Woman in Science Part 17

Living in an age of prodigious mental activity, when women, as well as men, were actuated by an abiding love of knowledge for its own sake, there is nothing surprising in finding a woman like Arete commanding the admiration of her countrymen by her learning and eloquence. For was not the learned and eloquent Aspasia her contemporary? And did not Theano, the wife of Pythagoras, take charge of her husband's school after his death; and does not antiquity credit her with being not only a successful teacher of philosophy, but also a writer of books of recognized value? Such being the case, what is there incredible in the statements made by ancient writers regarding the literary activity of Arete, and about her eminence as a teacher of science and philosophy?

She was but one of many of the Greek women of her age that won renown by their gifts of intellect and by their contributions to the educational work of their time and country.

Better known than Arete, but probably not superior to her as a teacher or writer, was the ill.u.s.trious Hypatia of Alexandria. She, too, like her distinguished predecessor in Athens, was an instructor in natural philosophy, as well as other branches of science. Of her we know more than we do of the daughter of Aristippus, but even our knowledge of the acquisitions and achievements of Hypatia is, unfortunately, extremely meager. We do, however, know from the historian, Socrates, and from Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, who was her pupil, that she was one of the most richly dowered women of all time. Born and educated in Alexandria when its schools and scholars were the most celebrated in the world, she was even at an early age regarded as a marvel of learning.

For, not satisfied with excelling her father, Theon, in mathematics, of which he was a distinguished professor, she, as Suidas informs us, devoted herself to the study of philosophy with such success that she was soon regarded as the ablest living exponent of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. "Her knowledge," writes the historian, Socrates, "was so great that she far surpa.s.sed all the philosophers of her time.

And succeeding Plotinus, in the Platonic school which he had founded in the city of Alexandria, she taught all the branches of philosophy with such signal success that students flocked to her in crowds from all parts."[152] Her home, as well as her lecture room, was the resort of the most noted scholars of the day, and was, with the exception of the Library and the Museum, the most frequented intellectual center of the great city of learning and culture. Small wonder, then, that her contemporaries lauded her as an oracle and as the most brilliant luminary in Alexandria's splendid galaxy of thinkers and scholars--_sapientis artis sidus integerrimum_.

Among the many inventions attributed to Hypatia, besides the planisphere and astrolabe which she designed for the use of astronomers, are several employed in the study of natural philosophy. Probably the most useful of these is an areometer mentioned by her pupil Synesius. He calls it a hydroscope and describes it as having the form and size of a flute, and graduated in such wise that it can be used for determining the density of liquids. That Hypatia was thoroughly familiar with the science of natural philosophy, as then known, there can be no doubt. That she also contributed materially to its advancement, as well as to that of astronomy, in which she always exhibited a special interest, there is every reason to believe.[153]

After the death of Hypatia, the study of natural philosophy was almost entirely neglected for more than a thousand years. The first woman in modern times to attract attention by her discussion of physical problems was the famous Marquise du Chatelet, although she was better known as a mathematician and as the translator into the French of Newton's _Principia_. In her chateau at Cirey she had a well-equipped physical cabinet in which she took special delight. But in her time, as in that of Hypatia, natural philosophy was far from being the broad experimental science which it has become through the marvelous discoveries made in heat, light, electricity and magnetism during the last hundred years, as well as through those countless brilliant investigations which have led up to our present doctrine of the correlation and conservation of the various physical forces. There was then no occasion for those delicate instruments of precision which are now found in every physical laboratory by means of which the man of science is able to investigate phenomena and determine laws that were quite unknown until a few years ago.

In the time of Mme. du Chatelet, as during the century following, natural philosophy consisted rather in the mechanical and mathematical than in the physical study of nature. This is ill.u.s.trated by the t.i.tle of the great work on the translation of which she spent the best years of her life--Newton's immortal _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_.

The Marquise's first scientific work was an investigation regarding the nature of fire. The French Academy of Sciences had offered a prize for the best memoir on the subject. Among the contestants for the coveted honor were the chatelaine of Cirey and the celebrated Swiss mathematician, Leonard Euler. The Marquise was unsuccessful in the contest, but her paper was of such value that the eminent physicist and astronomer, Arago, was able to characterize it as an "elegant piece of work, embracing all the facts relating to the subject then known to science and containing among the experiments suggested one which proved so fecund in the hands of Herschel." In this remarkable _Memoire sur le Feu_, which is printed in the _Collections_ of the Academy, the Marquise antic.i.p.ates the results of subsequent researches of others by maintaining that both heat and light have the same cause, or, as we should now say, are both modes of motion.

The second book written by this remarkable woman is ent.i.tled _Inst.i.tutions de Physique_, and was dedicated to her son, for whose benefit it was primarily written. It deals specially with the philosophy of Leibnitz and discusses such questions as force, time and s.p.a.ce. Her views respecting the nature of the force called _vis viva_, which was much discussed in her time, are of particular interest, as they are not only opposed to those which were held by Descartes and Newton, but also because they are in essential accord with those now accepted in the world of science.

All things considered, the Marquise du Chatelet deservedly takes high rank in the history of mathematical physics. In this department of science she has had few, if any, superiors among her own s.e.x. And, when we recollect that she labored while the foundations of dynamics were still being laid, we shall more readily appreciate the difficulties she had to contend with and the distinct service which her researches and writings rendered to the cause of natural philosophy among her contemporaries.

The first woman to occupy a chair of physics in a university was the famous daughter of Italy, Laura Maria Catarina Ba.s.si. She was born in Bologna in 1711--but five years after the birth of Madame du Chatelet--and from her most tender years she exhibited an exceptional facility for the acquisition of knowledge.

After she had, through the a.s.sistance of excellent masters, become proficient in French and Latin, she took up the study of logic, metaphysics and natural philosophy. In all these branches of learning her progress was so rapid that it far exceeded the fondest expectations of her parents and teachers. Thanks to a wonderful memory and a highly developed reasoning faculty, she was able, while still a young maiden, to prove herself the possessor of knowledge that is ordinarily obtained only in the maturity of age and after long years of systematic study.

When she had attained the twenty-first year of her age she was induced by her family and friends--much against her own inclination, however--to take part in a public disputation on philosophy. Her entering the lists against some of the most distinguished scholars of the time was made the occasion for an unusual demonstration in her honor. The hall of the university in which such intellectual jousts were generally held was too small for the mult.i.tude that was eager to witness the young girl's formal appearance among the scholars and the notables of the old university city. It was, accordingly, arranged that the disputation should be held in the great hall of the public Palace of the Senators.

Among the vast a.s.semblage present at the disputation were Cardinal Grimaldi, the papal legate; Cardinal Archbishop Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV; the gonfalonier, senators, literati from far and near, leading members of the n.o.bility and representatives of all the religious orders.

When the argumentation began the young girl found herself pitted against five of the most distinguished scholars of Bologna. But she was fully equal to the occasion and pa.s.sed the ordeal to which she was subjected in a manner that excited the admiration and won the plaudits of all present. Cardinal Lambertini was so impressed with the brilliant defence which she had made against the five trained dialecticians and the evidence she gave of varied and profound learning that he paid her a special visit the next day in her own home to renew his congratulations on her signal triumph and to encourage her to continue the prosecution of her studies.

In less than a month after this interesting event Laura Ba.s.si, in response to the expressed desire of the whole of Bologna, presented herself as a candidate for the doctorate in philosophy. This was the occasion for a still more brilliant and imposing ceremony. It was held in the s.p.a.cious Hall of Hercules in the Communal Palace, which was magnificently decorated for the splendid function. In addition to the distinguished personages who had been spectators of the fair student's triumph a few weeks before, there was present in the vast audience the noted French ecclesiastic, Cardinal Polignac, who was on his way from Rome to France.

The heroine of the hour, dressed in a black gown, was ushered into the great hall, preceded by two college beadles and accompanied by two of the most prominent ladies of the Bolognese n.o.bility. She was given a seat between the chancellor and the prior of the university, who, in turn, were flanked by the professors and officials of the inst.i.tution.

After the usual preliminaries of the function were over the prior of the university, Doctor Bazzani, rose and p.r.o.nounced an eloquent discourse in Latin to which Laura made a suitable response in the same language. She was then crowned with a laurel wreath exquisitely wrought in silver, and had thrown round her the _vajo_, or university gown, both symbols of the doctorate. After this the young doctor proceeded to where the three cardinals were seated, and in delicately chosen words, also in Latin, expressed to them her thanks for the honor of their presence. All then withdrew to the apartments of the gonfalonier, where refreshments were served in sumptuous style, after which the young _Laureata_, accompanied by a numerous cortege and applauded by the entire city, was escorted to her home.

So profound was the impression made on the university senate by the deep erudition of Laura Ba.s.si that it was eager to secure her services in its teaching body. But, before she could be offered a chair in the inst.i.tution, long-established custom required that she should pa.s.s a public examination on the subject matter which she was to teach. Five examiners were chosen by lot, and all of them proved to be men whose names, says Fantuzzi, "will always be held by our university in glorious remembrance." They had all to promise under oath that the candidate for the chair should have no knowledge before the examination of the questions which were to be asked, and that the test of the aspirant's qualifications to fill the position sought should be absolutely free from any suspicion of favoritism or partiality.

Notwithstanding the difficulties she had to confront, Laura acquitted herself with even greater credit than on former occasions of a similar character. There was no question in the mind of any one present at the examination of the candidate's ability to fill the chair of physics, and it was, accordingly, offered to her by acclamation.

The first public lecture of the gifted young _dottoressa_ was made the occasion of a demonstration such as the old walls of the university had rarely witnessed. Her lecture room was thronged by the elite of the city, as well as by a large cla.s.s of enthusiastic students. All were charmed by her eloquence and amazed at the complete mastery she evinced of the subject she had selected for discussion. From that day forth her reputation as a scholar and a teacher was established, and her lectures were attended by appreciative students from all parts of Europe. She was especially popular with the students from Greece, Germany and Poland, and her popularity, far from waning, waxed greater with the pa.s.sing years.

At the time of Laura's entering upon her professional career the senate of Bologna had a medal coined in her honor, on the obverse of which was her name and effigy, while on the reverse there was an image of Minerva, with the inscription, _Soli cui fas vidisse Minervam_.

Far from interrupting her studies, which had hitherto been the joy of her life, Laura's university work gave new zest to the literary and scientific pursuits which had always such a fascination for her. Among the subjects that specially engaged her attention were studies so diverse as Greek and the higher mathematics. She was particularly interested in the great physico-mathematical work of Newton, and did not rest until she had thoroughly mastered the contents of his epoch-making _Principia_.

A few years after she had become a member of the university faculty Laura was a European celebrity, and no one eminent by learning or birth pa.s.sed through Bologna without availing himself of the opportunity of making the acquaintance of so extraordinary a woman. Men of science and letters vied with princes and emperors in doing honor to one who was looked upon by many as being, like Arete of old, endowed with a soul and a genius far above that of ordinary mortals, and as being the possessor of a talent that indicated something superhuman.

Laura Ba.s.si was in constant correspondence with the most celebrated scholars of Europe, and more especially with those who had attained eminence in her special line of work. Among the letters received from her ill.u.s.trious correspondents were two from Voltaire. They were written shortly after the author had been refused admittance into the French academy. He then bethought himself of securing membership in the Academy of Sciences of Bologna. This, he reasoned, would be a splendid tribute to the versatility of his genius and would, at the same time, be a biting satire on the demiG.o.ds of French literature who had dared to exclude him from their society.

That he might not meet the same refusal on the part of the Academy of Bologna as he had experienced in Paris, Voltaire determined not to rely entirely on the good will of the male members of the Bolognese academy.

He accordingly resolved to enlist the services of Laura Ba.s.si, who was one of the leading members of this distinguished body, and trust to her influence in his behalf on the hearts of her colleagues.

The first letter, written in Italian, is so characteristic of the writer that it will bear reproduction.

"Most Ill.u.s.trious Lady," he writes from Paris, the 23d of November, 1744, "I have been wishing to journey to Bologna in order to be able one day to tell my countrymen I have seen Signora Ba.s.si; but, being deprived of this honor, let it at least be permitted me to place at your feet this philosophic homage and to salute the honor of her age and of women.

There is not a Ba.s.si in London, and I should be more happy to be a member of the Academy of Bologna than of that of the English, although it has produced a Newton. If your protection should obtain for me this t.i.tle, of which I am so ambitious, the grat.i.tude of my heart will be equal to my admiration for yourself. I beg you to excuse the style of a foreigner who presumes to write you in Italian, but who is as great an admirer of yours as if he were born in Bologna."

The second letter of Voltaire is in response to one received from Laura Ba.s.si announcing that he had been elected to membership in the Bologna Academy. The first sentence of it suffices to indicate its tenor.

"Nothing," he writes, "was ever more grateful to me than to receive from your hand the first advice that I had the honor, by means of your favor, of being united by this new link to one who had already bound me to her car by all the chains of esteem and admiration."[154]

Like so many of her gifted sisters of sunny Italy, Laura was in every way "a perfect woman n.o.bly planned." Of a deeply religious nature, she was as pious as she was intelligent, and was throughout her life the devoted friend of the poor and the afflicted. The mother of twelve children, she never permitted her scientific and literary work to conflict with her domestic duties or to detract in the least from the singular affection which so closely united her to her husband and children. She was as much at home with the needle and the spindle as she was with her books and the apparatus of her laboratory. And she was equally admirable whether superintending her household, looking after her children, entertaining the great and the learned of the world, or in holding the rapt attention of her students in the lecture room. She was, indeed, a living proof that higher education is not incompatible with woman's natural avocations; and that cerebral development does not lead to race suicide and all the other dire results attributed to it by a certain cla.s.s of our modern sociologists and anti-feminists.

Considering her manifold duties as a professor in the university and the mother of a large family, it was scarcely to be expected that Laura Ba.s.si would have much time for writing for the press. She was, however, able to devote some of her leisure moments to the cultivation of the Muses, of whom, Fantuzzi informs us, she was a favorite. Her verses, as well as her contributions to the science of physics, are scattered through various publications, but they suffice to show that the accounts of her transmitted to us by her contemporaries were not exaggerated.[155]

A learned French traveler who visited Laura in Bologna describes her as having a face that was sweet, serious and modest. Her eyes were dark and sparkling, and she was blessed with a powerful memory, a solid judgment, and a ready imagination. "She conversed fluently with me in Latin for an hour with grace and precision. She is very proficient in metaphysics; but she prefers modern physics, particularly that of Newton."

How many of our college women of to-day could readily carry on a conversation in Latin, if this were the sole medium of communication, or discuss the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle in the tongue of Cicero, or give public lectures on the physico-mathematical discoveries of Descartes and Newton in what was the universal language of the learned world, even less than a century ago?

It must not, however, be inferred from the foregoing statements regarding the great intellectual capacity of Laura Ba.s.si or the enthusiastic demonstrations that were so frequently made in her honor that she was unique in this respect among her countrywomen. Special attention has been called to her as a type of the large number of her s.e.x who, by their learning and culture, graced the courts and honored the universities of her country for full ten centuries. Scarcely had death removed Laura Ba.s.si from a career in which for twenty-eight years she had won the plaudits of the whole of Europe, when the University of Bologna welcomed to its learned halls two other women who, in their respective lines of research, were fully as eminent as their departed countrywoman. These were Maria dalle Donne, for whom Napoleon established a chair of obstetrics, and Clotilda Tambroni, the famous professor of Greek, of whom a noted h.e.l.lenist declared, "Only three persons in Europe are able to write Greek as well as she does, and not more than fifteen are able to understand her."

Burckhardt, in his thoughtful work on the culture of the Italian Renaissance, has a paragraph which expresses, in a few words, what was always the att.i.tude of the Italian father toward the education of his daughter.

"The education of the woman of the upper cla.s.s was absolutely the same as that of the man. The Italian of the Renaissance did not for a moment hesitate to give his son and daughter the same literary and philosophical training. He considered the knowledge of the works of antiquity life's greatest good, and he could not, therefore, deny to woman partic.i.p.ation in such knowledge. Hence the perfection attained by the daughters of n.o.ble families in writing and speaking Latin."[156]

This att.i.tude of the members of the n.o.bility toward the education of their daughters was essentially the same as that of the universities of Italy toward women who had a thirst for knowledge. For from the dawn of learning in Salerno to the present there never was a time when women were not as cordially welcomed to the universities as students and professors as were the men; and never a time when the merit of intellectual work was not determined without regard to s.e.x.

In Bologna, where were pa.s.sed the sixty-seven years of her mortal life, the name of Laura Ba.s.si, like that of her ill.u.s.trious colleague, Luigi Galvani, is one to conjure with, and a name that is still p.r.o.nounced with respect and reverence. Her last resting place is in the Church of Corpus Domini, the same sacred shrine in which were deposited all that was mortal of the renowned discoverer of galvanic electricity.[157]

Two years after Signora Ba.s.si was gathered to her fathers there was born near Edinburgh to a Scotch admiral, Sir William George Fairfax, an infant daughter who was destined to shed as much l.u.s.ter on her s.e.x in the British Isles as the incomparable Laura Ba.s.si had diffused on womankind in Italy during her brilliant career in "Bologna, the learned." She is known in the annals of science as Mary Somerville, and was in every way a worthy successor of her famous sister in Italy, both as a woman and as a votary of science.

Although her chief t.i.tle to fame is her notable work in mathematical astronomy, especially her translation of Laplace's _Mechanique Celeste_, she is likewise to be accorded a prominent place among scientific investigators for her contributions to physics and cognate branches of knowledge. Chief among these are her works on the _Connection of the Physical Sciences_ and _Physical Geography_. As to the last production, no less an authority than Alexander von Humboldt p.r.o.nounced it an exact and admirable treatise, and wrote of it as "that excellent work which has charmed and instructed me since its first appearance."

In a letter from the ill.u.s.trious German savant to the gifted auth.o.r.ess of the two last-named volumes occurs the following paragraph: "To the great superiority you possess and which has so n.o.bly ill.u.s.trated your name on the high regions of mathematical a.n.a.lysis, you add, Madam, a variety of information in all parts of physics and descriptive natural history. After the _Mechanism of the Heavens_, the philosophical _Connection of the Physical Sciences_ has been the object of my profound admiration.... The author of the vast _Cosmos_ should more than any one else salute the _Physical Geography_ of Mary Somerville.... I know of no work on physical geography in any language that can compare with yours."

Among the other works by Mrs. Somerville, treating of physical subjects or of subjects intimately related to physics are _The Form and Rotation of the Earth_, _The Tides of the Ocean and Atmosphere_, and an abstruse investigation _On Molecular and Microscopic Science_. The last volume was published in 1869, when its author was near her ninetieth year, and bore as its motto St. Augustine's sublime words: _Deus magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis_--G.o.d is great in great things, greatest in the least.

After Mrs. Somerville's death, in 1872, at the advanced age of ninety-two, the number of women who devoted themselves to the study and teaching of physics was greatly augmented. The brilliant success of Laura Ba.s.si and Mary Somerville had not been without results, and their notable achievements as authors and teachers had the effect of stimulating women everywhere to emulate their example, and encouraging them to devote more attention to a branch of science which, until then, had been regarded by the general public as beyond the sphere and capacity of what was a.s.sumed to be the intellectually weaker s.e.x.

One of the most eminent scientific women of the present day in England is Mrs. Ayrton, the wife of the late Professor W. E. Ayrton, the well-known electrician. Her chosen field of research, like that of her husband, has been electricity, in which she has achieved marked distinction. Her investigations on the electric arc and on the sand ripples of the seash.o.r.e won for her the first medal ever awarded to a woman by the Royal Society. When, however, in 1902, she was formally nominated for fellowship in this same society, she failed of election because the council of the society discovered that "it had no legal power to elect a married woman to this distinction."

How different it was in the case of Laura Ba.s.si, who was an active member of all the leading scientific and literary societies of Italy, where from time immemorial women have been as cordially welcomed to membership in its learned societies as to the chairs of its great universities.

The list of the women who in Europe and America are now engaged in physical research and in teaching physics in schools and colleges is a long one, and the work accomplished by them is, in many cases, of a high order of merit. It is only, indeed, during the present generation that such work has been made generally accessible to them; and, considering the success which has already attended their efforts in this branch of science, we have every reason to believe that the future will bring forth many others of their s.e.x who will take rank with such intellectual luminaries as Hypatia, Mme. du Chatelet, Laura Ba.s.si and Mary Somerville.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] "Publice philosophiam naturalem et moralem in scholis Academiisque Atticis docuit haec foemina annis x.x.xV, libros composuit XL, discipulos habuit philosophos CX, obiit anno aetatis LXXVII, cui tale Athenienses statuere epitaphium:

n.o.bilis hic Arete dormit, lux h.e.l.ladis, ore Tyndaris at tibi par, Icarioti, fide.

Patris Aristippi calamumque animamque dederunt, Socratis huic linguam Maeonidaeque Dii."