Part 3 (1/2)

Oscar Villa, South Kensington, June, 18--.

The Secretary of the aesthetic and Dress Improvement a.s.sociation presents his compliments to the Lady Professor of Girtham College, and begs to contradict emphatically her statements with regard to a subject upon which she is evidently in entire and lamentable ignorance, and to protest against her aspersions upon the artistic studies of this and kindred societies. He begs to state that true aesthetes are _not_ eccentric (they leave that to lady professors and her Philistine followers); that to dress becomingly is one of the princ.i.p.al objects of life, and that true greatness is achieved as much by the study of the art of dress as by any other n.o.ble pursuit or graceful accomplishment.

Are not Horatio Postlethwaite, Leonara Saffronia Gillan, Vand.y.k.e Smithson ent.i.tled to greatness? And yet their laurels have been won solely by the art of dress. Perhaps the lady professor has never read 'Sartor Resartus'! In conclusion, he would ask the Lady Professor to refrain from casting obloquy upon the work of the a.s.sociation which he has the honour to represent; to prevail upon her pupils to abandon the unfeminine attire which some of them have a.s.sumed, contrary to the first principles of art; to array themselves in flowing robes of sage-green and other choice colours (patterns enclosed), and to study art, instead of absurd mathematics, which no one can understand, and do no one any good.

(Approved by the Committee of the aesthetic and Dress Improvement a.s.sociation.) June, 18--.

[Editorial Note.]--The next letter, written by a pupil of the Lady Professor, requires no explanation, and speaks for itself.

Jesus College, Cambridge, March, 18--.

My dear Tutor,

You will be glad to hear that after superhuman exertions I have at last succeeded in pa.s.sing my Little-go, and I am eternally grateful to you for all you have done for me. I should never have got through if it had not been for you. All the coaches in Cambridge would never have managed it, but you drove me through in a canter. And why? I never could make up my mind to work for them; but when I coached with you, you made me like it. I almost revelled in the Binomial when you wrote it out for me; and then I could not help listening to you; and you looked so grieved when I would not learn, and made me feel such a brute; so somehow or other you drove some mathematics into my head, and I pulled through. By-the-bye, I think you must have tried the 'brain wave' dodge with the examiners, as five out of the six propositions in Euclid, which you told me to get up specially, were set! I wish I could read people's thoughts; can you read mine? If I were a Don, or a Fellow, or something, I would advise the University to have some lady professors like you to teach the men, instead of some of these sleepy old tutors. It would be a great improvement, and I am sure we should get through a great deal more work.

They have given me a place in the Jesus Eight, which I shall take now that I am released from your professorial ban, and have time for rowing.

But I don't half like giving up mathematics. You see, I have grown fond of the study. Do you think you could make a wrangler of me? At any rate, I should like to come to your lectures again. May I?

Your Grateful Pupil.

[4] It is to be regretted that this letter has evidently fallen into the hands of some autograph collector, who has ruthlessly cut off the signature; but the reader will easily determine, after careful perusal of the doc.u.ment, from whose pen it emanated.

[5] Cf. page 36.

PAPER V.

A LECTURE UPON SOCIAL FORCES, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF POLEMICAL KINEMATICS.

Most n.o.ble Professors and Students of Girtham College,--Since last 'I wandered 'twixt the pole and heavenly hinges, 'mongst encentricals, centres, concentricks, circles, and epicycles,' like the great Alb.u.mazar, and found them full of life and wisdom for the guidance of our States and laws, I have turned my attention to the Applied Mathematics, in order to determine what other truths this shaft may yield.

The strength of all sciences, according to Bacon, consists in their harmony; and it is truly marvellous how perfect this harmony is, if our ears are tuned aright to hear it. We have observed how the beautiful and regular laws of curves and cones correspond to the social laws of States and nations, guiding them as if by word of counsel, admonis.h.i.+ng them on what principle they ought to regulate their governments and inter-relations. We have seen that the laws which govern thought and light and sound are almost identical, and that harmony pervades not merely the ordinary sciences, but extends her benign influence over these newly discovered fields of scientific research, which I claim to have discovered.

All this may appear at first sight surprising; but the real philosopher, who knows that all kinds of truth are intimately connected, will receive such revelations of science with satisfaction rather than astonishment; for this new science, which has opened itself out before me, is only an extension of other well-known laws and discoveries which have come down to us from the remote past.

If my investigations should appear to you, most n.o.ble professors, somewhat novel and imaginary, remember the maxim of the sage, that in the infancy of science there is no speculation which does not merit careful examination; and the most remote and fanciful explanations of facts have often been found the true ones. Perhaps some 'self-opinionated particle' (I speak mathematically) may have been inclined to laugh at our theories and discoveries, as the wise fools of the day laughed at Kepler and his laws; but time has changed the world's laughter into praise, and a century hence our discoveries may rank among the achievements of modern science. As Cicero says, 'Time obliterates the fictions of opinions, but confirms the decisions of nature.'

I have not shunned, most n.o.ble professors, to enlist Imagination under the banner of Geometry; for I am fully persuaded that it is a powerful organ of knowledge, and is as much needed by the mathematician as by the poet or novelist. It is, I fear, often banished with too much haste from the fields of intellectual research by those who take upon themselves to give laws to philosophy. We need imagination to form an hypothesis; and without hypotheses science would soon become a lifeless and barren study, a horse-in-the-mill affair ever strolling round and round, unconscious of the grinding corn. In my previous investigations my imagination pictured the symmetry of curves and States; the hypothesis followed that the laws which regulated them were identical, and you have observed how the supposition was confirmed by our subsequent calculations.

In this lecture I propose to examine some of the forces which exist in our social system, and shall endeavour to estimate them by methods of mathematical procedure and a.n.a.logical reasoning. We will begin with the old definition of Force as _that which puts matter into motion, or which stops, or changes, a motion once commenced_. When a ma.s.s is in motion, it has a capacity for doing work, which is called _Energy_; and when this energy is caused by the motion of a body it is called Kinetic Energy (in mathematical language KE = MV). Another form of kinetic energy is called Potential Energy, which is in reality the capacity of a body for doing work _owing to its position_. For example we may take an ordinary eight-day clock. When the weights are wound up, they have a certain amount of potential energy stored up, which will counteract the friction of the wheels and the resistance of the air on the pendulum.

Or, again, we have the example of a water-wheel: first the water in the reservoir, being higher than the wheel, has an amount of potential energy. This is converted into kinetic energy in striking against the paddles, and after this we have potential energy again produced by the action of the fly-wheel.

By the principle of conservation of energy, if we consider the whole universe, not our planet alone (for its heat and energy are continually diminished to some slight degree), we find that _no energy is lost_.

Force is recognised as acting in two ways: in _Statics_, so as to compel rest, or to prevent change of motion; and in _Kinetics_, so as to produce or to change motion; and the whole science which investigates the action of force is called _Dynamics_.

All this is of course pure mathematics, and I have made these elementary observations for the benefit of my younger hearers, the students of this University. My grave and reverend seniors will pardon, I am sure, the repet.i.tion of facts well known to them for the sake of those who are less informed than themselves.

Now before I proceed further, I will endeavour to point out that these elementary truths of physical science hold good in our social system.