![scrupulous honour and unbending veracity; his intense desire to be
accurate even in the smallest particulars, and the trouble he took to
secure such accuracy; his sympathy with the struggles of younger
men, and his readiness to help them; his eagerness for the
establishment of truth by whomsoever discovered; his interest up to
the very last in the advancement of science; his playful humour; his
unfailing courtesy and gratitude for even the smallest acts of
kindness—these elements of a lofty moral nature stand out
conspicuously in the Biography. No one can rise from the perusal of
these volumes without the conviction that, by making known to the
world at large what Darwin was as a man, as well as a great original
investigator, they place him on a still loftier pinnacle of greatness
than that to which the voice of his contemporaries had already
raised him.
FOOTNOTE:
[98] Contemporary Review, Dec., 1887.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25814-250418063907-8669ec89/85/Understanding-knowledge-as-a-commons-from-theory-to-practice-1st-Edition-Hess-31-320.jpg)
![VIII
Hugh Miller: His Work and Influence[99]
Among the picturesque figures that walked the streets of Edinburgh
in the middle of last century, one that often caught the notice of the
passer-by was that of a man of good height and broad shoulders,
clad in a suit of rough tweed, with a shepherd's plaid across his
chest and a stout stick in his hand. His shock of sandy-coloured hair
escaped from under a soft felt-hat; his blue eyes, either fixed on the
ground or gazing dreamily ahead, seemed to take no heed of their
surroundings. His rugged features wore an expression of earnest
gravity, softening sometimes into a smile and often suffused with a
look of wistful sadness, while the firmly compressed lips betokened
strength and determination of character. The springy elastic step
with which he moved swiftly along the crowded pavement was that
of the mountaineer rather than of the native of a populous city. A
stranger would pause to look after him and to wonder what manner
of man this could be. If such a visitor ventured to question one of
the passing townsmen, he would be told promptly and with no little
pride 'That is Hugh Miller.' No further description or explanation
would be deemed necessary, for the name had not only grown to be
a household word in Edinburgh and over the whole of Scotland, but
had now become familiar wherever the English language was
spoken, even to the furthest western wilds of Canada and the United
States.
A hundred years have passed since this notable man was born, and
nearly half that interval has elapsed since he was laid in the grave.
The hand of time, that resistlessly winnows the wheat from the chaff
of human achievement, has been quietly shaping what will remain as
the permanent sum of his work and influence. The temporary and
transitory events in his career have already, in large measure,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25814-250418063907-8669ec89/85/Understanding-knowledge-as-a-commons-from-theory-to-practice-1st-Edition-Hess-32-320.jpg)
![these respects. What we more especially owe to him is the
awakening of a wide-spread interest in the methods and results of
scientific inquiry. More than any other author of his day, he taught
men to recognise that beneath the technicalities and jargon of the
schools, that are too apt to conceal the meaning of the facts and
inferences which they express, there lie the most vital truths in
regard to the world in which we live. He clothed the dry bones of
science with living flesh and blood. He made the aspects of past
ages to stand out picturesquely before us, as his vivid imagination
conceived that they must once have been. He awakened an
enthusiasm for geological questions, such as had never before
existed, and this wave of popular appreciation which he set in
motion has never since ceased to pulsate throughout the English-
speaking peoples of the world. His genial ardour and irresistible
eloquence swept away the last remnants of the barrier of orthodox
prejudice against geology in this country. The present generation
can hardly realise the former strength of that bigotry, or appreciate
the merit of the service rendered in the breaking of it down. The
well-known satirical criticism of the poet Cowper[100] expressed a
prevalent feeling among the orthodox of his day, and this feeling was
still far from extinct when Miller began to write. I can recall
manifestations of it even within my own experience. No one,
however, could doubt his absolute orthodoxy, and when the cause of
the science was so vigorously espoused by him, the voices of the
objectors were finally silenced. There was another class of cavillers
who looked on geology as a mere collecting of minerals, a kind of
laborious trifling concealed under a cover of uncouth technical
terms. Their view was well expressed by Wordsworth when he
singled out for contemptuous scorn the enthusiast who carried a
pocket hammer with which he chipped off splinters of the rocks, and
left raw scars as marks of his progress.[101]
But a champion had now arisen who, as far as might be, discarding
technicalities, made even the dullest reader feel that the geologist is
the historian of the earth, that he deals with a series of chronicles as
real and as decipherable as those that record human events, and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25814-250418063907-8669ec89/85/Understanding-knowledge-as-a-commons-from-theory-to-practice-1st-Edition-Hess-45-320.jpg)
Understanding knowledge as a commons from theory to practice 1st Edition Hess
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- 5. Understanding knowledge as a commons from theory to practice 1st Edition Hess Digital Instant Download Author(s): Hess, Charlotte; Ostrom, Elinor ISBN(s): 9781282096394, 1282096397 Edition: 1 File Details: PDF, 1.43 MB Year: 2007 Language: english
- 6. Understanding Knowledge as a Commons From Theory to Practice Understanding Knowledge as a Commons From Theory to Practice edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom Knowledge in digital form offers unprecedented access to information through the Internet but at the same time is subject to ever-greater restrictions through intellectual property legislation, overpatenting, licensing, overpricing, and lack of preservation. Looking at knowledge as a commons—as a shared resource—allows us to understand both its limitless possibilities and what threatens it. In Understanding Knowledge as a Commons, experts from a range of disciplines discuss the knowledge commons in the digital era—how to conceptualize it, protect it, and build it. Contributors consider the concept of the commons historically and offer an analytical framework for understanding knowledge as a shared social-ecological system. They look at ways to guard against enclosure of the knowledge commons, considering, among other topics, the role of research libraries, the advantages of making scholarly material available outside the academy, and the problem of disappearing Web pages. They discuss the role of intellectual property in a new knowledge commons, the open access movement (including possible funding models for scholarly publications), the development of associ- ational commons, the application of a free/open source framework to scientific knowledge, and the effect on scholarly communication of collaborative communities within academia, and offer a case study of EconPort, an open access, open source digital library for students and researchers in microeconomics. The essays clarify critical issues that arise within these new types of commons, and offer guideposts for future theory and practice. Charlotte Hess is Director of the Digital Library of the Commons at Indiana University. Elinor Ostrom is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Codirector of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, and Codirector of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University. Contributors David Bollier, James Boyle, James C. Cox, Shubha Ghosh, Charlotte Hess, Nancy Kranich, Peter Levine, Wendy Pradt Lougee, Elinor Ostrom, Charles M. Schweik, Peter Suber, J. Todd Swarthout, Donald J. Waters communications/scholarly publishing The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu Understanding Knowledge as a Commons Hess and Ostrom, editors 0-262-08357-4 978-0-262-08357-7 edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom Jacket art by Charlotte Hess. 4626_Hess 11/3/06 7:18 AM Page 1
- 7. Understanding Knowledge as a Commons
- 9. Understanding Knowledge as a Commons From Theory to Practice edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
- 10. © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail special_sales@ mitpress.mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Sabon by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong and printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Understanding knowledge as a commons : from theory to practice / edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-262-08357-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-262-08357-4 (hardcover) 1. Knowledge management. 2. Information commons. I. Hess, Charlotte. II. Ostrom, Elinor. HD30.2.U53 2007 001—dc22 2006027385 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
- 11. This book is dedicated to the memory of Gerry Bernbom (1952–2003) who continues to be a source of inspiration and wisdom.
- 13. Contents Preface ix I Studying the Knowledge Commons 1 1 Introduction: An Overview of the Knowledge Commons 3 Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom 2 The Growth of the Commons Paradigm 27 David Bollier 3 A Framework for Analyzing the Knowledge Commons 41 Elinor Ostrom and Charlotte Hess II Protecting the Knowledge Commons 83 4 Countering Enclosure: Reclaiming the Knowledge Commons 85 Nancy Kranich 5 Mertonianism Unbound? Imagining Free, Decentralized Access to Most Cultural and Scientific Material 123 James Boyle 6 Preserving the Knowledge Commons 145 Donald J. Waters III Building New Knowledge Commons 169 7 Creating an Intellectual Commons through Open Access 171 Peter Suber 8 How to Build a Commons: Is Intellectual Property Constrictive, Facilitating, or Irrelevant? 209 Shubha Ghosh
- 14. 9 Collective Action, Civic Engagement, and the Knowledge Commons 247 Peter Levine 10 Free/Open-Source Software as a Framework for Establishing Commons in Science 277 Charles M. Schweik 11 Scholarly Communication and Libraries Unbound: The Opportunity of the Commons 311 Wendy Pradt Lougee 12 EconPort: Creating and Maintaining a Knowledge Commons 333 James C. Cox and J. Todd Swarthout Glossary 349 Index 353 viii Contents
- 15. Preface In the spring of 2004, Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom hosted a meeting titled “Workshop on Scholarly Communication as a Commons.” The idea of this working session grew out of several parallel events, including the discussions at the Conference on the Public Domain organized and chaired by James Boyle at Duke University in November 2001.1 It is also an outgrowth of the many years of research, case studies, and theoretical work on the commons undertaken at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (Workshop), Indiana University. While earlier work focused primarily on the study of natural resources as commons, more recent interest has developed at the Workshop on the scholarly information and digital media as commons, the erosion of those commons through recent legislation, and the necessity of building new institutions in order to sustain those commons. An early attempt at struggling with these issues was our development of the Digital Library of the Commons,2 which seeks to combine digital preservation of high-quality information, self-publication, and multimedia storage, while serving as the primary reference tool for interdisciplinary research on the commons. The two-day event, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, brought together leading interdisciplinary scholars to examine the current state of research and development of scholarly communication and the knowledge commons. Many of the participating scholars had already been thinking and writing about one of the many “commons” aspects of scholarly communication. The first objective of the meeting was to produce papers that could give other scholars as well as researchers and practitioners who create digital resources and affect digital policy, a sense of the current status of research on scholarly com- munication as an information commons, an idea of where it is headed,
- 16. and an awareness of critical dilemmas and policy issues. We deliberately assembled a group of scholars who could address both theoretical and empirical concerns—that is, who were able to ground discussion of future research and action in a thorough synthesis of current theory and practice. The initial focus on scholarly communication as a commons was chosen to more carefully focus the subject and to allow for the inte- gration of study areas that have been traditionally segregated, such as intellectual property rights, computer codes and infrastructure, academic libraries, invention and creativity, open-source software, collaborative science, citizenship and democratic processes, collective action, infor- mation economics, and the management, dissemination, and pre- servation of the scholarly record. Other important dilemmas within the information commons, such as globalization, complexity, westernization of knowledge, indigenous knowledge and rights, and the growing problem of computer waste were kept in mind. The group also explored the question of what models and frameworks of analysis are most beneficial in building a new research agenda for this complex commons. Some of the questions posed were: Is it possible to transfer lessons learned from the environmental movement to the knowledge-commons ecosystem? What can research on the natural-resource commons teach us about the dilemmas of scholarly communication? How can legal scholars, social scientists, and librarians and information specialists best work together to preserve the intellectual commons? Can new tech- nologies, rules, and self-governing communities help bridge the gaps between traditional libraries, publishers, researchers, and policymakers? The concrete goals of the meeting were to • Identify essential “commons” of concern within the vast terrain of scholarly communication • Reach consensus on definitions • Map some key knowledge gaps • Discuss and apply an analytical framework, if possible • Draft a report to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation outlining a new research agenda for the study of information or scholarly communica- tion as a commons • Identify future actions to further this agenda x Preface
- 17. The group sought to integrate perspectives that are frequently segregated within the scholarly-communication arena, such as intellectual property rights; information technology (including hardware, software, code and open source, and infrastructure); traditional libraries; digital libraries; invention and creativity; collaborative science; citizenship and demo- cratic processes; collective action; information economics; and the management, dissemination, and preservation of the scholarly record. Since that time, our ideas have grown and developed. We have been for- tunate to add a couple of new scholars in the process, and regret that a few needed to withdraw due to previous commitments. Our understanding of this complex commons has evolved considerably since the initial meeting. While our focus was originally on scholarly com- munication, we came to agree with Boyle, Lynch, and others that equat- ing the knowledge commons with the “scholarly-communication” arena was too limiting and, perhaps, parochial. It became more and more apparent that any useful study of the users, designers, contributors, and distributors of this commons could not be cordoned off to the domain of the ivory tower. Who can any longer set the boundaries between schol- arly and nonscholarly information? On the other hand, we found it useful to examine some of the long-enduring knowledge commons and related institutional rules, especially in the context of exponential technological change. Participants included James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School, Durham, North Carolina James Cox, Noah Langdale Jr. Chair in Economics; Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar; Director, Experimental Economics Center, University of Arizona Charlotte Hess, Director, Workshop Research Library, and Digital Library of the Commons, Indiana University, Bloomington Nancy Kranich, past president of the American Library Association; former Associate Dean of Libraries at New York University Peter Levine, Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement; a research scholar at the Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy at the University of Maryland; Steering Committee Chair of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools Preface xi
- 18. Wendy Pradt Lougee, University Librarian and McKnight Presidential Professor, University of Minnesota, University Libraries, Minneapolis, Minnesota Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), Washington, D.C.; adjunct professor at the School of Informa- tion Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley Elinor Ostrom, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Indiana University; Co-Director, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analy- sis; Co-Director, Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change Charles Schweik, Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Resource Conservation, Center for Public Policy and Administration, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Peter Suber, Policy Strategist for open access to scientific and scholarly research literature; Director, Open Access Project at Public Knowledge; Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College; Author of SPARC Open Access Newsletter; Editor of Open Access News Blog Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO of Internet2; Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Donald Waters, Program Officer for Scholarly Communications, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The sessions were expertly moderated by Margaret Polski, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Strategies, Indiana University (IU). Some of the attendees and active contributors to the dis- cussions were Blaise Cronin, Rudy Professor of Information Science and Dean of the IU School of Library and Information Science; Suzanne Thorin, Dean of the IU Libraries; Jorge Schement, Pennsylvania State University Distinguished Professor of Communications; Marco Janssen, Assistant Professor of Informatics; Robert Goehlert, IU Librarian for Economics and Political Science; Harriette Hemmasi, Associate Dean, IU Libraries; Laura Wisen, Coordinator of Workshop Research Library and SLIS graduate student; and Alice Robbin, IU Professor of Information Science. While a couple of the original participants have dropped out due to previous commitments, as noted, we have been fortunate to add two out- standing thinkers on the commons: xii Preface
- 19. David Bollier, Journalist, Consultant, Senior Fellow, USC Annenberg School for Communication, The Norman Lear Center, and Co-Founder and board member, Public Knowledge Shubha Ghosh, Professor, Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University, Dallas The authors of this book would like to thank the two thorough and very helpful outside reviewers for The MIT Press. We would also like to thank John Goodacre, Stevan Harnad, Anne MacKinnon, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Andrew Revelle, Audun Sandberg, and Suzanne Thorin for their insightful comments. We are grateful to the contributors to this book who gave us their valuable input on chapter 1. We are also extremely grateful to Patricia Lezotte for her expert assistance with the manuscript. Finally, we wish to thank The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its essential support. Notes 1. See James Boyle, ed., The Public Domain (Durham, NC: School of Law, Duke University, 2003) (Law and Contemporary Problems 66(1–2)); http:// www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/. 2. http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu. Preface xiii
- 21. I Studying the Knowledge Commons
- 23. 1 Introduction: An Overview of the Knowledge Commons Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, “The flag is moving.” The other said, “The wind is moving.” The sixth patriarch, Zeno, happened to be passing by. He told them, “Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.” —Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach The Purpose of This Book This book is intended as an introduction to a new way of looking at knowl- edge as a shared resource, a complex ecosystem that is a commons—a resource shared by a group of people that is subject to social dilemmas. The traditional study of knowledge is subdivided into epistemic areas of interests. Law professors argue the legal aspects of knowledge in regard to intellectual property rights. Economists consider efficiency and transac- tion costs of information. Philosophers grapple with epistemology. Librar- ians and information scientists deal with the collection, classification, organization, and enduring access of published information. Sociologists examine behaviors of virtual communities. Physical scientists study natural laws. Every discipline, of course, has a claim on knowledge; this is the common output of all academic endeavors. The focus here is to explore the puzzles and issues that all forms of knowledge share, particularly in the digital age. The intention is to illustrate the analytical benefits of apply- ing a multitiered approach that burrows deeply into the knowledge- commons ecosystem, drawing from several different disciplines. Brief History of the Study of the Knowledge Commons The exploration of information and knowledge as commons is still in its early infancy. Nevertheless, the connection between “information” in its
- 24. various forms and “commons” in its various forms has caught the atten- tion of a wide range of scholars, artists, and activists. The “information- commons” movement emerged with striking suddenness. Before 1995, few thinkers saw the connection. It was around that time that we began to see a new usage of the concept of the “commons.” There appears to have been a spontaneous explosion of “ah ha” moments when multiple users on the Internet one day sat up, probably in frustration, and said, “Hey! This is a shared resource!” People started to notice behaviors and conditions on the web—congestion, free riding, conflict, overuse, and “pollution”—that had long been identified with other types of commons. They began to notice that this new conduit of distributing information was neither a private nor strictly a public resource. An increasing number of scholars found that the concept of the “commons”1 helped them to conceptualize new dilemmas they were observing with the rise of distributed, digital information. In the mid- 1990s, articles suddenly started appearing in various disciplines address- ing some aspect of this new knowledge commons. Some information scientists made inroads in new areas of virtual communities and commons (Rheingold 1993; Brin 1995; Hess 1995; Kollock and Smith 1996). Others explored commons dilemmas on the web, such as con- gestion and free riding (Huberman and Lukose 1997; Gupta et al. 1997). The largest wave of “new-commons” exploration appeared in the legal reviews. Commons became a buzzword for digital information, which was being enclosed, commodified, and overpatented.2 Whether labeled the “digital,” “electronic,” “information,” “virtual,” “communication,” “intellectual,” “Internet,” or “technological” commons, all these con- cepts address the new shared territory of global distributed information. Study of Traditional Commons For us, the analysis of knowledge as a commons has its roots in the broad, interdisciplinary study of shared natural resources, such as water resources, forests, fisheries, and wildlife. Commons is a general term that refers to a resource shared by a group of people. In a commons, the resource can be small and serve a tiny group (the family refrigerator), it can be community-level (sidewalks, playgrounds, libraries, and so on), or it can extend to international and global levels (deep seas, the atmos- phere, the Internet, and scientific knowledge). The commons can be well bounded (a community park or library); transboundary (the Danube 4 Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom
- 25. River, migrating wildlife, the Internet); or without clear boundaries (knowledge, the ozone layer). Commons analysts have often found it necessary to differentiate between a commons as a resource or resource system and a commons as a property-rights regime. Shared resource systems—called common-pool resources—are types of economic goods, independent of particular prop- erty rights. Common property on the other hand is a legal regime—a jointly owned legal set of rights (Bromley 1986; Ciriacy-Wantrup and Bishop 1975). Throughout this book, the more general term commons is preferred in order to describe the complexity and variability of knowl- edge and information as resources. Knowledge commons can consist of multiple types of goods and regimes and still have many characteristics of a commons. Potential problems in the use, governance, and sustainability of a commons can be caused by some characteristic human behaviors that lead to social dilemmas such as competition for use, free riding, and over- harvesting. Typical threats to knowledge commons are commodification or enclosure, pollution and degradation, and nonsustainability. These issues may not necessarily carry over from the physical envi- ronment to the realm of the knowledge commons. There is a continual challenge to identify the similarities between knowledge commons and traditional commons, such as forests or fisheries, all the while exploring the ways knowledge as a resource is fundamentally different from natural-resource commons. With “subtractive” resources such as fisheries, for instance, one person’s use reduces the benefits available to another. High sub- tractability is usually a key characteristic of common-pool resources. Most types of knowledge have, on the other hand, traditionally been relatively nonsubtractive. In fact, the more people who share useful knowledge, the greater the common good. Consideration of knowledge as a commons, therefore, suggests that the unifying thread in all commons resources is that they are jointly used, managed by groups of varying sizes and interests. Self-organized commons require strong collective-action and self- governing mechanisms, as well as a high degree of social capital on the part of the stakeholders. Collective action arises “when the efforts of two or more individuals are needed to accomplish an outcome” (Sandler 1992, 1). Another important aspect of collective action is that it is vol- untary on the part of each individual (Meinzen-Dick, Di Gregorio, and Introduction 5
- 26. Discovering Diverse Content Through Random Scribd Documents
- 27. years. But when at last the two bulky volumes, of more than one thousand pages of text, with forty detailed plates, made their appearance, they were hailed as an admirable contribution to the knowledge of a comparatively little known department of the animal kingdom. In the interests of science, perhaps, their chief value is to be recognised not so much in their own high merit as in the practical training which their preparation gave the author in anatomical detail and classification. He spoke of it himself afterwards as a valuable discipline, and Professor Huxley truly affirms that the influence of this discipline was visible in everything which he afterwards wrote. It was after Darwin had got rid of his herculean labours over the 'Cirripede book' that he began to settle down seriously to the great work of his life—the investigation of the origin of the species of plants and animals. One of the three volumes of the Biography is entirely devoted to tracing the growth of his views on this subject, and the preparation and reception of the great work on the Origin of Species. In no part of his task has the editor shown greater tact and skill than in this. From the earliest jottings, which show that the idea had taken hold of Darwin's mind, we are led onwards through successive journals, letters, and published works, marking as we go how steadily the idea was pursued, and how it shaped itself more and more definitely in his mind. It is impossible to condense this story within the limits of a Review article, and the condensation, even if possible, would spoil the story, which must be left as told in the author's own words. Briefly, it may be stated here that he seems to have been first led to ponder over the question of the transmutation of species by facts that had come under his notice during the South American part of the voyage in the Beagle—such as the discovery of the fossil remains of huge animals akin to, but yet very distinct from, the living armadillos of the same regions; the manner in which closely allied animals were found to replace one another, as he followed them over the continent; and the remarkable character of the flora and fauna of the Galapagos archipelago. 'It was evident,' he says, 'that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that species
- 28. gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me.' His first note-book for the accumulation of facts bearing on the question was opened in July 1837, and from that date he continued to gather them 'on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading.' He soon perceived that selection was the secret of success in the artificial production of the useful varieties of plants and animals. But how this principle, so fertile in results when employed by man, could be applied in explanation of Nature's operations, remained a mystery to him until in October 1838, when, happening to read for amusement Malthus' book On the Principle of Population, he found at last a theory with which to work. With this guiding principle he instituted a laborious investigation on the breeding of pigeons, and experiments on the flotation of eggs, the vitality of seeds, and other questions, the solution of which seemed desirable as his researches advanced. He says himself that, to avoid prejudice in favour of his own views, he refrained for some time from writing even the briefest sketch of the theory he had formed, and that it was not until June, 1842, that he allowed himself the satisfaction of writing a very brief pencil abstract in thirty-five pages, which two years afterwards he enlarged to 230 pages, and had fairly copied out. This precious manuscript was the germ of the Origin of Species. With characteristic caution, however, he kept his essay in his desk, and with equally characteristic ardour, industry and patience went on with the laborious task of accumulating evidence. His friends were of course well aware of the nature of his research, and of the remarkable views to which he had been led regarding the history of species. And as these views could hardly fail in the end to become generally known, it was desirable that the first publication of them should be made by himself. This having been urged upon him by Lyell, he began early in the year 1856 to write out his views in detail on a scale three or four times as large as that on which the Origin of Species afterwards appeared. This work he continued steadily for two years, when it was interrupted (June 1858) by the arrival of a
- 29. remarkable manuscript essay by Mr. A. R. Wallace, who, working in the Malay archipelago, had arrived at conclusions identical with those of Darwin himself. Darwin's generous impulse was to send this essay for publication irrespective of any claim of his own to priority: but his friends, Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, persuaded him to allow extracts from his early sketch of 1844, and part of a letter written to Professor Asa Gray in 1857, to be read, together with Mr. Wallace's contribution, before the Linnean Society, and to be printed in the Society's Journal. He now set to work upon that epitome of his observations and deductions which appeared in November 1859, as the immortal Origin of Species. Those who are old enough to remember the publication of this work, cannot but marvel at the change which, since that day, not yet thirty years ago, has come alike upon the non-scientific and the scientific part of the community in their estimation of it. Professor Huxley has furnished to the Biography a graphic chapter on the reception of the book, and in his vigorous and witty style recalls the furious and fatuous objections that were urged against it. A much longer chapter will be required to describe the change which the advent of the Origin of Species has wrought in every department of science, and not of science only, but of philosophy. The principle of evolution, so early broached and so long discredited, has now at last been proclaimed and accepted as the guiding idea in the investigation of Nature. One of the most marvellous aspects of Darwin's work was the way in which he seemed always to throw a new light upon every department of inquiry into which the course of his researches led him to look. The specialists who, in their own narrow domains, had been toiling for years, patiently gathering facts and timidly drawing inferences from them, were astonished to find that one who, to their eyes, was a kind of outsider, could point out to them the plain meaning of things which, though entirely familiar to them, they had never adequately understood. The central idea of the Origin of Species is an example of this in the biological sciences. The chapter
- 30. on the imperfection of the geological record is another in the domain of geology. After the publication of the Origin, Darwin gave to the world during a succession of years a series of volumes, in which some of his observations and conclusions were worked out in fuller detail. His books on the fertilisation of orchids, on the movements and habits of climbing plants, on the variation of animals and plants under domestication, on the effects of cross and self-fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, on the different forms of flowers in plants of the same species, were mainly based on his own quiet work in the greenhouse and garden at Down. His volumes on the descent of man, and on the expression of the emotions in man and animals, completed his contributions to the biological argument. His last volume, published the year before his death, treated of the formation of vegetable mould, and the habits of earth-worms, and the preparation of it enabled him to renew some of the observations which had interested him in his younger days, and to revive some of the geological enthusiasm which so marked the earlier years of his life. Such, in briefest outline, was the work accomplished by Charles Darwin. The admirable biography prepared by his son enables us to follow its progress from the beginning to the close. But higher even than the intellect which achieved the work was the moral character which shone through it all. As far as it is possible for words to convey what Darwin was to those who did not personally know him, this has been done in the Life. His son has written a touching chapter, entitled, 'Reminiscences of my Father's Everyday Life,' in which the man as he lived and worked is vividly pictured. From that sketch, and from Darwin's own letters, the reader may conceive how noble was the character of the great naturalist. His industry and patience, in spite of the daily physical suffering that marked the last forty years of his life; his utter unselfishness and tender consideration for others; his lifelong modesty that led him to see the worst of his own work and the best of that of other men; his
- 31. scrupulous honour and unbending veracity; his intense desire to be accurate even in the smallest particulars, and the trouble he took to secure such accuracy; his sympathy with the struggles of younger men, and his readiness to help them; his eagerness for the establishment of truth by whomsoever discovered; his interest up to the very last in the advancement of science; his playful humour; his unfailing courtesy and gratitude for even the smallest acts of kindness—these elements of a lofty moral nature stand out conspicuously in the Biography. No one can rise from the perusal of these volumes without the conviction that, by making known to the world at large what Darwin was as a man, as well as a great original investigator, they place him on a still loftier pinnacle of greatness than that to which the voice of his contemporaries had already raised him. FOOTNOTE: [98] Contemporary Review, Dec., 1887.
- 32. VIII Hugh Miller: His Work and Influence[99] Among the picturesque figures that walked the streets of Edinburgh in the middle of last century, one that often caught the notice of the passer-by was that of a man of good height and broad shoulders, clad in a suit of rough tweed, with a shepherd's plaid across his chest and a stout stick in his hand. His shock of sandy-coloured hair escaped from under a soft felt-hat; his blue eyes, either fixed on the ground or gazing dreamily ahead, seemed to take no heed of their surroundings. His rugged features wore an expression of earnest gravity, softening sometimes into a smile and often suffused with a look of wistful sadness, while the firmly compressed lips betokened strength and determination of character. The springy elastic step with which he moved swiftly along the crowded pavement was that of the mountaineer rather than of the native of a populous city. A stranger would pause to look after him and to wonder what manner of man this could be. If such a visitor ventured to question one of the passing townsmen, he would be told promptly and with no little pride 'That is Hugh Miller.' No further description or explanation would be deemed necessary, for the name had not only grown to be a household word in Edinburgh and over the whole of Scotland, but had now become familiar wherever the English language was spoken, even to the furthest western wilds of Canada and the United States. A hundred years have passed since this notable man was born, and nearly half that interval has elapsed since he was laid in the grave. The hand of time, that resistlessly winnows the wheat from the chaff of human achievement, has been quietly shaping what will remain as the permanent sum of his work and influence. The temporary and transitory events in his career have already, in large measure,
- 33. receded into the background. The minor contests in which, from his official position, he was so often forced to engage are mostly forgotten; the greater battles that he fought and won are remembered rather for their broad and brilliant results than for the crowded incidents that gave them such vivid interest at the time. His contemporaries who still survive him—every year a sadly diminishing number—can look back across the half century and mark how the active and strenuous nature whose memory they so fondly cherish, now 'Orbs into the perfect star We saw not when we moved therein.' A juster estimate can doubtless be formed to-day of what we owe to him than was possible in his life-time. That the debt is great admits of no dispute, and that it is acknowledged to be due could hardly be more fittingly shown than by the wide-spread desire which has brought us here to-day from so many distant places in order to raise in the town of his birth, which he has made a place of pilgrimage to many a lover of English literature, a visible memorial of him in an institution of which he would himself have heartily approved. In order adequately to realise the nature and extent of the work achieved by Hugh Miller during his too brief career, we should clearly picture to ourselves the peculiar conditions in which he grew up. Happily he has himself, in one of the most charming pieces of autobiography in the language, told the story of his youth and early manhood. Descended from both a Highland and a Lowland ancestry, he combined in his nature the vivid imagination and poetic impulse of the Celt with the more staid and logical temperament of the Teuton. He was born amidst an English-speaking community, but at a distance of only a few miles from the fringe of the mountainous region within which men use the Gaelic tongue. He knew some survivors of Culloden, and had heard his own grandfather tell how, when a stripling, he watched, from the hills above Cromarty, the
- 34. smoke wreaths of the battle as they drifted along the ridge on the further side of the Moray Firth. From infancy he was personally familiar with the people of the hills and their traditions, as well as with the ways of the hardy fisher-folk and farmers of the plains. The hereditary predispositions of his mind were in this way fostered by contact with the two races from which they sprang. Happy in the possession of this racial blending, he was still more fortunate in the place of his birth. He used to remark with satisfaction that both Sir Roderick Murchison and he had been born on the Old Red Sandstone of the Black Isle; but while the career of the author of the Silurian System owed practically nothing to his birth-place, which he left while still an infant, Miller's life from beginning to end bore the impress of the surroundings amid which he was born and educated. It would hardly be possible to choose in this country a place of which the varied features are more admirably fitted to stimulate the observing faculties, to foster a love of nature, and to appeal to the poetic imagination than the winding shores, the scarped cliffs, the tangled woods, the wild boulder-strewn moors and distant sweep of blue mountains around Cromarty. And how often and lovingly are these scenes portrayed by him under every varying phase of weather and season! They had stamped themselves into his very soul and had become an integral part of his being. 'The sounding cataract Haunted him like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms were then to him An appetite, a feeling, and a love.' But while Nature was his first and best teacher, he has told us in grateful words how much he owed to two uncles—hard-working, sagacious, and observant men, by whom his young eyes were trained to discriminate flower and tree, bird and insect, together with the teeming organisms of the shore, and whose high moral
- 35. worth he, even as a boy, could appreciate. Having learnt to read while still of tender years, he developed an insatiable thirst for books. What he acquired in this way for himself seems to have been at least as useful as the training gained during the rather desultory years spent by him at the town grammar-school. He was an intelligent but wayward boy, as much ahead of his schoolmates in general information as in all madcap adventures among the crags and woods. When the time arrived at which he had to choose his calling in life, he selected an occupation that would still enable him to spend his days in the open air and gratify his overmastering propensity for natural history pursuits. Much to the chagrin of his family he determined to be a stone-mason, and at the age of 17 was apprenticed to that trade. For some fifteen years he continued to work in quarries and in the erection of buildings in various districts of the north country, and even extended his experience for a short time into Midlothian. Deeply interesting and instructive is the record he has left of these years of mechanical toil. But amidst all the hardships and temptations of the life, the purity and strength of his character bore him nobly through. His keen love of nature and his intense enjoyment of books were a never-failing solace. He continued to gain access to, and even by degrees to possess, a considerable body of the best literature in our language, reading some of his favourite authors over twice in a year. He thus laid up a store of information and allusion which his retentive memory enabled him eventually to turn to excellent advantage. While still at school he had gained some notice for the verses which he wrote. In the intervals of his subsequent labours with mallet and chisel, he continued to amuse himself in giving metrical expression to his feelings and reflections, grave or gay. Conscious of his power, though hardly yet aware in what direction it could best be used, he resolved to collect and publish his verses. At the age of seven-and- twenty he accordingly gave to the world a little volume with the title Poems written in the leisure hours of a Journeyman Mason. Not without some misgiving, however, did he make this first literary venture. Even before the voices of the 'chorus of indolent reviewers'
- 36. could travel up from the south country, with their sententious judgments of the merits and defects of this new peasant-poet, he set himself to prepare some contributions in prose which might perchance afford a better measure of his quality. Some years before that time he had been out all night with the herring fleet, and he now sent to the Inverness Courier some letters descriptive of what he had then seen. These made so favourable an impression that they were soon afterwards reprinted separately. They marked the advent of a writer gifted with no ordinary powers of narration and with the command of a pure, nervous, and masculine style. The reception which these letters met with from men in whose judgment and taste he had confidence formed a turning point in his career. He now realised that his true strength lay not in the writing of verses, but in descriptive prose. Some years, however, still passed before he found the class of subjects on which his pen could most effectively be exercised. In the meantime he began to record the legends and traditions of his native district. Most of these had been familiar to him from childhood, when he heard them from the lips of old grey- headed men and women, but they were dying out of remembrance as the older generations passed away. Part of his leisure for several years was given to this pleasant task, until there grew up under his hand a bulky volume of manuscript. This time he was in no hurry to publish; the book did not make its appearance until 1835, as his charming Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland. In this work some of the most striking passages were to be found, not so much in the tales themselves which were narrated, as in the local colouring and graphic setting that were given to them. The writer displayed a singularly vivid power in the delineation of scenery, and his allusions to the geology of the district, then almost wholly unknown, attracted attention, since they showed that besides his keen eye for the picturesque above ground, he knew something of the marvels that lay beneath. He was feeling his way to what ultimately became his most cherished and most useful task. He had realised that his main object should be to know what was not generally known, 'to stand as an interpreter between nature and the public,' and to perform the service of narrating as pleasingly as he
- 37. could, the facts which he culled in walks not previously trodden, and of describing, as graphically as might be, the inferences which he drew from them. Ever after his first day's experience as an apprenticed mason in a stone-quarry, of which he has left more than one impressive account, he was led to interest himself in the diversified characters of the rocks of the district. Even as a boy he had been familiar with the more obvious varieties of stone to be met with in a tract of country wherein the sedimentary formations of the Lowlands and the crystalline masses of the Highlands have been thrown side by side. But he had been attracted to them rather on account of their singular shapes or brilliant colours, than from any regard to what might have been their different modes of origin. Now, however, he had discovered that these rocks are really monuments, wherein are recorded portions of the past history of the earth, and he was full of hope that by patient study he might yet be able to decipher them. The supply of elementary treatises and text-books of science, in the present day so abundant, had hardly at that time begun to come into existence. Geology, indeed, had but recently attained a recognised position as a distinct branch of science. And even had the young stone-mason been able to possess himself of the whole of the scanty geological literature of the time, it included no book that would have solved for him the problems that daily confronted him as he pursued his labours in the quarry, or rambled in leisure hours along the shore. The best treatise which could have fallen into his hands and which would have been full of enlightenment and suggestion for him—Playfair's immortal Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory—had appeared seventeen years before; but we have no evidence that it came in his way. He had laboriously to work out his problems for himself. Innumerable as are the subjects for geological enquiry offered by the district of Cromarty, it was fortunate for Hugh Miller, and not less so for the cause of science, that chance placed him face to face in the most practical way with the Old Red Sandstone, and that he
- 38. was, as it were, compelled to attempt to understand its history. While the lessons taught by the strata of the quarry had greatly impressed him, the abundant and well-preserved fossils among the Lias shales of the Eathie shore, which at spare moments he visited, had deepened that impression. It was while endeavouring to find these shales nearer home, on the western side of the Southern Sutor, that he stumbled upon the clays which contain the fish- bearing nodules of the Old Red Sandstone. This happy discovery, which was made in the autumn of 1830, the year after the publication of his Poems, marks an eventful epoch in his life, as well as an important date in the history of geological investigation. At that time comparatively little was known of the Old Red Sandstone. Its very existence as a distinct geological system was disputed on the Continent, where no equivalent for it had been recognised. It was alleged to be a mere local and accidental accumulation, which could hardly be considered as of much historical importance, seeing that no representative of it had been found beyond the British Islands. Yet within the limits of these islands it was certainly known to bulk in no inconsiderable dimensions, covering many hundreds of square miles, and attaining a thickness of more than 10,000 feet. It had been clearly shown by William Smith, the Father of English Geology, to occupy a definite position beneath the Mountain Limestone, and above the ancient 'greywacke' which lay at the base of all the sedimentary series, and he had indicated its range over England and Wales on his map published as far back as 1815. In Scotland, too, its existence and importance as a mere mass of rock in the general framework of the country had long been recognised. Ami Boué had published in 1820 an excellent account of its igneous rocks, but without any allusion to the organic wonders for which it was yet to become famous. The extraordinary abundance of its fossil fishes, where it spreads over Caithness, had been made known to the world by Murchison in 1826, and in more detail the following year when Sedgwick and he read their conjoint paper on the conglomerates and other formations of the north of Scotland. But it may be doubted if any of these publications had
- 39. found their way to Cromarty when Miller was gathering his first harvest of ichthyolites in the little bay within half-a-mile of the town. He had passed over that beach many hundreds of times in his boyhood without a suspicion of the treasures wrapped up in the grey concretions that lay tossing in the tideway. On breaking these stones, hoping to meet with a repetition of the Liassic organisms with which he had grown familiar at Eathie, he found a group of forms wholly different. At each interval of leisure he would repair to the spot, and, digging out the nodules from their matrix of clay, would patiently split them open and arrange them along the higher part of the beach, according to what seemed to be the natural affinities of the fossils enclosed within them. Scouring the parish for fresh exposures of the nodule-bearing clay, he was soon rewarded by the discovery of some six or eight additional deposits charged with the same remains. There was a strange fascination in this pursuit. He had, as it were, discovered a new world. No human eye had ever before beheld these strange types of creation. Though he was well acquainted with the marine life of the adjacent sea, he had never seen any creature that in the least resembled them, or served to throw light on their structure. With no chart or landmark to guide him into this new domain of nature, he continued for years quietly to collect and compare. The first imperfect knowledge which he was able to acquire regarding the few modern representatives of the creatures disinterred by him at Cromarty was derived in 1836 from a perusal of the well-known memoir by Hibbert on the limestone of Burdiehouse. Next year, however, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Malcolmson, who eventually carried some of his specimens to London and the Continent, and was the means of bringing him into correspondence with Murchison and Agassiz. Hugh Miller was thus at last placed in direct communication with the world of science and into relation with the men who were most thoroughly versed in the subjects that had so long engrossed his thoughts, and most capable of helping him to clear away the difficulties that beset his progress.
- 40. Meanwhile an important change had taken place in his condition of life. During the year 1834, after having worked for fifteen years in his calling of stone-mason, he was offered the accountantship of the Commercial Bank agency to be opened at Cromarty. This offer, which came to him unasked and unexpected, was a gratifying mark of the esteem and confidence with which his character was regarded. He accepted it, not without some diffidence as to his competence for the duties required. It would, however, retain him in his native town, enable him to marry the accomplished girl to whom he had for years been attached, and afford him opportunity to prosecute the researches in the Old Red Sandstone of which he had now come to realise the importance. It likewise provided him with leisure to prepare contributions to different periodicals, which, though of no great consequence to his reputation, were of service in adding to an income narrow enough for the support of a wife and family. These writings had this further advantage, that they gave him a readier command of the pen, and accustomed him to deal with lighter as well as graver subjects of discussion, thus furnishing a useful training for what was ultimately to be the main business of his later life. At this time ecclesiastical questions occupied public attention in Scotland to the exclusion of almost everything else. The Church was entering on that stormy period which culminated in the great Disruption of 1843. Hugh Miller, who was at once an earnest Christian and a devoted son of the Church, watched the march of events with the deepest sympathy. As a thoroughly 'Establishment man' he had taken but slender interest in the previous Voluntary controversy, but the larger and more vital conflict now in progress filled him with concern. It was his firm conviction that the country contained 'no other institution half so valuable as the Church, or in which the people had so large a stake.' The anxiety with which the situation impressed him affected his sleep, and he would ask himself, 'Can I do nothing for my Church in her hour of peril?' The answer which he found was to write his famous Letter from one of the Scotch people to Lord Brougham. This pamphlet was soon after
- 41. followed by another entitled, The Whiggism of the Old School, as exemplified in the past history and present position of the Church of Scotland. These writings, so cogent in argument and so vigorous in style, had a wide circulation, and undoubtedly exercised much influence on the progress of the ecclesiastical controversy throughout the country. The leaders of the non-intrusion party, with whose cause he showed such keen and helpful sympathy, soon after the appearance of the first pamphlet invited Miller to confer with them in Edinburgh, and offered him the editorship of their projected newspaper, the Witness. With some misgiving as to his competence to meet all the various demands of a journal that was to appear twice a week, he accepted the proposal. Thus, after his five years' experience as a bank-accountant, he became at the beginning of 1840, when he was thirty-seven years of age, the editor of an important newspaper, and he retained that position until his death. Up to this time the name of Hugh Miller was but little known beyond his native district. His political pamphlets first gave it a wide reputation, and thenceforth his conduct of a journal that represented the interests of one of the great parties into which his country was divided kept him constantly before the eyes of the public. The Witness rapidly attained a large circulation. It appealed not merely to the churchmen whose views it advocated, but to a wide class of readers, who, apart from ecclesiastical polemics, could appreciate its high tone, its sturdy independence, its honesty and candour, and the unusual literary excellence of its leading articles. It not only upheld but raised the standard of journalism in Scotland. As a great moral force it exercised a healthy influence on the community. There cannot be any doubt that the powerful advocacy of the Witness was one of the main agencies in sustaining the energies of the non- intrusion party and in consolidating the position of the young Free Church. It is my own deep conviction that the debt which that Church owes to Hugh Miller has never yet been adequately acknowledged.
- 42. Before he had been many months in the editorial chair he began to publish in the columns of his paper the first of that brilliant succession of geological articles which attracted the attention of men of science, as well as of the general public, and which continued to be a characteristic feature of the Witness up to the end of his life. The first articles, describing his discoveries in the Old Red Sandstone of Cromarty, created not a little sensation among the geologists who had gathered in the year 1840 at the memorable meeting of the British Association in Glasgow. It was there that Agassiz, who had come fresh from the study of Swiss glaciers to the Scottish Highlands, announced that he had found clear evidence that the mountains of this country had once also nourished their glaciers and snow-fields. It was then, too, that the same illustrious naturalist gave the first account of the fossils found by Hugh Miller at Cromarty, one of which he named after its discoverer. In that gathering of eminent men, Murchison declared that the articles which had been appearing in the Witness were 'written in a style so beautiful and poetical as to throw plain geologists like himself into the shade.' Buckland, famous for his own eloquent pages in the Bridgewater Treatise, expressed his unbounded astonishment and admiration, affirming that 'he would give his left hand to possess such powers of description.' The articles were next year collected and expanded into his Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field—the first and, in some respects, the freshest and most delightful of all his scientific volumes. In subsequent years there appeared in the same columns his Cruise of the Betsy—a series of papers written among the Western Isles, and full of the poetry and geological charm of that marvellous region; his Rambles of a Geologist, in which he included the results of his wanderings over Scotland between 1840 and 1848, and other essays, the more important of which were collected with pious care by his widow, and published in a succession of volumes after his death. His First Impressions of England and its People appeared in 1846, and greatly increased the reputation of its writer as an observant traveller, an able critic, and an accomplished writer,
- 43. possessing a wide and sympathetic acquaintance with English literature. The Footprints of the Creator, which followed in 1847, was of a less popular character. Its detailed account of the structure of some of the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone is, however, of lasting value, though its controversy with the Vestiges of Creation has now little more than an historical interest. The Schools and Schoolmasters, after running as usual through the pages of the newspaper, was issued as a separate volume in 1852, and was everywhere hailed as one of the most delightful and instructive of all his works. The Testimony of the Rocks, with the final proofs of which he was engaged on the last day of his life, was issued a few months after he had been laid to rest beside his friend Chalmers. Altogether of his collected writings, including those that appeared in his lifetime, a series of twelve volumes has been published, but many hundreds of articles of less permanent interest, yet each marked by the distinctive charm of its writer, remain buried in the files of the Witness. If, from his writings alone, we judge of the extent and value of the work achieved by Hugh Miller, we can have little hesitation in believing that it is mainly his contributions to the literature of science that will hand his name down to future generations. Like so many other men who have attained distinction in the same field, he from the beginning to the end made geology his recreation, in the midst of other paramount pre-occupations. It furnished him with solace from the toils of the quarry and the building yard, it supplied him with a healthful relief from the labours of the bank, and when in later years he escaped each autumn for a few weeks of much needed leisure from the cares and responsibilities of the Editor's desk, it led him to ramble at will all over his native country, and brought him into acquaintance with every type of its rocks and its landscapes. Unquestionably the most original part of his scientific work, that wherein he added most to the sum of acquired knowledge, is to be found in his reconstruction of the extinct types of fishes which he
- 44. discovered in the Old Red Sandstone. The merit of these labours can hardly be properly appreciated unless it be borne in mind that he came to the study of the subject with no preliminary biological training, save what he could pick up for himself from an examination of such denizens of the waters of the neighbouring firths as he could meet with. But after prolonged search he could find in these northern seas no living creatures, the structure of which afforded him any clue to that of the fossil fishes of Cromarty. Some men had concluded that the organisms were ancient turtles, others that they were crustaceans, or even aquatic beetles. He had the sagacity, however, to surmise that they were probably all fishes, and he enjoyed the satisfaction afterwards of learning that Agassiz pronounced even the most bizarre amongst them to belong to that great division of the animal kingdom. He was guided by his own intuitive conception of what must have been the plan on which these long vanished types of organic structure had been fashioned. Huxley, who twenty years afterwards had occasion to subject the Old Red Sandstone fishes to critical study, and who brought to the inquiry all the resources of modern biology, has left on record the impression made on his mind by a minute revision of Hugh Miller's work. 'The more I study the fishes of the "Old Red,"' he remarks, 'the more am I struck with the patience and sagacity manifested in Hugh Miller's researches, and by the natural insight which in his case seems to have supplied the place of special anatomical knowledge.' He refers to the 'excellent restoration of Osteolepis,' in which even some of the minute peculiarities had not escaped notice, and he declares that Hugh Miller had made known almost the whole organisation of Dipterus, and had thus anticipated the most important part of Professor Pander's labours in the same field, the distinguished Russian palæontologist not having been aware that the work had already been done in Scotland. But it is not, in my opinion, by the extent or value of his original contributions to geology that the importance of Hugh Miller's scientific labours and writings should be measured. Other men, who have left no conspicuous mark on their time, have surpassed him in
- 45. these respects. What we more especially owe to him is the awakening of a wide-spread interest in the methods and results of scientific inquiry. More than any other author of his day, he taught men to recognise that beneath the technicalities and jargon of the schools, that are too apt to conceal the meaning of the facts and inferences which they express, there lie the most vital truths in regard to the world in which we live. He clothed the dry bones of science with living flesh and blood. He made the aspects of past ages to stand out picturesquely before us, as his vivid imagination conceived that they must once have been. He awakened an enthusiasm for geological questions, such as had never before existed, and this wave of popular appreciation which he set in motion has never since ceased to pulsate throughout the English- speaking peoples of the world. His genial ardour and irresistible eloquence swept away the last remnants of the barrier of orthodox prejudice against geology in this country. The present generation can hardly realise the former strength of that bigotry, or appreciate the merit of the service rendered in the breaking of it down. The well-known satirical criticism of the poet Cowper[100] expressed a prevalent feeling among the orthodox of his day, and this feeling was still far from extinct when Miller began to write. I can recall manifestations of it even within my own experience. No one, however, could doubt his absolute orthodoxy, and when the cause of the science was so vigorously espoused by him, the voices of the objectors were finally silenced. There was another class of cavillers who looked on geology as a mere collecting of minerals, a kind of laborious trifling concealed under a cover of uncouth technical terms. Their view was well expressed by Wordsworth when he singled out for contemptuous scorn the enthusiast who carried a pocket hammer with which he chipped off splinters of the rocks, and left raw scars as marks of his progress.[101] But a champion had now arisen who, as far as might be, discarding technicalities, made even the dullest reader feel that the geologist is the historian of the earth, that he deals with a series of chronicles as real and as decipherable as those that record human events, and
- 46. that they can be made not only intelligible but attractive, as the subjects of simple and eloquent prose. The absence of technical detail, which makes one of the charms of Hugh Miller's books to the non-scientific reader, may be regarded as a defect by the strict and formal geologist. Like every other branch of natural science, geology rests on a basis of observation, which frequently depends for its value upon the minuteness and accuracy of its details. To collect these details is often a laborious task, which is seldom undertaken save by those to whose department of the science they specially belong. A palæontologist cannot be expected to devote his time to the study of the microscopic characters of minerals and rocks. He leaves that research to the petrographer, who, on the other hand, will not readily embark on an investigation of the minute anatomy of fossil plants or animals. This specialisation, which has always to some extent existed, necessarily becomes more pronounced as science advances. The days are far past for Admirable Crichtons, and it is no longer possible for any one man to be equally versed in every branch of even a single department of natural knowledge. Hugh Miller's researches among the Old Red Sandstone fishes showed him to be above all a naturalist and palæontologist, capable of expending any needful amount of patient labour in working out the minutest details of organic structure. In other fields of geological inquiry, while he was far from undervaluing the importance of detail, he avoided the recapitulation of it in his writings. It interested him, indeed, only in so far as it enabled him to reach some broad conclusion or to fill in the canvas of some striking picture of bygone aspects of the earth's surface. Hence he did not apply himself to the minute investigation of problems of geological structure, and when he undertook any inquiry in that direction he was apt to start rather from the palæontological than the physical side. Thus the work of his last years along the shores of the Firth of Forth, wherein he sought to accumulate proofs of the comparatively recent upheaval of the land, was mainly based on the position of shells with reference
- 47. to their present habitat in the adjacent seas. As a youth enthusiastically geological, I was privileged to enjoy his friendship, sometimes accompanying him on an excursion, and always spending an evening with him after one of his autumn journeys, that we might exchange the results of our several peregrinations. Only a few weeks before his death, on the last of those memorable evenings, he had his trophy of shells spread on the table, which enabled him to prove that at no very distant date Scotland was cut in two by a sea-strait that connected the Firths of Forth and Clyde. He had found marine shells at Bucklyvie, on the flat ground about midway between the two estuaries. Finding me not quite clear as to the precise geographical position of his shell-bed, he burst out triumphantly with the lines placed by Scott at the head of the chapter in Rob Roy, which tells of the journey of Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Osbaldistone into the Highlands:
- 48. 'Baron of Bucklyvie May the foul fiend drive ye, And a' to pieces rive ye, For building sic a toun, Where there's neither horse meat, nor man's meat, nor a chair to sit doun.' I remember, too, that on that occasion I had brought with me the detailed map of Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, of which I had just completed the geological survey, and I explained to him in some detail what I had found to be the structure of the hill. Having grasped the main succession of the rocks, he with characteristic rapidity passed from the particulars which I had given him to the events of which they were the record, and turning to his daughter, who was sitting near, he exclaimed to her, 'There, Harriet, is material for such an essay as has been prescribed to you at school.' Then in a few graphic sentences he drew a picture of what seemed to him to have been the history of the old volcano. While various causes no doubt contributed in this country to the remarkable and rapid increase in the general appreciation of the interest of geological investigation, I feel assured that one of the chief of them has been Hugh Miller's imaginative grasp of the subject, and his eloquent advocacy. The personal experience of a single individual can count for little in an estimate of this kind; but for what it may be worth, I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to state mine. It was Hugh Miller's Old Red Sandstone that first revealed to me the ancient history that might lie concealed in the hills around me, and the meanings that might be hidden in the commonest stones beneath my feet. I had been interested in such objects, as boys are apt to be who spend much of their time in the open country. But it was that book which set me on the path of intelligent inquiry. And this experience must doubtless have been shared by many thousands of his readers, who never saw his living face and who never became geologists.
- 49. I have alluded to the excellence of his literary style—a characteristic which unfortunately is only too rare among writers in science. There can be little doubt that this feature of his work will constitute one of its claims to perpetual recognition. His early and wide acquaintance with our literature enabled him to intersperse through his pages many an apposite quotation and felicitous allusion. He had set before himself as models the best prose writers of the previous century, and the influence of Goldsmith upon him is especially notable. He thus acquired the command of pure, idiomatic and forcible language, wherein to clothe the arguments which he wished to enforce, to describe the landscapes which had imprinted themselves like photographs on his memory, and to present restorations of ancient lands and seas which his poetic temperament and powerful imagination called up before his eyes. Moreover, he had a keen sense of humour, which would show itself from time to time, even in the midst of a scientific discussion. He could not bear dulness in others, and strove to avoid it himself. Where his subject might have been apt to grow wearisome, he contrived to lighten it with unexpected flashes of pleasantry or with some pertinent words from a favourite author. This felicitous style seemed so spontaneous, and yet it was in reality the result of the most scrupulous attention. Even in his newspaper articles on the multifarious topics of the passing day, he continued to maintain the same high standard of composition. He has left as his literary monument a series of works that may serve as models of English writing. In estimating a man's influence on the world we look not only at his work but on his character, often the more important and valuable of the two. Judged from this side, Hugh Miller's claims to our regard and admiration are not less strong for what he was than for what he did. Pious and pure-minded, full of generous sympathies, and alive to all that was noblest and best in human life, he was endowed with a manly independence of nature which kept his head erect in every changing phase of his career, and won for him the respect of all, gentle and simple, who came in contact with him. Though naturally robust, his occupation as a mason had left behind some seeds of
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