Reintroducing George Herbert Mead Huebner Daniel R

Reintroducing George Herbert Mead Huebner Daniel R
Reintroducing George Herbert Mead Huebner Daniel R
Reintroducing George Herbert Mead Huebner Daniel R

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6. REINTRODUCING GEORGE
HERBERT MEAD
George Herbert Mead has long been known for his social theory of meaning
and the ‘self’ – an approach which becomes all the more relevant in light of
the ways we develop and represent ourselves online. But recent scholarship has
shown that Mead’s pragmatic philosophy can help us understand a much wider
range of contemporary issues including how humans and natural environments
mutually influence one another, how deliberative democracy can and should
work, how thinking is dependent upon the body and on others, and how social
changes in the present affect our understandings of the past. Historical scholar-
ship has also changed what we know of Mead’s life, including new emphasis on
his social reform efforts, his engagement with colonization and war, and criti-
cal reinterpretation of the works published after his death. This book provides
an approachable introduction to Mead’s contemporary relevance in the social
sciences, showing how a pragmatic view of social action serves as the core of
Mead’s theory, offering striking insights into human agency, symbolism, politics,
social change, temporality, and materiality. As such, it will appeal to scholars of
sociology and the social sciences more broadly, with interests in social theory and
the enduring importance of the sociological classics.
Daniel R. Huebner is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. He is the author of Becoming Mead: The
The Definitive Edition and The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead.
Social Process of Academic Knowledge and the co-editor of Mind, Self, and Society:

7. The ‘Reintroducing’ series offers concise and accessible books that remind us of
the importance of sociological theorists whose work, while constituting a signifi-
cant and lasting contribution to the discipline, is no longer widely discussed. With
each volume examining the major themes in thought of a particular figure and
the context in which this work came about, as well as its reception and enduring
relevance to contemporary social science, the books in this series will appeal to
scholars and students of sociology seeking to rediscover the work of important but
often neglected sociologists.
Reintroducing Robert K. Merton
Charles Crothers
Reintroducing George Herbert Mead
Daniel R. Huebner
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Reintroducing/book-series/RCST
Reintroducing…

8. Daniel R. Huebner
REINTRODUCING
GEORGE HERBERT
MEAD

9. Cover image: ‘Formal 5’, George Herbert Mead c. 1927, Moffett Studio,
courtesy of Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center,
University of Chicago Library
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Daniel R. Huebner
The right of Daniel R. Huebner to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-46399-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-46400-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-02855-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003028550
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

10. CONTENTS
List of Figures vi
1 M 1
2 E
and Communication 24
3 S
of Democratic Politics 49
4 T
and Environment 77
Bibliography 100
Index 112

11. FIGURES
1.1 The Hull House Social Settlement 10
1.2 The 1910-1911 Chicago Garment Workers’ Strike 14
1.3 The Legacy of Activist Grace Lee Boggs 20
2.1 Gesture and the Evolution of Language 31
2.2 Social Psychiatry and Role-Taking Therapies 40
2.3 James T. Farrell and the Craft of Writing 44
3.1 The Making of Mind, Self, and Society and Mead’s Legacy 52
3.2 Ellsworth Faris and the Study of Racial and Colonial Violence 57
3.3 Jessie Taft, Social Work, and the Women’s Movement 62
4.1 Studying Animal Behavior 82
4.2 Fig Trees, Wasps, and Humans: Symbiosis and Intersecting
Perspectives 85
4.3 Charles Morris’s “George Herbert Mead” 95

12. DOI: 10.4324/9781003028550-1
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) was an American philosopher, considered
to be one of the classical representatives of American Pragmatism. Mead’s ideas
have had a major influence in the behavioral and social sciences, especially in
sociology and social psychology, where he is best known for his theory of the
development and process of human symbolic communication and for his account
of the social nature and genesis of the “self” – ideas that are relevant in new
ways in the era of online self-presentation and social media. Although particular
aspects of Mead’s theory have been influential, Reintroducing George Herbert Mead
makes a case for the broader relevance of Mead’s overall pragmatic philosophy
as a general theoretical approach in the contemporary social sciences and brings
Mead’s ideas up-to-date by examining how they are being reinterpreted and
rediscovered in recent scholarship.
Starting from his core conception of social action, Mead articulated a theory
that sought to explain the development of personality and individual agency,
cultural meaning and symbolism, the practical ethics and epistemology of demo-
cratic politics, and rational self-reflection and cognition. He sought to ground an
approach to the natural world as fundamentally social, including striking views
on materiality and temporality, the mutual responsiveness of environment and
organisms, and human relationships with nonhuman animals. Scholarship pub-
lished since Mead’s life makes a compelling case for the renewed relevance of
Mead’s pragmatic social theory in developing fields such as cognitive science,
new media studies, material culture, science and technology studies, environ-
mental studies, contemporary politics, and others. Recent scholarship has also
changed what we know of Mead’s life, including new emphasis on his social
reform efforts, his engagement with colonization and war, critical reinterpre-
tation of the works published after his death, and the rediscovery of important
aspects of his work that had been lost.
1
MEAD AS PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL
AND SOCIAL THEORIST

13. 2 Mead as Public Intellectual & Social Theorist
The text begins by introducing Mead’s life and influence in the remainder
of Chapter 1. Drawing upon recent concerns for “public sociology,” the chapter
focuses especially on Mead’s social reform efforts. For Mead, the Hull House
Social Settlement in Chicago and his wife’s family connections in Hawaii were
particularly important as centers of thinking and action around labor rights, wom-
en’s suffrage, educational reform, vocational training, juvenile justice, the rights of
immigrants and racial minorities, public infrastructure, and international peace.
The ways these issues are tied with Mead’s philosophy are discussed. The chapter
then compares Mead’s dominant influence in the social sciences and social theory
with new historically-informed and more holistic scholarship on Mead.
Chapter 2 lays out the core of Mead’s social theory and the kinds of reasoning
that Mead pursued. Mead’s theory is spelled out step-by-step, beginning with
the ongoing social process of cooperative social acts, leading to the develop-
ment of the social self, self-reflection and role taking, and rational thought and
symbols. Mead argued that grounding analysis in the normal social processes
of action resolves questions about the nature and development of conscious-
ness. One of the most characteristic aspects of Mead’s work is how rigorously
he worked through the logic and presuppositions of these topics, and how he
sought to uncover the most adequate, encompassing perspective from which to
pursue such inquiries. Outlining this logic is especially useful as an introduc-
tion, because it enables us to use Mead’s way of thinking to inform our own
projects and to update his conclusions in light of contemporary society. With
this baseline, the analysis turns to the implications of Mead’s theory. The chapter
discusses the essential roles of embodiment in the development of human cogni-
tion, highlighting the ways recent authors have drawn upon Mead’s work, and
underscoring his early physiological and functional psychological studies.
Building upon this analysis, Chapter 3 traces Mead’s theory of the broader
social and political processes beyond the scope of individual and direct inter-
personal relationships. Recent scholarship has sought to recover these aspects of
Mead’s theory in light of predominant micro-sociological interpretations of his
work. The chapter begins by returning to the idea of social process and underscor-
ing how this view grounds an approach to the emergent and dynamic complexity
of the social world and the need for collective political action that is revised as
society changes. In this view, Mead focused on how modern society develops and
reflects upon itself. Mead’s views on institutions and social reform movements are
outlined. Mead sought to show, on the basis of his theory of social consciousness,
how inclusive practices of participatory democracy led to better decision-making
and a more universal worldview. This approach has implications for the conduct
of science and ethics, which Mead addressed. Critics of Mead have questioned
his analysis of social inequality and power, but recent works have emphasized the
implications of his analysis of human rights and hostility, especially in relation to
World War I, and his reflections on social reform as an answer to these criticisms.
Finally, Chapter 4 shows how Mead’s social-relational theory extends beyond
the analysis of the relations of humans to other humans into an analysis of the

14. Mead as Public Intellectual & Social Theorist 3
natural world itself. Mead’s understanding of “perspectives” is key, and the
chapter begins by explaining the emergent, relational nature of perspectives,
according to Mead. The chapter elaborates Mead’s theory of the interconnec-
tions between organisms and their environments, which recent authors have
drawn upon in discussing ecological and environmental studies and human-
animal interactions. From this, Mead developed a theory of temporality and the
ways social change in the present changes our relationship to the past and future.
This new introduction to Mead concludes by bringing his ideas together
around the idea of science, which he examined as a social process of working
to incorporate new experiences of observers into a continually reformulated,
universalizing perspective. His approach to science considers the essential role of
individual selves in scientific advance and of the relationship between science and
democratic society. Mead’s approach to science offers a way of thinking critically
about the nature of our contemporary society and its social issues. This study is
accompanied by a bibliography that includes the most relevant and rediscovered
works by Mead and a classified bibliography of commentaries on Mead. These
lists are intended to provide guidance to those who wish to investigate any of the
issues discussed in the text further.
Public Sociology
In the past two decades, there have been calls for a return to “public sociology,”
which means reconnecting sociology with nonacademic audiences and prob-
lems, reemphasizing its role in addressing social problems, and utilizing discipli-
nary knowledge to advocate for social change. By focusing on George Herbert
Mead’s social reform efforts and their often-forgotten place in his intellectual
biography, this chapter brings out some of the ways in which Mead can be seen
as a precursor to this kind of informed public engagement. Although many peo-
ple encounter Mead as a social theorist through his professional publications,
he was not an “armchair” intellectual who only wrote about social issues from
afar. Instead, he participated in contentious public debates about workers’ rights,
women’s suffrage, the rights of racial and ethnic minorities, juvenile delinquency,
international peace, and other issues. In this chapter we will explore these issues.
Some of the questions we will seek to answer are: How were Mead’s ideas meant
as interventions into contentious public issues of his time, and not just as abstract
concepts? What are the practical consequences of his views as he interpreted
them? And where did Mead fall short of his own ideals?
In order to understand Mead’s approach to social theory, it is useful to see
him as a real person in context, and to identify what influenced his thought.
The chapter begins by examining Mead’s early family life and education, and
then reviewing the major shifts in his professional career. Here, Mead’s struggle
to establish a meaningful path for his life helps us understand what motivated
him. Then the chapter examines what may be considered the most impor-
tant missing piece of the puzzle of Mead’s intellectual biography, his social

15. 4 Mead as Public Intellectual & Social Theorist
reform work. This work, especially in the industrial city of Chicago, was cen-
tered on the various social movements that converged in the social settlement
houses of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and in one way or
another they all involved the reform of public education. Mead advocated for
the democratization of decision-making about public schools and for expanding
educational opportunities.
Mead held positions of influence in several major civic organizations, and he
sought to advocate democratic decision-making that reflected the interests of
the community as a whole and incorporated many different voices in the pro-
cess. He also consistently worked to base his advocacy on empirical investigation
and detailed knowledge of issues at stake. He publicly presented investigations
on vocational education programs, working conditions and grievances, housing
conditions, educational opportunities, and other issues, and used them as a basis
for the positions he advocated for reform. But Mead’s positions in public debates
were often contentious, and this only becomes more apparent as we consider
them retrospectively. The chapter examines Mead’s advocacy of American colo-
nization of Hawaii and his shifting support for military confrontation in World
War I, for example, which suggest some of the ways Mead may have been naïve
to certain economic, racial, and political inequalities.
Finally, the chapter examines the professional recognition that Mead received
late in his career, the intellectual legacy that was created in his name after his
death, and the major avenues of influence that he has had, especially in sociol-
ogy and social theory. This chapter sets the stage for the subsequent chapters by
seeing Mead’s ideas in the process of formation as he engaged with his everyday
social contexts, and especially in his social reform efforts. In the following chap-
ters, then, these ideas can be considered in more detail and reevaluated in terms
of their contemporary relevance.
Early Life and Childhood
George Herbert Mead grew up in a family environment that valued broad educa-
tion with an emphasis on religious teachings and service to others. He was born
in South Hadley, Massachusetts on February 27, 1863. South Hadley was at that
time a small village of fewer than three thousand inhabitants in the rural, western
part of New England. His immediate family included his father, Reverend Hiram
Mead, his mother Elizabeth Storrs Mead, and his older sister Alice. Hiram was
the pastor of the church of the Congregationalist denomination of Christianity
in South Hadley, and several of Hiram’s family members were also religious
professionals. George’s mother Elizabeth likewise came from a large, educated
family, which included her twin sister Harriet. She attended one of the few insti-
tutions for higher education open to women in the United States at the time, the
Ipswich Female Seminary, and she taught in secondary schools prior to her mar-
riage to Hiram. Later in her life, Elizabeth Mead become the President of Mount
Holyoke College, one of the oldest still-existing institutions for women’s higher

16. Mead as Public Intellectual & Social Theorist 5
education in the United States, which was located in South Hadley. Especially
during George Mead’s early professional career, his mother was one of the most
prominent women in higher education in the United States.
In 1869, Hiram Mead was appointed to the professorship in Sacred Rhetoric
and Pastoral Theology at Oberlin College, so the family moved west to
Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin was almost unique in this period in the United States
for permitting men and women to be educated together and admitting African
American students alongside white students. The small town of Oberlin was,
itself, founded by Protestant missionaries and became an important center of
advocacy for the abolition of slavery in the period prior to the US Civil War.
After attending the preparatory school connected with the college, George
Mead attended Oberlin College from 1879 to 1883, graduating with a bache-
lor’s degree in Philosophy and the Arts. He became close friends with classmate
Henry Northrup Castle in the last two years of college, bonding over mutual
interests in philosophy and literature. In 1881, his father died, and both George
and his mother took jobs to try to make ends meet. George worked in the col-
lege cafeteria, and Elizabeth was a language tutor and instructor.
As in many private American colleges of the nineteenth century, Oberlin’s
humanities faculty emphasized intuitional religious interpretations of how peo-
ple perceive and experience the world. As George Mead and Henry Castle were
exposed to the critical, materialist doctrines of modern scientific research, how-
ever, they became increasingly skeptical about this philosophy. They also coedited
and contributed to the student news and literary paper during their final college
year, 1882–1883. When Henry’s older sister, Helen Kingsbury Castle, came to
Oberlin to attend school that year, Mead met his future wife for the first time,
although they would not marry for almost another decade. Helen and Henry were
the youngest children of one of the most prominent American settler families
in the (then independent) Kingdom of Hawaii. Their parents had arrived in the
Hawaiian Islands with early American missionaries, and they took up business in
sugarcane plantations and shipping. As a result, Helen and Henry were heirs to the
large company Castle & Cooke, a fact that would play a major role in Mead’s life.
Finding a Career
After college, Mead took a series of jobs from 1883 to 1887 to help support
himself and his mother while he struggled to find a meaningful direction for
his adult life. He taught at an elementary school where he was reprimanded for
being too quick to suspend students. He worked on a railroad surveying crew
where he learned the practical applications of the physical sciences and enjoyed
working outdoors. And he privately tutored boys preparing for college. During
this period, he wrestled spiritually with an increasing agnosticism, resulting at
least in part from his independent study of modern critical philosophy and evolu-
tionary science. He considered possible careers, including starting a preparatory
school or a literary magazine or going into the Christian ministry. However,

17. 6 Mead as Public Intellectual & Social Theorist
Mead was too conflicted to pursue a religious calling, and he did not have the
resources for the other career paths. Meanwhile Henry Castle, who had worked
for a period in his brother’s law office in Honolulu, Hawaii, and had attended
courses in Germany, decided to attend graduate school at Harvard University
in 1886. Henry’s letters to George Mead, and George’s trip to visit Henry at
Harvard that year, seem to have helped him to decide on pursuit of graduate
education in philosophy.
Mead attended Harvard beginning in the fall of 1887 as an advanced under-
graduate (Harvard did not accept his degree from Oberlin). He roomed with
Henry and likely received financial support for his education from the Castle
family. Mead took courses with influential philosophers Josiah Royce, George
Herbert Palmer, and others. His views on the self, symbolic communication, the
history of science, and social progress evince influences from Royce’s Idealist
social philosophy, and Mead wrote a reminiscence of Royce after he died in
1916. At the end of the first year, 1887–1888, Mead took the oral examination
for an honors degree, and his performance impressed William James, one of
the founders of modern psychology and of American pragmatist philosophy.
Although Mead did not take courses with James at Harvard, he was invited to
tutor James’s son at his country house in the summer of 1888, and he received
encouragement from James to apply for fellowships to pursue further graduate
study in Germany. In the late-nineteenth century, Americans who wanted a
cutting-edge education in the human sciences often studied in Germany.
As a result, Mead began coursework at the University of Leipzig in the winter
1888–1889 semester, where he studied with Wilhelm Wundt, among others,
and again roomed with Henry Castle, who had decided to again take courses
in Germany. Although Wundt was the leading psychologist in Germany and
directed what is often considered the first experimental psychological laboratory,
Mead took only his philosophy course on “Metaphysics.” After that one semes-
ter, Mead transferred to the University of Berlin. By this time Mead had decided
to focus his study on “physiological psychology” because, according to Henry
Castle, this was a topic upon which he could pursue critical inquiry without fear
of “anathema and excommunication” from the “all-potent Evangelicalism” of
American Protestantism. Physiological psychology at the time was a new field
that sought to use experiments with precise measuring devices to study psycho-
logical processes such as perception and consciousness.
At the University of Berlin, Mead became a laboratory assistant working on
psychophysical experiments, and he took advanced courses in anatomy and phys-
iology that focused on recent discoveries about the central nervous system. From
Wilhelm Dilthey he took courses in ethics and the history of philosophy, and
under Dilthey’s supervision he planned to write a dissertation on the ways that
the human conception of space is constructed by the interaction of touch and
vision, a topic to which Mead returned in his late career. Dilthey was a leading
philosopher of the human sciences, arguing that descriptive and interpretative
methods were better able to study human experience than were natural-scientific

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In the first pen, or that which holds one hundred sheep, the hurdles
must be so disposed, that there shall be only one at the top and
bottom, and the rest in equal numbers on each side; then it is
obvious, that if one hurdle more be placed at each end, the space
enclosed must necessarily be double the former, and consequently
will hold twice the number of sheep.

23.  
An ingenious Recreation, called the Two Communicative Busts.
Take two heads of plaster of Paris, and place them on pedestals on
the opposite sides of a room. Then take a tin tube, of an inch in
diameter, and let it pass from the ear of one head through the
pedestal, and under the floor, to the mouth of the other, observing,
that the end of the tube which is next the ear of one head, should
be considerably larger than that which comes to the mouth of the
other.
The whole being so disposed that there may be no suspicion of a
communication, let any person speak with a low voice into the ear of
one bust, and the sound will be distinctly heard by anyone who shall
place his ear to the mouth of the other; and if there be two tubes,
one going to the ear, and the other to the mouth of each head, two
persons may converse together, by applying their mouth and ear
reciprocally to the mouth and ear of the busts, without being heard
by any other persons in the room.
 
Another Recreation of the same kind, called the Oracular Head.
Place a bust on a pedestal in the corner of a room, and let there be
two tubes, one of which goes from the mouth, and the other from
the ear of the bust, through the pedestal and floor, to an under
apartment.
Then if a person be placed in the under room, by applying his ear to
one of the tubes as soon as a proper signal is given, he will hear any
question that is asked, and can immediately return an answer; and if
wires be contrived to go from the under jaw and eyes of the bust,
they may be made to move at the same time, and by these means
appear to deliver the answer.
It was by a contrivance of this kind, that Don Antonio de Moreno so
much astonished the celebrated Knight of the Woeful Countenance,

24. and his facetious squire Sancho Panza, by resolving certain doubts
proposed by the former concerning his adventures in the cave of
Montesinos, and the disenchantment of my lady Dulcinea.
 
How to make a Piece of Metal, or any other heavy Body, swim upon
the Surface of Water, like a Cork.
The specific gravity of water is inferior to that of metals, and
consequently water, absolutely speaking, cannot support a ball of
iron or lead; but if this ball be flattened, and beat out to a very thin
plate, it will, if put softly upon still water, be prevented from sinking,
and will swim upon its surface like any light substance. In like
manner, if a fine steel needle, which is perfectly dry, be placed
gently upon some still water in a vessel, it will float upon the surface
without sinking.
But if you would have a metallic body of large dimensions to swim
upon water, you must reduce it into a thin concave plate, like a
kettle; in which case, as the air it contains, together with the body
itself, weighs less than the same bulk of water, it cannot possibly
sink; as is evident from large copper boats, or pontoons, by which
whole armies have frequently passed over rivers without danger.
If this concave metallic vessel be placed upon the water with its
mouth downwards, it will swim as before, and the contained air will
keep the bottom of it from being wet; for that the water will not rise
into any hollow vessel which is immersed into it, may be made
evident thus:—Take a glass tumbler, and plunge it into water with its
mouth downwards, and you will find, when you take it out, that the
inside of the vessel is perfectly dry, so that if a live coal were put
there, it would not be extinguished.
 
A curious Experiment, to prove that Two and Two do not make Four.

25. Take a glass vessel with a long narrow neck, which, being filled with
water, will hold exactly a quart; then put into this vessel a pint of
water, and a pint of acid of vitriol, and you will presently perceive,
that the mixture will not fill the vessel, as it did when a quart of
water only was put into it. The acid of vitriol must be put in
gradually, by little and little at a time, mixing each portion with the
water before you add more, by shaking the bottle, and leaving its
mouth open, otherwise the bottle will burst. The mixture in this case
also possesses a considerable degree of heat, though the two
ingredients of themselves are perfectly cold; and this phenomenon is
not to be accounted for, by supposing that the acid of vitriol is
received into the pores of the water, for then a small portion of it
might be absorbed by the water, without augmenting its bulk, which
is known not to be the case; but the very form of the bodies in this
experiment is changed, there being, as Dr. Hooke, who first noticed
the fact, observes, an actual penetration of dimensions. Chemistry
also furnishes a number of other instances, which shew that two
bodies, when mixed together, possess less space than when they are
separate.
 
An ingenious Method of Secret Writing, by means of corresponding
Spaces.
Take two pieces of pasteboard, or stiff paper, out of which cut a
number of oblong figures, at different distances from each other, as
in the following example. Keep one of these pieces for yourself, and
give one to your correspondent; and when you are desirous of
sending him any secret intelligence, lay the pasteboard upon a sheet
of paper of the same size, and in the spaces which are cut out, write
what you would have him only to understand, and fill up the
intermediate parts of the paper with something which makes with
these words a different sense. Then, when your correspondent
receives this letter, by applying it to his pasteboard, he will be able
to comprehend your meaning.

26. Examéle .
  I shall be   much obliged to you, as reading  alone  
engages my attention  at   present, if you will send me any
of the  eight   volumes of the Spectator; I hope you will
excuse  this   freedom, but for a winter’s  evening   I
  don’t  know a better entertainment. If I  fail  to return
it soon, never trust me for the time  to come.  

27.  
A curious Experiment, which depends on an Optical Illusion.
On the bottom of the vessel, (see Plate,) AIBD, fig. 6, place three
pieces of money, as a half-crown, a shilling, and a sixpence; the first
at E, the second at F, and the third at G. Then let a person be placed
with his eye at H, so that he can see no farther into the vessel than
I; and tell him, that by pouring water into the vessel, you will make
him see three different pieces of money, which he may observe are
not poured in with the water.
For this purpose, desire him to keep himself steady in the same
position, and, pouring the water in gently, that the pieces of money
may not be moved out of their places, when it comes up to K, the
piece G will become visible to him; when it comes up to L, he will
see the two pieces G and F; and when it rises to M, all the three
pieces will become visible: the cause of which is owing to the
refraction of the rays of light, in their passage through the water; for
while the vessel is empty, the ray HI will proceed in a straight line;
but in proportion as it is filled with water, the ray will be bent into
the several directions NG, OF, PE, and by these means the pieces are
rendered visible.
 
A curious Experiment, of nearly the same kind as the last, called
Optical Augmentation.
Take a large drinking-glass, of a conical figure, and having put a
shilling into it, fill the glass about half full with water; then place a
plate on the top of it, and turn it quickly over, so that the water may
not get out. This being done, look through the glass, and you will
now perceive a piece of money of the size of half-a-crown; and
somewhat higher up, another piece of the size of a shilling. But if
the glass be entirely filled with water, the large piece at the bottom
only will be visible.

28. This phenomenon is occasioned by your seeing the piece through
the conical surface of the water, at the side of the glass, and through
the flat surface at the top of the water, at the same time; for the
conical surface dilates the rays, and makes the piece appear larger,
while the flat surface only refracts them, and occasions the piece to
be seen higher up in the glass, but still of its natural size.
 
Another curious Experiment, called Optical Subtraction.
Against the wainscot of a room fix three small pieces of paper, as A,
B, C, fig. 7, (see Plate,) about a foot and a half or two feet asunder,
at the height of your eye; and placing yourself directly before them,
about five times the distance from them that the papers are from
each other, shut one of your eyes and look at them with the other,
and you will then see only two of those papers, suppose A and B;
but altering the position of your eye, you will now see the third, and
one of the first, suppose A; and by altering its position a second
time, you will see B and C, but in neither case all three of them
together.
The cause of this phenomenon is, that one of the three pencils of
rays, which come from these objects, falls on the optic nerve at D,
whereas, to produce distinct vision, it is necessary that the rays of
light fall on some part of the retina E, F, G, H.
From this experiment, the use of having two eyes may be easily
perceived; for he that has only one can never see three objects
placed in this position; or all the parts of one object, of the same
extent, without altering the situation of his eye.
 
An Optical Experiment, shewing how to produce an Artificial
Rainbow.
In any room which has a window facing the sun, suspend a glass
globe, filled with water, by a string which runs over a pulley, so that

29. the sun’s rays may fall directly upon it; then drawing the globe
gradually up, when it comes to the height of about forty degrees
above the horizon, you will see, by placing yourself in a proper
situation, the glass tinged with a purple colour; and by drawing it
gradually higher up, the other prismatic colours, blue, green, yellow,
and red, will successively appear; but after this they will all vanish,
till the globe is raised to about fifty degrees, when they will again be
seen, but in an inverted order, the red appearing first, and the blue,
or violet, last; and when the globe comes up to little more than fifty-
four degrees, they will entirely vanish.
These appearances serve to illustrate the phenomena of natural
rainbows, of which there are generally two, the one being about
eight degrees above the other, and the order of their colours
inverted, as in this experiment; the red being the uppermost colour
in the lower bow, and the violet in the other.
 
An artificial Rainbow may also be produced as follows.
Take some water in your mouth, and turn your back to the sun; then
if it be blown forcibly out against some dark or shady place, you will
see the drops formed by the beams of the sun into an apparent
rainbow, which, however, soon vanishes.
 
A curious Optical Illusion, produced by means of a Concave Mirror.
Take a glass bottle, (see Plate,) ABC, fig. 8, and fill it with water to
the point B; leave the upper part, BC, empty, and cork it in the
common manner; place this bottle opposite a concave mirror, and
beyond its focus, so that it may appear reversed; then if you place
yourself still farther from the mirror, the bottle will appear to you in
the situation a b c.
And in this apparent bottle it is remarkable, that the water, which,
according to the laws of catoptrics, and all other experiments of this

30. kind, should appear at a b, appears, on the contrary, at b c, the part
a b seeming to be entirely empty.
And if the bottle be inverted, and placed before the mirror, as in the
under part of the figure, its image will appear in its natural erect
position, but the water, which is in reality at b c, will appear at a b.
And if, while the bottle is inverted, it be uncorked, and the water
suffered to run gently out, it will appear, that while the part BC is
emptying, the part a b in the image is filling; and if, when the bottle
is partly empty, some drops of water fall from the bottom A, towards
BC, it seems in the image as if there were formed at the bottom of
the part a b bubbles of air arising from a to b, which is the part that
seems full.
The circumstances most remarkable in this experiment, are, first, not
only to see an object where it is not, but also where its image is not;
and, secondly, that of two objects, which are really in the same
place, as the surface of the bottle and the water it contains, the one
should be seen at one place, and the other at another; and also that
the bottle should be seen in the place of its image, and the water
where neither it nor its images are.
It is, however, to be noted, that if any coloured liquor be put into the
bottle instead of water, no such illusion will take place.
There is one phenomenon more of this kind, which ought not to be
omitted; for though it be common enough, it is also extremely
pleasing, and easy to be performed.
If you place yourself before a concave mirror, at a proper distance,
your figure will appear inverted; and if you stretch out your hand
towards the mirror, you will perceive another hand, which seems to
meet and join it, though imperceptible to the touch.
And if, instead of your hand, you make use of a drawn sword, and
present it in such a manner that its point may be directed towards
the focus of the rays reflected by the mirror, another sword will

31. appear, and seem to encounter that in your hand. But it is to be
observed, that to make this experiment succeed well, you must have
a mirror of at least a foot in diameter, that you may see yourself in
part; and if you have a mirror large enough to see your whole
person, the illusion will be still more striking.
 
How to make a violent Tempest, by means of artificial Rain and Hail.
Make a hollow cylinder of wood, very thin at the sides, about eight
or ten inches long, and two or three feet in diameter. Divide its
inside into five equal partitions, by means of boards of about six
inches wide; and let there be a space between them and the
wooden circle, of about one-sixth of an inch; observing, that the
boards are to be placed obliquely to each other.
This being done, put into the cylinder four or five pounds of leaden
shot, of a size that will easily pass through the opening left for this
purpose; then turn the cylinder on its axis, and the sound of the
machine, when in motion, will represent that of rain, which will
increase with the velocity of the motion; and if a larger sort of shot
be used, it will produce the sound of hail.
 
Magic Square.
This, in arithmetic, is a square figure made up of numbers in
arithmetical proportion, so disposed in parallel and equal ranks, that
the sums of each row, taken either perpendicularly, horizontally, or
diagonally, are equal: thus—
Natural Square. Magic Square.
123  276
456  951
789  438

32. Magic squares seem to have been so called, from their being used in
the construction of talismans.
Take another instance:—
Natural Square.  Magic Square.
12345  16148225
678910  32220119
1112131415  15642317
1617181920  241812101
2122232425  75211913
where every row and diagonal in the magic square, makes just the
sum 65, being the same as the two diagonals of the natural square.
It is probable that these magic squares were so called, both because
of this property in them, viz. that the ranks in every direction make
the same sum, which appeared extremely surprising, especially in
the more ignorant ages, when mathematics passed for magic; and
because also of the superstitious operations they were employed in,
as, the construction of talismans, &c.; for, according to the childish
philosophy of those days, which ascribed virtues to numbers, what
might not be expected from numbers so seemingly wonderful? The
magic square was held in great veneration among the Egyptians,
and the Pythagoreans their disciples, who, to add more efficacy and
virtue to this square, dedicated it to the then known seven planets,
divers ways, and engraved it upon a plate of the metal that was
esteemed in sympathy with the planet. The square, thus dedicated,
was enclosed by a regular polygon, inscribed into a circle, which was
divided into as many equal parts as there were units in the side of
the square; with the names of the angels of the planet, and the
signs of the zodiac written upon the void spaces between the
polygon and the circumference of the circumscribed circle. Such a
talisman, or metal, they vainly imagined would, upon occasion,
befriend the person who carried it about him. To Saturn, they
attributed the square of 9 places, or cells, the side being 3, and the

33. sum of the number in every row 15: to Jupiter, the square of 16
places, the side being 4, and the amount of each row 34: to Mars,
the square of 25 places, the side being 5, and the amount of each
row 65: to the Sun, the square with 36 places, the side being 6, and
the sum of each row 111: to Venus, the square of 49 places, the
side being 7, and the amount of each row 175: to Mercury, the
square with 64 places, the side being 8, and the sum of each row
260: and to the Moon, the square of 81 places, the side being 9, and
the amount of each row 369. Finally, they attributed to imperfect
matter, the square with 4 divisions, having 2 for its side: and to God,
the square of only one cell, the side of which is also an unit, which,
multiplied by itself, undergoes no change.
 
 

34. ADDENDA TO THE CURIOSITIES
RESPECTING MAN.
 
It never was the intention of the compiler of this work to give an
account of all the curious and remarkable persons that have figured
on this mortal stage, but only such as have not been usually
incorporated in works of this kind; it has been thought advisable,
however, to make the following additions to this department, with
which, it is hoped, the reader will be amused and instructed.
 
An account of that celebrated extraordinary Genius, John Henderson , B.
A.—Of this much celebrated young man, whose extraordinary
acquirements attracted the notice, and even commanded the
respect, of Dr. Johnson, several accounts have been published, and
much eulogium has been pronounced. By many he has been
supposed to emulate the variety and extent of knowledge possessed
by the admirable Crichton; and, like that eccentric character, he has
left little for posterity to form a judgment of the truth of those
praises which have been bestowed upon him.
He was born at Bellegarance, near Limerick, in the kingdom of
Ireland, on the 27th of March, 1757, of very pious and respectable
parents. He received his education among the Methodists; and at
eight years of age he understood Latin so well, as to be able to
teach it at Kingswood school. At twelve, he taught the Greek
language, in the school of Trevecka, in Wales, to men, several of
whom were double his age. The governor of the college, at that
time, was the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, late Vicar of Madeley, a clergyman
highly distinguished for the fervour of his piety and the liveliness of

35. his imagination. Some disagreement taking place with this
gentleman and those who had the superintendence of the college,
he was dismissed, together with young Henderson, who soon after,
at the age of twenty-four years, went to Oxford, was entered of
Pembroke college, and, in due time, took the degree of Bachelor of
Arts. From the time of his entrance into the college, his life passed
with little variety, and no adventure. His thirst after knowledge
appears to have been unabated and unobtruded; he was admired,
and generally respected; and he acquired habits, some of which
brought him into the notice of the world, almost as much as his
talents. Some of these traits of character having been depicted by
one who appears to have known him well, we shall give nearly in the
words of their author, who was also of Pembroke college, and thus
describes Mr. Henderson’s appearance when he was first introduced
to him.
His clothes were made in a fashion peculiar to himself; he wore no
stock nor neckcloth; his buckles were so small as not to exceed the
dimensions of an ordinary knee-buckle, at a time when very large
buckles were in vogue. Though he was then twenty-four years of
age, he wore his hair like a schoolboy of six.
Mr. H.’s temper was mild, placable, and humane. He professed that
he was ready to serve any individual as far as lay in his power. His
benevolence knew no bounds; and his liberality was so diffusive,
that it submitted with difficulty to the circumscription of a narrow
income. He was fond of society, and well qualified to shine in it. He
was frank, open, and communicative, averse to suspicion, and
untinctured with pride and moroseness. His mode of life was
singular. He generally retired to rest about daybreak, and rose in the
afternoon; a practice, however, that was frequently interrupted by
the occasional attendance he was obliged to give to the morning
service of the college chapel. He spent a great part of the day in
smoking; and, except when in company, he usually read while he
smoked.

36. With regard to his moral and religious character, he was a pattern
highly worthy of imitation. He shewed a constant regard to the
obligations of honour and justice; and commended, both by precept
and example, an attention to moral rectitude in all its ramifications.
He had the courage to reprove vice and immorality wherever they
appeared; and though he was sometimes treated on these occasions
with contumely and insult, he bore with a moderation truly christian,
so ill a return for his well-meant endeavours. He was perfectly
acquainted with the religious dogmas of every different sect, and
could readily detect the respective fallacies of each.
His abilities and understanding were eminently conspicuous. His
penetration was so great, as to have the appearance of intuition. So
retentive was his memory, that he remembered whatever he heard;
and this faculty of recollection, combined with a pregnancy of
imagination and solidity of judgment, enabled him to acquire an
amazing fund of erudition and argument, a fund ready at every call,
and adequate to every emergency.
His learning was deep and multifarious. He was admirably skilled in
logic, ethics, metaphysics, and scholastical theology. He had studied
the healing art with particular attention, and added to a sound
theoretic knowledge of it, some degree of practice. His skill in this
art he rendered subservient to his philanthropy; for he gratuitously
attended the valetudinarian poor wherever he resided, and favoured
them with medical advice, as well as pecuniary assistance. He had a
competent knowledge of geometry, astronomy, and every branch of
natural and experimental philosophy. He was well acquainted with
the civil and canon laws, and the law of nature and nations. In
classical learning and the belles lettres, he was by no means
deficient. He was master of the Greek and Latin, as well as of
several modern languages.
He spoke of physiognomy as a science with all the confidence of a
Lavater. He pretended to a knowledge of the occult sciences of
magic and astrology. Whether this was or was not a mere pretence,
we leave to the judgment of the enlightened reader. Suffice it to

37. remark, that his library was well stored with the magical and
astrological books of the last century.
His talents of conversation were so attractive, so various and
multiform, that he was a companion equally acceptable to the
philosopher and the man of the world, to the grave and the gay, the
learned and the illiterate, the young and the old of both sexes.
Henderson, like many other great characters, had his little
peculiarities. The following remarkable custom was frequently
observed by him before he retired to repose:—He used to strip
himself naked as low as the waist, and taking his station at a pump
near his rooms, would completely sluice his head and the upper part
of his body; after which he would pump over his shirt so as to make
it perfectly wet, and putting it on in that condition, would
immediately go to bed. This he jocularly termed “an excellent cold
bath.” The latter part of this ceremony, however, he did not practise
with such frequency as the former.
There is great reason to think that he materially injured a good
natural constitution by the capriciousness of his conduct, and
particularly by the bold and strange experiments which he was
accustomed to be always making upon himself. He used to swallow
large quantities of noxious drugs, and quicksilver; and what seemed
very rash, such doses of opium, like the famous Psalmanazar, as
were apparently sufficient to send a dozen men to the grave.
His external appearance was as singular as his habits of life. He
would never suffer his hair to be strewed with white dust, (to use his
own expression,) daubed with pomatum, or distorted by the curling-
irons of the friseur. Though under two-and-thirty years of age at his
death, he walked, when he appeared in public, with as much
apparent caution and solemnity as if he had been enfeebled by the
co-operation of age and disease.
His learning was truly astonishing: scarcely a book, however
obscure, could be mentioned, but he could give some account of it;

38. nor any subject started, but he could engage in the discussion of it.
He had a very deep and extensive knowledge of the learned
languages; the Arabic and Persian were familiar to him. He delighted
much in parodoxes, and his intimate acquaintance with the
schoolmen brought him much into the habit of disputation. At one
time he was profoundly plunged in the study of the writings of the
illumined Jacob Behmen; and he then, and afterwards, warmly
vindicated the system, if system it may be called, of that wonderful
man.
Many surprising cures, accomplished by means of his prescriptions,
might be produced: one upon a very ingenious and valuable youth in
the neighbourhood of Taunton, deserves notice, as the patient had
been in an alarming decline for the long space of four years, and
seemed just verging to the house appointed for all living. Mr.
Henderson attended him with the utmost assiduity and tenderness,
and saw, at last, his patient in a state of perfect health. The
benevolent man had then a presentiment of his own approaching
change, and addressed himself to his young friend to this effect: “My
young and beloved friend, your cure, in all human probability, is now
certain, and you will live, but I shall die. Remember, to be pious, is
to be happy; to be sober, is to live long; and to practise the moral
virtues, is to become great.”—Mr. Henderson died a few months
after, November 2, 1788. His connections with the Methodists
continued till the last. The late venerable and truly great John
Wesley had a very great regard for him. The father of Mr. Henderson
was for some time one of Mr. Wesley’s itinerant preachers in Ireland,
from whence he came over to Bristol, and soon after settled at
Hanham, a village about four miles from that city, where he set up a
very respectable boarding-school, for the instruction of youth in
classical learning. A few years previous to his death, he left off
keeping school, and opened his house for the reception of insane
persons. The death of his favourite and only child, made a deep and
lasting impression on him; and so strongly was he affected by his
loss, that he caused the corpse to be taken up again some days
after the interment, to be satisfied whether he was really dead. The

39. following is taken from the sermon that was preached by his friend,
Mr. Agutter:—“When we consider the strength of his mind, the
variety of his knowledge, and the excellencies of his soul, we may
justly declare, that he was a truly great character, and an original
genius. The partiality of friendship must give place to the sacredness
of truth; and I do not mean to describe him as a perfect man: his
friends lamented his failings, and he himself sincerely repented of
them. The God of heaven does not require more of his fallen
creatures; and let us remember not to be extreme to mark all that is
done amiss, seeing we have much cause for shame and repentance.
He was a meek sufferer through this world of misery; a sincere and
contrite penitent for time mispent and talents misapplied; an humble
believer in Christ his Saviour. I saw him in his last sufferings; I heard
his last words; he languished under extreme weakness; he laboured
under most grievous pains. He was wonderfully patient and
resigned; for he knew in whom he believed, and his hope was full of
immortality. He prayed with uncommon fervour to his good God,
even to Jesus Christ, in whom all his hopes were placed; and
“without whom,” says he, “heaven would be no heaven to me.”
Death was the wished-for messenger, whom he earnestly expected.
Three days before that awful event, his pulse ceased to beat, and
the sight of his eyes went from him—the last struggle is over; the
bitterness of death is past. There was an humble dignity and
composure in that hour of trial, worthy the man and Christian. Let
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end, or more
properly, my hereafter, be like his.”
 
The next character we shall introduce is a contrast to the former; he
being famous for comprehension of mind, this for bulk of body.
Daniel Lambert, the Fat Man.—This prodigy of corpulence, or obesity,
was born at Leicester, March 13, 1770. He became keeper of the
prison in his native town. He first went to London for exhibition, in
1806, and was visited by persons of all ranks, and was considered
the then wonder of the world. After this he travelled over England,

40. and astonished every beholder by his immense bulk. He was very
polite, shrewd, and well informed. This extraordinary man died at
Stamford, on the 21st of June, 1809. He had travelled from
Huntingdon to that town; and on the Tuesday before his death, he
sent a message to the office of the Stamford newspaper, requesting,
that “as the mountain could not wait upon Mahomet, Mahomet
would go to the mountain;” or, in other words, that the printer would
call upon him, and receive an order for executing some handbills,
announcing Mr. Lambert’s arrival, and his desire to see company in
that town. The orders he gave upon that occasion were delivered
without any presentiment that they were to be his last, and with his
usual cheerfulness; he was then in bed, only fatigued from his
journey, and anxious to be able to see company early in the
morning. However, before nine o’clock, the day following, he was a
corpse. His corpulency had been gradually increasing, until nature
could no longer support it. He was in his 40th year; and upon being
weighed within a few days, by the famous Caledonian balance, in
the possession of Mr. King, of Ipswich, was found to be 52 stone, 11
lbs. in weight, (14 lb. to the stone,) which is 10 stone 11 lb. more
than the great Mr. Bright, of Essex, weighed,—or, 6 cwt. 2 qrs. 11 lb.
He had apartments at Mr. Berridge’s, the Waggon-and-Horses, in St.
Martin’s, on the ground floor, for he had long been incapable of
walking up stairs. His coffin, in which there was great difficulty of
placing him, was six feet four inches long, four feet four inches wide,
and two feet four inches deep. The immense substance of his legs
made it necessarily almost a square case. The celebrated
Sarcophagus of Alexander, viewed with so much admiration at the
British Museum, would not contain this immense sheer hulk. The
coffin, which consisted of 112 superficial feet of elm, was built upon
two axle-trees and four wheels, and upon them the remains of poor
Lambert were rolled into his grave, which was in the new burial
ground at the back of St. Martin’s church. A regular descent was
made by cutting away the earth slopingly, for some distance. The
window and wall of the room in which he lay was taken down, to
allow of his exit.

41.  
Edward Nokes.—This was an extraordinary character, at Hornchurch,
in Essex. He was by trade a tinker, which he followed zealously till
about six weeks before his death. His apartments pourtrayed
symptoms of the most abject poverty, though at his death he was
found to be possessed of between five and six thousand pounds. He
had a wife and several children, which he brought up in the most
parsimonious manner, often feeding them on grains and offals of
meat, which he purchased at reduced prices. He was no less
remarkable in his person and dress; for, in order to save the expense
of shaving, he would encourage the dirt to gather on his face, to
hide in some measure this defect. He never suffered his shirt to be
washed in water, but after wearing it till it became intolerably black,
he used to wash it in urine, to save the expense of soap. His coat,
which time had transformed into a jacket, would have puzzled the
wisest philosopher to make out its original colour, so covered was it
with shreds and patches of different colours, and those so
diversified, as to resemble the trophies of the different nations of
Europe, and it seemed to vie with Joseph’s coat of many colours.
The interest of his money, together with all he could heap up from
his penurious mode of living, he used to deposit in a bag, which bag
was covered up in a tin pot, and then conveyed to a brick kitchen,
where one of the bricks was taken up, and a hole made just large
enough to hold the pot; the brick was then carefully marked, and a
tally kept behind the door, of the sum deposited. One day his wife
discovered this hoard, and, resolving to profit by the opportunity,
took from the pot one, of sixteen guineas that were then placed
therein. Her husband soon discovered the trick, for when he came to
count his money, on finding it not to agree with the tally behind the
door, which his wife did not know of, he taxed her with the theft;
and to the day of his death, even on his death-bed, he never spoke
to her without adding the epithet ‘thief’ to every expression.
In his younger days, he used, at the death of any of his children, to
have a deal box made to put them in; and with out undergoing the

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