In the year 1845 the old _Mathematical Society_ was merged in the Astronomical Society. The circle-squarers, etc., thrive more in England than in any other country: there are most weeds where there is the largest crop. Speculation, though not encouraged by our Government so much as by those of the Continent, has had, not indeed such forcing, but much wider diffusion: few tanks, but many rivulets. On this point I quote from the preface to the reprint of the work of Ramchundra,[765] which I superintended for the late Court of Directors of the East India Company.
{375}
"That sound judgment which gives men well to know what is best for them, as well as that faculty of invention which leads to development of resources and to the increase of wealth and comfort, are both materially advanced, perhaps cannot rapidly be advanced without, a great taste for pure speculation among the general mass of the people, down to the lowest of those who can read and write. England is a marked example. Many persons will be surprised at this assertion. They imagine that our country is the great instance of the refusal of all _unpractical_ knowledge in favor of what is _useful_. I affirm, on the contrary, that there is no country in Europe in which there has been so wide a diffusion of speculation, theory, or what other unpractical word the reader pleases. In our country, the scientific _society_ is always formed and maintained by the people; in every other, the scientific _academy_--most aptly named--has been the creation of the government, of which it has never ceased to be the nursling. In all the parts of England in which manufacturing pursuits have given the artisan some command of time, the cultivation of mathematics and other speculative studies has been, as is well known, a very frequent occupation. In no other country has the weaver at his loom bent over the _Principia_ of Newton; in no other country has the man of weekly wages maintained his own scientific periodical. With us, since the beginning of the last century, scores upon scores--perhaps hundreds, for I am far from knowing all--of annuals have run, some their ten years, some their half-century, some their century and a half, containing questions to be answered, from which many of our examiners in the universities have culled materials for the academical contests. And these questions have always been answered, and in cases without number by the lower order of purchasers, the mechanics, the weavers, and the printers' workmen. I cannot here digress to point out the manner in which the concentration of manufactures, and the general diffusion of education, have affected the {376} state of things; I speak of the time during which the present system took its rise, and of the circumstances under which many of its most effective promoters were trained. In all this there is nothing which stands out, like the state-nourished academy, with its few great names and brilliant single achievements. This country has differed from all others in the wide diffusion of the disposition to speculate, which disposition has found its place among the ordinary habits of life, moderate in its action, healthy in its amount."
