree of accuracy the sense of new terms, and we are thus led to compare our old notions with more severity. Our superstitious reverence for mere symbols is also dissipated; symbols are apt to impose even upon those who acknowledge their vanity, and who profess to consider them merely as objects of vulgar worship.

  When we call a class of our ideas images and pictures, a tribe of associations with painting comes into our mind, and we argue about Imagination as if she were actually a paintress, who has colours at her command, and who, upon some invisible canvass in the soul, portrays the likeness of all earthly and celestial objects. When we continue to pursue the same metaphor in speaking of the moral influence of Imagination, we say that her colouring deceives us, that her pictures are flattering and false, that she draws objects out of proportion, &c. To what do all these metaphors lead? We make no new discoveries by talking in this manner; we do not learn the cause or the cure of any of the diseases of the mind; we only persuade ourselves that we know something, when we are really ignorant.