The Church Has Been Reproached With Endeavouring To Appropriate To Itself All Those Professorships In Our Universities Which Are Connected With Science: It Is However Certain That The Larger Portion Of These Ill-remunerated Offices Have Been Filled By Clergymen.
Of Cooking. This Is An Art Of Various Forms, The Object Of Which Is To Give Ordinary Observations The Appearance And Character Of Those Of The Highest Degree Of Accuracy. One Of Its Numerous Processes Is To Make Multitudes Of Observations, And Out Of These To Select Only Those Which Agree, Or Very Nearly Agree. If A Hundred Observations Are Made, The Cook Must Be Very Unhappy If He Cannot Pick Out Fifteen Or Twenty Which Will Do For Serving Up.
The Accumulation Of Skill And Science Which Has Been Directed To Diminish The Difficulty Of Producing Manufactured Goods, Has Not Been Beneficial To That Country Alone In Which It Is Concentrated Distant Kingdoms Have Participated In Its Advantages.
The Influence Of Electricity In Producing Decompositions, Although Of Inestimable Value As An Instrument Of Discovery In Chemical Inquiries, Can Hardly Be Said To Have Been Applied To The Practical Purposes Of Life, Until The Same Powerful Genius [davy] Which Detected The Principle, Applied It, By A Singular Felicity Of Reasoning, To Arrest The Corrosion Of The Copper-sheathing Of Vessels. ... This Was Regarded As By Laplace As The Greatest Of Sir Humphry's Discoveries.
[in Response To Alfred Tennyson's Poem "vision Of Sin," Which Included The Line "every Moment Dies A Man, Every Moment One Is Born."] If This Were True, The Population Of The World Would Be At A Stand-still. In Truth, The Rate Of Birth Is Slightly In Excess Of Death. I Would Suggest That The Next Edition Of Your Poem Should Read: "every Moment Dies A Man, Every Moment 1 [and] 1/16 Is Born." Strictly Speaking, The Actual Figure Is So Long I Cannot Get It Into A Line, But I Believe The Figure 1 [and] 1/16 Will Be Sufficiently Accurate For Poetry.
Mechanical Notation ... I Look Upon It As One Of The Most Important Additions I Have Made To Human Knowledge. It Has Placed The Construction Of Machinery In The Rank Of A Demonstrative Science. The Day Will Arrive When No School Of Mechanical Drawing Will Be Thought Complete Without Teaching It.
Trimming Consists Of Clipping Off Little Bits Here And There From Those Observations Which Differ Most In Excess From The Mean, And In Sticking Them Onto Those Which Are Too Small; A Species Of 'equitable Adjustment,' As A Radical Would Term It, Which Cannot Be Admitted In Science.
He Will Also Find That The High And Independent Spirit, Which Usually Dwells In The Breast Of Those Who Are Deeply Versed In Scientific Pursuits, Is Ill Adapted For Administrative Appointments; And That Even If Successful, He Must Hear Many Things He Disapproves, And Raise No Voice Against Them.
No Person Will Deny That The Highest Degree Of Attainable Accuracy Is An Object To Be Desired, And It Is Generally Found That The Last Advances Towards Precision Require A Greater Devotion Of Time, Labour, And Expense, Than Those Which Precede Them.
It Can Happen To But Few Philosophers, And But At Distant Intervals, To Snatch A Science, Like Dalton, From The Chaos Of Indefinite Combination, And Binding It In The Chains Of Number, To Exalt It To Rank Amongst The Exact. Triumphs Like These Are Necessarily 'few And Far Between.'
To Those Who Have Chosen The Profession Of Medicine, A Knowledge Of Chemistry, And Of Some Branches Of Natural History, And, Indeed, Of Several Other Departments Of Science, Affords Useful Assistance.
