Woman in Science Part 33

[234] "Verum hoc--seu grat.i.tudini seu ineptiae ascribendum--non sileo, me quantulucunque conspicis, per illam esse, nec unquam ad hoc, si quid est nominis aut gloriae fuisse venturum, nisi virtutum tenuissman s.e.m.e.ntem, quasi pectore in hoc natura locaverat, n.o.bilissimis his affectibus coluisset." Francisci Petrarchae, _Colloquiorum Liber quem Secretum Suum Inscripsit_, pp. 105-106, Berne, 1603.

In his canzone beginning with the words _Perche la vita e breve_, Petrarch declares to his inspirer--

"Thus if in me is nurst Any good fruit, from you the seed came first; To you, if such appear, the praise is due, Barren myself till fertilized by you."

[235] _The Life of St. Francis of a.s.sisi_, by Paul Sabatier, p. 166, New York, 1894.

[236] Ibid., p. 167.

[237] Ibid., p. 307.

[238] _The Women of the Renaissance_, p. 394, New York, 1901.

[239] _Women of Florence_, by Isodoro del Lungo, p. xxvii, London, 1907.

[240] This pa.s.sage from the dedication is so important that I reproduce the Latin original: "Omnino vitam, aut, si quid mihi carius est, vobis autem debeo, tibi autem, o diva Melusinis, omne presertim Mathematicis studium, ad quod me excitavit tum tuus in earn amor, tum summa artis illius, quam tenes, peritia, immo vero nunquam satis admiranda in tuo tamque regii et n.o.bilis generis s.e.xu Encyclopaedia." _Francois Viete, Inventeur de l'Algebre Moderne_, p. 20, par Frederic Ritter, Paris, 1895.

[241] "E nell' amore della figlia il grande astronomo trov non soltanto un conforto a suoi affanni, ma anche una guida benefica alla quale sembr egli abandonarsi con cieca tenerezza figliale." _La Storia del Feminismo_, p. 509, by G. L. Arrighi, Florence, 1911.

[242] _Galileo Galilei e Suor Celeste_, by Antonio Favaro, p. 256 et seq., Florence, 1891.

[243] An English writer, discussing this subject, pertinently observes: "For, after all, is it not the personal incidents and commonplaces of life that gather interest as the centuries roll on, while its more pretentious events often drop into mere literary lumber? How much more interesting Dr. Johnson's incidental admission, 'I have a strong inclination, Sir, to do nothing to-day,' is to us now than many of his more formal utterances. And, in reality, is it the personal element alone that is in the long run perennial? The wise may prate as they will about the importance of maintaining the continuity of history and of handing on the torch of science. The world cares for none of these things; they interest only some few political economists and laborious men. What does the crowd and poor little Tom Jones and his nestful, for instance, care about the fact that Cheops was--at any rate by courteous tradition--a mighty man of valor of such an era and land? But little Tom Jones and the rest of us would become mightily interested in this misty monster of many traditions, could we learn in some magical way all he thought, hated and loved in his inmost heart of hearts." _The National Review_, p. 461, June, 1889.

[244] The Duke of Peiresc, in a letter to Ga.s.sendi, regarding Galileo, refers to certain letters--tres belles epistres--of the great philosopher, "a une sienne fille religieuse sur le sujet mesme des matieres traictees en son dernier livre." This shows that Sister Celeste was kept fully informed by her father respecting the nature and contents of his various works while he was preparing them for the press. It implies, likewise, that she was not only interested in them in a general way, but that she was able to read them intelligently and appreciate them as well.

How fondly Galileo treasured the letters written him by this daughter of predilection is made known to us by Sister Celeste herself, when she tells him in one of her letters "Resto confusa sentendo ch'ella conservi le mie lettere, e dubito che il grande affeto que mi porta gliele dimonstri piu compita di quello che sono." Op. cit., p. 317.

[245] Op. cit., p. 404.

[246] In the dedication of his _Principles of Philosophy_ he addresses his young friend and pupil in the following words: "Je puis dire avec verite que je ne jamais rencontre que le seul esprit de votre altesse auquel l'un et l'autre"--metaphysics and mathematics--"fut egalement facile; ce qui fait quo j'ai une tres juste raison de l'estimer incomparable."

[247] _Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology_, by William Buckland, p. x.x.xvi, London, 1858.

[248] _Pasteur_, by Mr. and Mrs. Percy Frankland, p. 26 et seq., London, 1898. A French writer referring to this happy discovery expresses himself as follows: "Quand Pasteur trouva le vaccin de charbon, il remonta triomphant de son laboratoire et les larmes lui vinrent aux yeux en embra.s.sant sa femme et sa fille auxquelles annoncait sa victoire."

_Revue Encyclopedique_, p. 20, Jan. 15, 1895.

[249] _Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel_, London, 1879, pp. vi and vii, by Mrs. John Herschel. Cf. Chap. IV of this Vol.

[250] _The Subjection of Women_, pp. 98, 99, London, 1909.

The idea herein expressed is beautifully accentuated in the touching dedication to the author's work On Liberty, which reads as follows:

"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward--I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision, some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and n.o.ble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything I can write, unprompted and una.s.sisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom."

The chivalrous sentiments expressed in this generous tribute by one of the deepest thinkers of his time, to the memory of his n.o.ble and gifted life-companion, extravagant as they may seem, are but echoes of similar sentiments often voiced before by the world's greatest leaders of thought and science.

[251] _Memoir of Sir William Hamilton_, by John Veitch, p. 136 et seq., Edinburgh, 1869.

It is frequently said that women, unlike men, are indifferent to fame.

This may be true so far as they are personally concerned; but it is certainly not true of them in regard to their husbands, or the men for whom they have a genuine affection. This is abundantly proved by the lives of Mme. Huber, Mme. Pasteur, Caroline Herschel and Lady Hamilton, not to name others who have been mentioned in the foregoing pages. After Sir William Hamilton, at the age of fifty-six, had been stricken by hemiplegia on the right side, as the result of over-work, his faithful wife became for twelve years eyes, hands and even mind for him. She read and consulted books for him, and helped him to prepare his lectures and the works which have given him such celebrity. "Everything that was sent to the press and all the courses of lectures were written by her, either to dictation or from copy." And when we remember that the lectures and books were of the most abstruse character and that Lady Hamilton was a.s.sociated with her husband in his recondite work throughout his long and brilliant career, we must confess that her conduct was not only heroic to a degree, but also that the fame of the one she loved was to her a matter of the deepest concern.

[252] "Induction is, indeed, a mighty weapon laid up in the armory of the human mind, and by its aid great deeds have been accomplished and n.o.ble conquests have been won. But in that armory there is another weapon, I will not say of stronger make, but certainly of keener edge; and, if that weapon had been oftener used during the present and preceding century, our knowledge would be far more advanced than it actually is. If the imagination had been more cultivated, if there had been a closer union between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of science, natural philosophy would have made greater progress, because natural philosophers would have taken a higher and more successful aim, and would have enlisted on their side a wider range of human sympathies." Buckle: _The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge_.

[253] _The Subjection of Women_, ut sup., p. 87.

[254] _Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley_, by his son Leonard Huxley, Vol. I, p. 324, New York, 1900.

[255] Ibid., p. 39, Vol. II, p. 458.

CHAPTER XII

THE FUTURE OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE:

SUMMARY AND EPILOGUE

Saint-Evremond, the first great master of the genteel style in French literature, who was equally noted as a brilliant courtier, a graceful wit, a professed Epicurean, and who exerted so marked an influence on the writings of Voltaire and the essayists of Queen Anne's time, gives us in one of his desultory productions an entertaining disquisition on _La femme qui ne se trouve point et ne se trouvera jamais_--the woman who is not and never will be found. The caption of this singular essay admirably expresses the idea that the majority of mankind has, even until the present day, held respecting woman in science. For them she was non-existent. Nature, in their view, had disqualified her for serious and, above all, for abstract science. Never, therefore, in the opinion of these solemn wiseacres, had been found or could be found a woman who had achieved distinction in science.

The foregoing chapters show how ill-founded is such a view regarding woman in times past. For that half of humanity which has produced such scientific luminaries as Aspasia, Laura Ba.s.si, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Sophie Germain, Mary Somerville, Caroline Herschel, Sonya Kovalevsky, Agnes S. Lewis, Margaret Dunlop Gibson, Eleanor Ormerod and Mme.

Curie--to mention no others--is far from exhibiting any evidence of intellectual disqualification and still farther from warranting any one from declaring that the successful pursuit of science is entirely beyond the mental powers of womankind.

The preceding pages, likewise, afford an answer to those who insist on woman's incapacity for scientific pursuits, and point to the small number of those that have attained eminence in any of the branches of science; who continue to a.s.sert that the women named are but exceptions to the rule of the hopeless inferiority of their s.e.x, and that no conclusions can be deduced from the paucity of women who have risen above the intellectual level of their less fortunate or less highly dowered sisters. They further show that, until the last few decades, woman's environment was rarely if ever favorable to her pursuit of science. From the days of Aspasia until the latter half of the nineteenth century she was discriminated against by law, custom and public opinion. Save only in Italy, she was excluded from the universities and from learned societies in which she might have had an opportunity of developing her intellect. In other countries her social ostracism in all that pertained to mental development was so complete and universal that she rarely had an opportunity of making a trial of her powers or exhibiting her innate capacity. The consequence was that her mind remained in a condition of comparative atrophy--a condition that gave rise to that long prevalent belief in woman's intellectual inferiority to man and her natural incapacity for everything that is not light or frivolous.

Practically all that women have achieved in science, until very recent years, has been accomplished in defiance of that conventional code which compelled them to confine their activities to the ordinary duties of the household. The lives and achievements of the eminent mathematicians, Sophie Germain and Mary Somerville, are good ill.u.s.trations of the truth of this a.s.sertion. It was only their persistence in the study of their favorite branch of science, in spite of the opposition of their family and friends, and in spite of what was considered taboo for their s.e.x by the usages and ordinances of society, that they were able to attain that eminence in the most abstruse of the sciences which won for them the plaudits of the world. Both were virtually self-made women. Deprived of the advantages of a college or university education, and denied the stimulus afforded by members.h.i.+p in learned scientific a.s.sociations, they nevertheless succeeded by their own unaided efforts in winning a place of highest honor in the Walhalla of men of science.

M. Alphonse de Candolle, in his great work, _Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis Deux Siecles_, devotes only two pages to the consideration of woman in science. She is, to him, a negligible quant.i.ty. And, although a professed man of science, he repeats, without any scientific warrant whatever, all the gratuitous statements of his predecessors regarding the superficial character of the female mind, "a mind," he will have it, which "takes pleasure in ideas that are readily seized by a kind of intuition;" a mind "to which the slow methods of observation and calculation by which truth is surely arrived at are not pleasing. Truths themselves," the Swiss savant continues, "independent of their nature and possible consequences--especially general truths which have no relation to a particular person--are of small moment to most women. Add to this a feeble independence of opinion, a reasoning faculty less intense than in man, and, finally, the horror of doubt, that is, a state of mind in which all research in the sciences of observation must begin and often end. These reasons are," according to de Candolle, "more than sufficient to explain the position of women in scientific pursuits."[256]

They certainly are more than sufficient to explain their position if we choose to accept the author's method of determining one's attainments in the realm of science. His chief test of one's eminence in science is the number of learned societies to which one belongs. For De Candolle, members.h.i.+p in one or more such bodies is _prima facie_ evidence of special distinction in some branch of science. But "We," he declares, "do not see the name of any woman on the lists of learned men connected with the princ.i.p.al academies. This is not due entirely to the fact that the customs and regulations have made no provision for their admission, for it is easy to a.s.sure one's self that no person of the feminine s.e.x has ever produced an original scientific work which has made its mark in any science and commanded the attention of specialists in science. I do not think it has ever been considered desirable to elect a woman a member of any of the great scientific academies with restricted members.h.i.+p."[257]

When De Candolle insisted on members.h.i.+p in learned societies as a necessary indication of scientific eminence, he must have known, what everybody knew, that such exclusive societies as the French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Great Britain have always been dead set against the admission of women members. It is difficult to imagine that the learned author of the _History of Science and Scientists_ was entirely ignorant of the exclusion from the French Academy of Maria Gaetana Agnesi solely because she was a woman. And he must have been aware that, had it not been for her s.e.x, Sophie Germain would have been accorded a fauteuil in the same society for her remarkable investigations in one of the difficult departments of mathematical physics. He must likewise have been cognizant of the att.i.tude of such organizations as the Royal Society toward women, no matter how meritorious their achievements in science.

According to De Candolle's criterion, such women as Mme. Curie, Sonya Kovalevsky, Eleanor Ormerod, Agnes S. Lewis, Margaret Dunlop Gibson have accomplished nothing worthy of note because, forsooth, their names are not found on the rolls of members.h.i.+p of the Royal Society or the French Academy of Sciences--a.s.sociations whose const.i.tutions have been purposely so framed as to exclude women from members.h.i.+p. It would, indeed, be difficult to instance a more unfair or a more unscientific test of woman's eminence in science, and that, too, proposed by one who is supposed to be actuated in his judgments by rigorously scientific methods. Had any of the women named belonged to the male s.e.x, there never would have been any question of their fitness to become members of the societies in question. This is particularly true of Mme. Curie, who, in the estimation of the world, has done more to enhance the prestige of French science than any man of the present generation--a statement that is sufficiently justified by the fact that she is the only one so far who has twice, in compet.i.tion with the greatest of the world's men of science, succeeded in carrying away the great n.o.bel prize.[258]

Not only have men, from time immemorial, been wont to point to woman's incapacity for science as evidenced by the small number of those who have achieved distinction in any of its branches, but they have also taken a special pleasure in directing attention to the fact that no woman has ever given to the world any of the great creations of genius, or been the prime-mover in any of the far-reaching discoveries which have so greatly contributed to the weal, the advancement and the happiness of our race.

No one, probably, has expressed himself on this subject in a more positive or characteristic fas.h.i.+on than the noted litterateur and philosopher, Count Joseph de Maistre. Writing from St. Petersburg to his daughter, Constance, he says: "Voltaire, according to what you affirm--for as to me, I know nothing, as I have not read all his works, and have not read a line of them during the last thirty years--says that women are capable of doing all that men do, etc. This is merely a compliment paid to some pretty woman, or, rather, it is one of the hundred thousand and thousand silly things which he said during his lifetime. The very contrary is the truth. Women have produced no _chef d'oeuvre_ of any kind whatsoever. They have been the authors neither of the _Iliad_, nor the _aeneid_, nor the _Jerusalem Delivered_, nor _Phedre_, nor _Athalie_ nor _Rodogune_, nor _The Misanthrope_, nor _Tartufe_, nor _The Joueur_, nor _The Pantheon_, nor _The Church of St.

Peter's_, nor the _Venus de' Medici_, nor the _Apollo Belvidere_, nor the _Principia_, nor the _Discourse on Universal History_, nor _Telemachus_. They have invented neither algebra nor the telescope, nor achromatic gla.s.ses nor the fire engine, nor hose-machines, etc."[259]

All this is true, but what does it prove? It does not prove, as is so frequently a.s.sumed, woman's lesser brain power or inferior intelligence. It does not prove--as the learned Frenchman and those who are similarly minded would have us believe--her incapacity for the highest flights of genius in every sphere of intellectual effort. Such a.s.sumptions are entirely negatived by woman's past achievements in all departments of art, literature and science.

Far from making the inference that De Maistre wished his daughter to draw from his letter, we should, from what we know of woman's ability as disclosed in the foregoing chapters, hesitate to set a limit to her powers, or to declare apodictically that she could not have been the author of works of as great merit as most of those--if not all of them--mentioned as among men's supreme achievements. The simple fact that Mme. Curie and Sonya Kovalevsky were able, in sciences usually considered beyond female intelligence, to wrest from their male compet.i.tors the most coveted prizes within the gift of the n.o.bel Prize Commission and the French Academy of Sciences, demonstrates completely that woman's a.s.sumed incapacity for even the most recondite scientific pursuits is a mere figment of the masculine imagination.

What women have done "that at least, if nothing else," as John Stuart Mill aptly observes, "it is proved they can do. When we consider how sedulously they are all trained away from, instead of being trained toward, any of the occupations or objects reserved for men, it is evident that I am taking very humble ground for them, when I rest their case on what they have actually achieved. For, in this case, negative evidence is worth little, while any positive evidence is conclusive. It cannot be inferred to be impossible that a woman should be a Homer, or an Aristotle, or a Michaelangelo, or a Beethoven, because no woman has yet actually produced works comparable to theirs in any of those lines of excellence. This negative fact at most leaves the question uncertain and open to psychological discussion. But it is quite certain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth or a Deborah or a Joan of Arc, since this is not inference but a fact."[260]

In like manner it is quite certain that, in spite of all kinds of disabilities and prejudices and adverse legislation, there have been a large number of women who, in every department of intellectual activity, have achieved marked distinction and won imperishable renown for their proscribed s.e.x. It is a fact, which admits of no question, that, notwithstanding their being debarred from all the educational advantages so generously lavished upon the dominant s.e.x, women have since the days of Sappho and Hypatia shown themselves the equals and often the superiors of men in the highest and n.o.blest spheres of mental achievement.