GREAT AMATEURS.
THE late Sir Francis Galion was a strong advocate of the view, which his own investigations did much to support, that heredity is more effectual than environment, or, in his own words, that nature is stronger than nurture. His scheme of tabulating " worthy " families and of assigning " marks " for life-histories involves the principles of a sort of biological aristocracy with which, perhaps, the Who's Who of future ages may be in line.
Galton and his hobbies—we use the word for a purpose— are a perfect example of a rather curious tendency in the history of knowledge. The example is rendered all the more instructive by his own personal attitude. Thus, in the actual Who's Who of to-day—a compilation which he may h ,ve re garded with ironic contemplation in view of his own ideal —this man of science and original thinker did not give himself the style of "investigator," or "student," or "author." The style he chose to wear before the world was that of " private gentleman." Read in connection with the list of achievements which follows, itself manifestly perfunc- tory, the significance of "private gentleman" is distinctly pointed. And no doubt it was meant to be. Galton, perhaps, might have said that England and the world owe most to their private gentlemen.
Now the tendency of which this particular private gentle- man was a notable and brilliant example is this : that new developments, new lines of inquiry, new points of view, come more often from the amateur than from the professional. Ia the matter of " original contributions " the outsider is dominant over the academician. Generally speaking, the work of the latter may be " sound," but that of the former is " brilliant." It is as if those inside the ring possessed, like the interior of a circle, no independent capacity of motion, but merely inertia. Only the application of outside forces can produce velocity in the system.
Here is a case in point. The most fruitful hypothesis upon the origin and development of primitive civilisation was framed by a historian who had no previous acquaintance with the subject. In the course of an historical inquiry he found it necessary to have a working hypothesis of this evolution as a prolegomenon. The current hypothesis on examination failed to satisfy his judgment Accordingly he went into the subject himself, and evolved an hypothesis of his own. Examples might be multiplied. But the greatest example, perhaps, of all, is Galton's cousin Darwin might have styled himself a "country gentleman." That—and the fact is more than a coincidence—is just what he looks like in his most characteristic portrait.
It is still interesting to read of the flutter raised in academic and professional dovecotes by the famous paper at the Linnean and by The Origin of .Species Here was a new and startling hypothesis claiming to undermine the founda- tions of established theory. It was the work of an amateur in biology, and it has revolutionised the whole of scientific thought. The critic's last weapon against an original view which does not satisfy his judgment is to suggest that the view is " unsound." Cases have been known where a trained and professed student of a subject was, in military parlance, " broken" on account of an unsound publication. Whether the work was sound or unsound is here not the question. It may be a fact that the fear of imputations of unsoundness and of the practical consequences of such a charge has deterred men from publication, but it is not likely that many of these carry to the grave the secret of some tremendous discovery. But when the author of an original work is an outsider, an amateur, the adverse critic's last weapon has a second edge. This is a demand for the "qualifications" of the writer.
In the case of Darwin this demand was made at once, and was perpetually repeated. There was no answer (except an appeal to the future) to the plea that his biological qualifica- tions were "unsatisfactory." He had had no "training" in zoological or botanical laboratories ; he held no degrees in science ; be had not even sat for, much less passed, any ex- aminations in the subjects on which he claimed a hearing. On his side it might have been argued that he had studied the sub- jects for love of them, and had enjoyed the advice and assistance, unprofessionally given, of great authorities. But there was nothing official, nothing to show as formal proof that he was anything more than a " self-taught " man. And to that plea there is a time-honoured proverbial counter. Similarly it was a frequent complaint against Napoleon by the generals who failed to defeat him that he knew nothing of the science and art of war, and that he won battles simply by ignorance and by breaking the rules. There is, of course, much to be said for this plea. Hypotheses must be tested. But the danger is that professional inertia, the excess, that is, of caution over imagination, may clip the wings of truth, which, as Mill long ago observed, has no mystic inherent power to com- mand success.
What is the secret of this prepotency of the amateur ? Is it merely that, as compared with the professional, be enjoys "a position of greater freedom and less responsibility "? In crude terms, does he owe his force to his "independent means " ? Yet one often hears amateurs of some sport regret the absence of the stimulus of " the battle for food." Ultimately, of course, the presence or absence of a material choregia has only a secondary importance. But has the amateur nothing else to lose ? There are amateurs and amateurs, and the multitude of cranks is large. The amateur's character for sense and intelligence is always at stake. Complex though it is, his " mechanical advantage" is composed of moral and intellectual elements. We may take it that his energy—a quality, by the way, which Galton was fond of placing first in his lists of merit—is not blunted by routine and that his enthusiasm is not damped by secondary anxieties. He has, above all, the advantage of coming fresh to his subject ; of approaching it with a. full measure of that wonder, curiosity tinged with reverence, which is the key to understanding. Something of this was in the mind of Plato—himself proud of his " amateur definition "—throughout his favourite topic. For him, knowledge was a form of love. It was not without irony that he represented the ideal ruler as loth to be dragged back into the Cave to do his share of governing the Cave Men. The onlooker sees most of the game, and the onlooker who comes to it fresh is a potential lover. Cases are not unknown of suggestions, pregnant with possibilities, resulting from the fresh vision of outer eyes. The case of the amateur turned professional is really a corroboration of the point. A man like Luther Burbank, who as a child preferred Bowers to toys and nursed a cactus, remains an amateur to the end, though he may incidentally have become the greatest plant-breeder in the world.
The acquaintance thus begun between the amateur, the "lover," and his subject, his "beloved object," is continued
with love," as it began " for love." At a great age Darwin wrote about flowers, Galton created a new science, Dr. Wallace sees a new vision of the world—each with the amcerity and abandon of a child, with the devotion and
worship of an ideal lover. Psychology has made a great deal out of the impulse of " play " since Schiller wrote that man is only completely man when he is playing. On this freedom of the soul the greatest achievements depend.
In some such way we conceive the relation of the amateur to the play which he makes the work of his life. It serves to illustrate Galton's belief in the preponderance of "nature," just as he himself and his great contributions to knowledge, in meteorology, psychology, anthropology, and genetics, illustrate our debt to the amateur.
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