BOOKS OF THE DAY
John Tyndall
JOHN TYNDALL. was cast in the same mould as many other great Victorians: a very hard worker ; a great controversialist, fearless when fighting for what he held to be right ; and a strong character, with a great sense of duty and a small sense of humour. Add that he was a brilliant orator ; that he was violent in his likes and dis- likes, Gladstone being one of his dislikes ; that he, was kindly, quarrelsome, generous, uncompromising, impulsive, reserved and a prince of expositors in matters scientific. It has been suggested, I believe, that much of this is explained if we remembei that he was an Irishman from Co. Carlow and an Orangeman. On this I can offer no opinion.
There is no doubt that Tyndall had a genuine passion for scien- tific research. In early life he made very great sacrifices to purshe it. Two or three hundred pounds, which he saved by hard and ill- paid work as a surveyor on the railways then budding, he spent on educating himself in Germany as an experiment&, and in his early years at the Royal Institution, where he eventually succeeded Fara- day, he gave up lucrative work to enable him to spend much of his time on research. As a scientific pioneer he was overshadowed in early life by Faraday, and in later life by such men as Clerk Maxwell, Kelvin and Rayleigh, not to go outside the British Isles, but he carried out work of great value on magnetism, on infra-red radiation, on sound and, in particular, on the seeds of putrefaction and disease—that is, spores and bacteria that float in the atmosphere. On his scientific work alone he would have had his own honoured little place in the history of science, but he would not have won the wide fame that was his during his life-time, nor would his name still be so familiar.
It was as a populariser of science that Tyndall was supreme. By all accounts there has never been such a man for an experimental lecture to a general audience. His success in .this country was equalled in America when he undertook, with apparatus and assis- tants, a tour of experimental lectures there. His books, founded on his lectures, were best-sellers in their time and can still be read with pleasure and admiration.
Religious controversy was popular in mid-Victorian times, and Tyndall had a gift and a bent for religious and philosophic contro- versy—and for political and scientific controversy, too, if it comes to that. The greatest stir, probably, was caused by his Presidential AddreSs to the British Association at Belfast, and centred in the sentence, " By a necessity engendered and justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and not- withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise of all terrestial life." To picture the passions excited then by this materialistic challenge we must imagine what would happen today if a leader in science or religion were to attack the trade unions. Even before this, Tyndall had antagonised the very, vocal churchmen of the day by such utter- ances as an article on "Prayer as a Form of Physical Energy," and when he was in America prayer meetings were held for his salvation. Such things kept Tyndall's name before the public at large.
He was a great man for a fine phrase—take as specimens: " It is not possible for me to purchase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death," and " placing my whole relationship to the ques- tions which this dark brooder claims as his own clearly on paper." " Dark brooder " is great. As an alpinist, too, Tyndall's name would live. Those who understand these things speak with admiration of his ascent of the Weisshorn and of his adventures on the Matter- horn, culminating in its ascent. There is a "Pic Tyndall" and a " Tyndall Grat." In the "Life " under notice there is a special chapter by Lord Schuster on Tyndall as a mountaineer.
When, in addition to all this, Tyndall's political controversies and his close friendships with most of the great intellects of his time are considered, it is clear that there can be no lack of incident in this account of his life. Ever since Tyndall died in 1893, Mrs. Tyndall, who survived until 1940, had been collecting and ordering material for his biography, the appearance of which has been delayed by doubts and differences described in the preface. As it now comes forth it is of great, often absorbing, interest as a picture of science and scientific controversy in mid-Victorian times. The publishers have, considering war-time difficulties, achieved a very high standard of production • in particular, the many portraits are excellently rendered. With the best will in the world, however, one cannot say that the authors have made the most of their- rich material. The narrative is full of lively extracts from Tyndall's diary and writings and from contemporary publications, but they are mixed up with trivialities. There is little attempt at a synthesis, at a well composed picture, little perspective. The great glacier controversy is not par- ticularly well set omit and, in general, Tyndall's scientific work is • not discussed with that mastery that one might have expected in view of the fact that one of the authors is a distinguished physicist. One has only to compare the book with, say, Lord Rayleigh's life of his great father to picture the possibilities. It is painstaking, it is conscientious, but it is not a great biography, and it might easily have been. There are, it must in justice be added, many excuses for weaknesses: Professor Eve, who originally undertook the work, fell ill and it had to be completed bx Mr. Creases. All who are inter- ested in the history of science will need to have the book on their shelves, but many, while grateful to the authors for what they have given, will form a fond wish that circumstances had allowed it to be put together with just a little more accomplishment, a little more
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