| <Saturday Review 19 Jan 1856: Lewes> 
| <Catchpenny Science>
| The public thirsts for scientific knowledge, but our men of 
| science are silent, or write only for their brethren; and the 
| consequence is, that where men who are wise <p> “fear to 
| tread,” </p> men who are <hi> otherwise </hi> rush in with 
| great alacrity. Catchpenny trash supplies a void which 
| popular science might so honourably fill. In Germany, 
| some of the most eminent men have of late years written 
| what all can read; and in France, although popular 
| scientific works are rare, eminent men have undertaken the 
| task. But in England, this is seldom the case; although 
| when a really good book is written, the English public 
| knows how to appreciate it ~~ as witness Arnott’s <hi> 
| Elements of Physics, </hi> still without a rival.
| Nor does the evil rest here. A wretched compilation, made 
| by one who never performed an experiment, and does not 
| even know the experiments of others, is lauded by the 
| Press, is puffed, advertised, and sold to people who cannot 
| detect the rubbish they have bought. Men of science do not 
| read these books, and consequently <reg orig=“no one”> 
| no-one </reg> can warn the misguided purchaser; for the 
| critics who laud them are, naturally enough, even more 
| ignorant than the men who write them. We intend to keep 
| an eye on offenders of this class, who call for literary police 
| more loudly than most others.
| The first illustration we have chosen is the <hi> Phasis of 
| Matter, </hi> by Dr. Lindley Kemp, which we should 
| certainly have left unnoticed had not the other journals 
| lauded it, one of them actually comparing it to Arnott’s <hi> 
| Physics. </hi> The very title is significant, for it is 
| catchpenny and blundering. Dr. Kemp calls his book the 
| Phasis of Matter, being so ignorant of the meaning of 
| “Phasis” that he imagines it to be synonymous with 
| changes. The <hi> Phasis of Matter </hi> means the <hi> 
| Appearance </hi> of Matter. Had he said Phases, there 
| would have been no inaccuracy. However, a man may be 
| ignorant of Greek, and yet be a good chemist. Let us, then, 
| look into Dr. Kemp’s volumes. It is not necessary to read 
| them, but we can dip here and there to ascertain the kind 
| of man with whom we have to deal. Our dipping has 
| caused us to alight on such a crop of blunders that we 
| have had no inclination to read many consecutive pages. 
| The blunders are not simply blunders of fact, or omissions 
| of carelessness, but blunders which imply want of 
| acquaintance with the elementary principles of the science, 
| and want of that thought and care in compilation which are 
| the compiler’s sole virtues. Our first dip was at page 48 of 
| vol. ii. If, in an edition of Cocker’s <hi> Arithmetic, </hi> a 
| chapter on the Differential Calculus had been introduced, a 
| greater mistake would not have been committed than when 
| Dr. Kemp introduces a section on Compound Radicals in a 
| work on chemistry intended <p> “for the general scholar 
| and men of the world.” </p> The theory of Radicals is only 
| interesting to the scientific chemist; but Dr. Kemp does not 
| know what a Radical is, and therefore he is unable to 
| decide whether the knowledge be serviceable to men of 
| the world or not. He finds a section on Radicals in the 
| books from which he compiles, and what he finds there he 
| thinks must be worth reprinting. The proof of our assertion 
| that he does not know what a Radical is, may be seen in 
| his description of it.<q> “Thus” </q> he says, <q> “there is 
| a substance, called ethyle, each atom of which consists of 
| four of carbon and five of hydrogen.” </q> Did Dr. Kemp 
| ever <hi> see </hi> this substance? did he ever smell it? or 
| weigh it? Has he ever seen <reg orig=“any one”> anyone 
| </reg> who has a <p> “bowing acquaintance” </p> with it? 
| He has not. There is not, so far as we know, any such 
| substance. its existence is as hypothetical as that of the 
| ether we assume for light, or as that of the inhabitants of 
| Mercury. Te whole doctrine of Radicals is found on 
| hypothetical existences. The only substance yet isolated in 
| what is supposed to be the radical from is cyanogen ~~ the 
| others are supposed to exist, because theory finds it 
| convenient that they should exist.
| On the same page, we find Dr. Kemp instructing his 
| readers that alcohol is the production of the decomposition 
| of sugar, and is one of the class of organic substances 
| which defy the power of man to reconstruct them 
| synthetically. If Dr. Kemp, in his desire to record the 
| “Discoveries of Modern Chemistry,” had taken the trouble 
| to read what the Moderns are doing, or had asked any 
| chemist to look over his proof sheets, he would have 
| learned that alcohol <hi> has </hi> been synthetically 
| reconstructed by M. Berthelot from bicarbonate of 
| hydrogen, concentrated sulphuric acid, and water.
| In his preface, Dr. Kemp says he is not a professed 
| chemist, but has <q> “only attended to chemistry in 
| common with physiology and other sciences;” </q> and this 
| impartiality of ignorance he considers <p> “a positive 
| advantage.” </p> We looked into the physiological sections 
| of his work, hoping to find him more at his ease there; but 
| our first dip was unfortunate, and our second still more so. 
| <q> </q> he is speaking of saccharine proximate principles 
| ~~ <q> </q> This exception, we afterwards learn, is sugar, 
| which <q> </q> Had he left the sentence thus, we might 
| have attributed it to carelessness; but he is careful in error, 
| and adds ~~ <q> </q> If he will ask the first student of 
| medicine he happens to meet, he will learn, 1st, that sugar 
| is <hi> always </hi> found in the normal condition of 
| animals; 2nd. that the sugar of diabetes is precisely this 
| same sugar, only it is in excess. Probably the same 
| student, if he be ordinarily instructed, will inform Dr. Kemp 
| that sugar is not the only exception in the class which he 
| says belongs exclusively to plants. <hi> Cellulose </hi> 
| has long been known as a constituent of some inferior 
| animals, i.e. in the cartilaginous envelope of the ascidians, 
| and in the mantle of the cynthias; and within the last two 
| years Vierhow has demonstrated its presence in the brain 
| and spinal cord of man. But these errors are nothing to 
| what we now open upon at p. 179: ~~ <q> </q>The 
| meaning of which is, that the secretions exist <hi> in </hi> 
| the blood, whereas they are formed in their special glands 
| out of materials furnished by the blood. Even if we give Dr. 
| Kemp the benefit of this explanation, and do not hold him 
| to the plain meaning of his words, his blundering is so 
| elementary that no explanation will remove it ~~ he actually 
| classes chyme, chyle, and blood, among the secretions! 
| That is to say, the food which is made a pulpy mass in the 
| stomach and the intestines, is classed with those 
| substances which are said to be separated from the blood 
| ~~ nay, the blood itself is thus separated from itself! 
| This blood, we are told elsewhere, is, <q> </q> Can he be 
| so ignorant as not to know that, so far from arterial blood 
| being distinguished from venous by the possession of 
| oxygen and the absence of carbonic acid, arterial blood 
| <hi> always </hi> has carbonic acid, and venous blood 
| <hi> always </hi> oxygen? But this is not all. The 
| experiments of Magnus show that arterial blood contains 
| <hi> absolutely more </hi> carbonic acid, though <hi> 
| relatively less, </hi> than venous blood. It is idle, however, 
| to talk of the experiments of Magnus to one whose 
| ignorance is rudimental.
| At p. 204, taking another dip, we learn <q> </q> ~~ a 
| sentence which betrays the entirely superficial nature of Dr. 
| Kemp’s knowledge on even elementary questions. We 
| presume he knows what a membrane is, and we ask him 
| <hi> what </hi> is the membrane from which all 
| animalcules, entozoa, polypes, acalephs, &c., are 
| produced? And what is the membrane from which plants 
| arise?
| At page 43, he favours us with a bit of philosophy, all the 
| more remarkable because it is ushered in with the remark 
| that <q> </q> The reader of course supposes Dr. Kemp’s 
| ideas to be exact, and this is the specimen he affords: ~~ 
| <q> </q>
| He has read this, or something like it, in various books, 
| wherein <p> “vital forces” </p> are said to <p> “control 
| chemical affinities;” </p> but if he understood the elements 
| of the matter, he would know what trash he has uttered in 
| his attempt to be exact. Does he suppose that the affinity 
| of phosphorus for oxygen dies and disappears in the 
| organism? Does he suppose that acids cease to have 
| affinities for bases, or that water is composed of other 
| gases than oxygen and hydrogen? The differences 
| noticeable between the organism and the laboratory arise 
| from the grater complexity of the conditions which surround 
| all the chemical phenomena of vitality, not from the 
| annihilation of chemical affinities. Then observe with what 
| charming off-hand superiority he disposes of the question 
| of albuminous crystals. <p>”Notwithstanding what has 
| been said,” </p> he denies that such crystals have been 
| found. Has he ever read <p> “what has been said” </p> on 
| this subject? Has he read anything on it> Does he even 
| know what are the substances in question, and where they 
| have been found?
| At page 244 we are told, with agreeable humility ~~ <q> 
| </q>
| It is a pity there has not been a corresponding change in 
| knowledge and belief; for if there had, the stationary 
| ignorance of ten years would not have been offered to the 
| public as the <hi> Phasis of Matter. </hi>