Part 10 (1/2)
The gigantic machinery employed in pumping our mines, working our mills and manufactories, and driving our steams.h.i.+ps and locomotives, in like manner depends for its supply of power upon so slight an agency as little drops of water expanded with heat--that familiar agency called steam, which we see issuing from that common tea-kettle spout, but which, when pent up within an ingeniously contrived mechanism, displays a force equal to that of millions of horses, and contains a power to rebuke the waves and set even the hurricane at defiance. The same power at work within the bowels of the earth has been the cause of those volcanoes and earthquakes which have played so mighty a part in the history of the globe.
This art of seizing opportunities and turning even accidents to account, bending them to some purpose, is a great secret of success.
Dr. Johnson has defined genius to be ”a mind of large general powers accidentally determined in some particular direction.” Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves, will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not lie ready to their hand, they will make them. It is not those who have enjoyed the advantages of colleges, museums, and public galleries, that have accomplished the most for science and art; nor have the greatest mechanics and inventors been trained in mechanics' inst.i.tutes. Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty. Some of the very best workmen have had the most indifferent tools to work with. But it is not tools that make the workman, but the trained skill and perseverance of the man himself. Indeed it is proverbial that the bad workman never yet had a good tool. Some one asked Opie by that wonderful process he mixed his colors. ”I mix them with my brains, sir,” was his reply. It is the same with every workman who would excel. Ferguson made marvelous things--such as his wooden clock, that accurately measured the hours-- by means of a common penknife, a tool in everybody's hand; but then everybody is not a Ferguson. A pan of water and two thermometers were the tools by which Dr. Black discovered latent heat; and a prism, a lens and a sheet of pasteboard enable Newton to unfold the composition of light and the origin of colors. An eminent foreign _savant_ once called upon Dr. Wollaston, and requested to be shown over his laboratories, in which science had been enriched by so many important discoveries, when the doctor took him into a little study, and, pointing to an old tea-tray on the table, containing a few watch-gla.s.ses, test-papers, a small balance, and a blowpipe, said, ”There is all the laboratory I have!”
Stothard learnt the art of combining colors by closely studying b.u.t.terflies' wings: he would often say that no one knew what he owed to those tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas. Bewiek first practiced drawing on the cottage walls of his native village, which he covered with his sketches in chalk; and Benjamin Watt made his first brushes out of the cat's tail. Ferguson laid himself down in the fields at night in a blanket, and made a map of the heavenly bodies by means of a thread with small beads on it stretched between his eye and the stars.
Franklin first robbed the thundercloud of its lightning by means of a kite made with two cross-sticks and a silk handkerchief. Watt made his first model of the condensing steam-engine out of an old anatomist's syringe, used to inject the arteries previous to dissection. Gifford worked his first problems in mathematics, when a cobbler's apprentice, upon small sc.r.a.ps of leather, which he beat smooth for the purpose; whilst Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses on his plow handle.
The most ordinary occasions will furnish a man with opportunities or suggestions for improvement, if he be but prompt to take advantage of them. Professor Lee was attracted to the study of Hebrew by finding a Bible in that tongue in a synagogue, while working as a common carpenter at the repair of the benches. He became possessed with a desire to read the book in the original, and, buying a cheap second- hand copy of a Hebrew grammar, he set to work and learned the language for himself. As Edmund Stone said to the Duke of Argyle, in answer to his grace's inquiry how he, a poor gardener's boy, had contrived to be able to read Newton's Principia in the Latin, ”One needs only to know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet in order to learn everything else that one wishes.” Application and perseverance, and the diligent improvement of opportunities, will do the rest.
The attention of Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of so many gases, was accidentally drawn to the subject of chemistry through his living in the neighborhood of a brewery. When visiting the place one day, he noted the peculiar appearances attending the extinction of lighted chips in the gas floating over the fermented liquor. He was forty years old at the time, and knew nothing of chemistry. He consulted books to ascertain the cause, but they told him little, for as yet nothing was known on the subject. Then he began to experiment, with some rude apparatus of his own contrivance. The curious results of his first experiments led to others, which in his hands shortly became the science of pneumatic chemistry. About the same time, Scheele was obscurely working in the same direction in a remote Swedish village; and he discovered several new gases, with no more effective apparatus at his command than a few apothecaries' vials and pigs' bladders.
Sir Humphry Davy, when an apothecary's apprentice, performed his first experiments with instruments of the rudest description. He extemporized the greater part of them himself, out of the motley materials which chance threw in his way--to pots and pans of the kitchen, and the vials and vessels of his master's surgery. It happened that a French s.h.i.+p was wrecked off the Land's End, and the surgeon escaped, bearing with him his case of instruments, amongst which was an old-fas.h.i.+oned clyster apparatus; this article he presented to Davy, with whom he had become acquainted. The apothecary's apprentice received it with great exultation, and forthwith employed it as a part of a pneumatic apparatus which he contrived, afterward using it to perform the duties of an air-pump in one of his experiments on the nature and sources of heat.
In like manner, professor Faraday, Sir Humphry Davy's scientific successor, made his first experiments in electricity by means of an old bottle, while he was still a working bookbinder. And it is a curious fact, that Faraday was first attracted to the study of chemistry by hearing one of Sir Humphry Davy's lectures on the subject at the Royal Inst.i.tution. A gentleman, who was a member, calling one day at the shop where Faraday was employed in binding books, found him pouring over the article ”Electricity,” in an encyclopedia placed in his hands to bind. The gentleman, having made inquiries, found that the young bookbinder was curious about such subjects, and gave him an order of admission to the Royal Inst.i.tution, where he attended a course of four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry. He took notes of them, which he showed to the lecturer, who acknowledged their scientific accuracy, and was surprised when informed of the humble position of the reporter. Faraday then expressed his desire to devote himself to the prosecution of chemical studies, from which Sir Humphry at first endeavored to dissuade him: but the young man persisting, he was at length taken into the Royal Inst.i.tution as an a.s.sistant; and eventually the mantle of the brilliant apothecary's boy fell upon the worthy shoulders of the equally brilliant bookbinder's apprentice.
The words which Davy entered in his notebook, when about twenty years of age, working in Dr. Beddoes' laboratory at Bristol, were eminently characteristic of him: ”I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth to recommend me; yet if I live I trust I shall not be of less service to mankind and my friends, than if I had been born with all these advantages.” Davy possessed the capability, as Faraday did, of devoting the whole power of his mind to the practical and experimental investigation of a subject in all its bearings; and such a mind will rarely fail, by dint of mere industry and patient thinking, in producing results of the highest order. Coleridge said of Davy: ”There is an energy and elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on and a.n.a.lyze all questions, pus.h.i.+ng them to their legitimate consequences. Every subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like turf under his feet.” Davy, on his part said of Coleridge, whose abilities he greatly admired: ”With the most exalted genius, enlarged views, sensitive heart, and enlightened mind, he will be the victim of a want of order, precision, and regularity.”
It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world so much as purpose and persistent industry. To the feeble, the sluggish and purposeless, the happiest accidents will avail nothing--they pa.s.s them by, seeing no meaning in them. But it is astonis.h.i.+ng how much can be accomplished if we are prompt to seize and improve the opportunities for action and effort which are constantly presenting themselves. Watt taught himself chemistry and mechanics while working at his trade of a mathematical instrument maker, at the same time that he was learning German from a Swiss dyer. Stephenson taught himself arithmetic and mensuration while working as an engine-man, during the night s.h.i.+fts; and when he could s.n.a.t.c.h a few moments in the intervals allowed for meals during the day, he worked his sums with a bit of chalk upon the sides of the colliery wagons. Dalton's industry was the habit of his life. He began from his boyhood, for he taught a little village school when he was only about twelve years old--keeping the school in winter, and working upon his father's farm in summer. He would sometimes urge himself and companions to study by the stimulus of a bet, though bred a Quaker; and on one occasion by his satisfactory solution of a problem, he won as much as enabled him to buy a winter's store of candles. He continued his meteorological observations until a day or two before he died--having made and recorded upward of 200,000 in the course of his life.
With perseverance, the very odds, and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if profitably employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity to go far toward mastering a science. It would make an ignorant man a well-informed one in less than ten years. Time should not be allowed to pa.s.s without yielding fruits, in the form of something learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated, or some good habit strengthened. Dr. Mason Good translated Lucretuis while riding in his carriage in the streets of London, going the round of his patients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way while driving about in his ”sulky” from house to house in the country ==writing down his thoughts on little sc.r.a.ps of paper, which he carried about with him for the purpose.
Hale wrote his ”Contemplations” while traveling on circuit. Dr.
Burney learnt French and Italian while traveling on horseback from one musical pupil to another in the course of his profession. Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and fro from a lawyer's office; and we personally know a man of eminent position who learnt Latin and French while going messages as an errand-boy.
Hugh Miller was a busy man of observant faculties, who studied literature as well as science, with zeal and success. The book in which he has told the story of his life(”My Schools and Schoolmasters”), is extremely interesting, and calculated to be eminently useful. It is the history of the formation of a truly n.o.ble character in the humblest condition of life, and inculcates most powerfully the lessons of self-help, self-respect, and self- dependence. While Hugh was but a child, his father, who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was brought up by his widowed mother. He had a school training after a sort, but his best teachers were the boys with whom he played, the men amongst whom he lived. He read much and miscellaneously, and picked up odd sorts of knowledge from many quarters--from workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, and above all, from the old boulders strewed along the sh.o.r.es of the Cromarty Firth. With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the stones, and acc.u.mulating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and such like.
Sometimes he had a day in the woods, and there, too, the boy's attention was excited by the peculiar geological curiosities which came in his way. While searching among the rocks on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in irony, by the farm-servants who came to load their carts with sea-weed, whether he ”was gettin' siller in the stanes,” but was so unlucky as never to be able to answer in the affirmative. When of a suitable age he was apprenticed to the trade of his choice--that of a working stone-mason; and he began his laboring career in a quarry looking out upon the Cromarty Firth. This quarry proved one of his best schools. The remarkable geological formations which it displayed awakened his curiosity. The bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the bar of pale-red clay above, were noted by the young quarryman, who even in such unpromising subjects, found matter of observation and reflection. Where other men saw nothing, he detected a.n.a.logies, differences, and peculiarities which set him a-thinking. He simply kept his eyes and his mind open; was sober, diligent and persevering; and this was the secret of his intellectual growth.
His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious organic remains, princ.i.p.ally of old and extinct species of fishes, ferns, and ammonites, which were revealed along the coast by the was.h.i.+ngs of the waves, or were exposed by the stroke of his mason's hammer. He never lost sight of the subject, but went on acc.u.mulating observations and comparing formations, until at length, many years afterward, when no longer a working mason, he gave to the world his highly interesting work on the ”Old Red Sandstone,” which at once established his reputation as a scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of patient observation and research. As he modestly states in his autobiography, ”The only merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient research--a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpa.s.s me; and this humble faculty of patience, when rightly developed, may lead to more extraordinary development of ideas than even genius itself.”
”Chance,” said an old Vermont farmer, ”is like going into a field with a pail, and waiting for a cow to come to you and back up to be milked.”
”Shun delays, they breed remorse; Take thy time while time is lent thee; Creeping snails have weakest force, Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee; Good is best when sooner wrought, Ling'ring labors come to nought.
”Hoist up sail while gale doth last, Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure!
Seek not time when time is past, Sober speed is wisdom's leisure; After-wits are dearly bought, Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought.
”Time wears all his locks before, Take thou hold upon his forehead; When he flees he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked.
Works adjourn'd have many stays, Long demurs breed new delays.”
CHAPTER XVIII
CULTIVATE OBSERVATION AND JUDGMENT.
”Look before you leap,” old Commodore Vanderbilt used to say. ”I like active men, but I have no use for the fellow who is so much in earnest that he goes off half-c.o.c.ked.” We all know the danger of a gun that goes off half-c.o.c.ked, but it is not so apt to bring disaster as is the man who goes off without due preparation.
It is fortunate for us that we cannot see into the future, but the Father who has kept from us the gift of prophecy has blessed us with a foresight and judgment that enable us to see pretty accurately what must be the inevitable consequence of certain acts.
The power to observe carefully and judge accurately is a rare gift, but it is one that can be cultivated. The ancients had a motto ”Know thyself,” and the great poet Pope tells us that ”the proper study of mankind is man.” A knowledge of human nature is invaluable in every life-calling that brings us into contact with our fellows, and this can be gained only by careful observation.