The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century | Page 4

fashion of our lives.
[Sidenote: These results often too much regarded;]
What wonder, then, if these astonishing fruits of the tree of knowledge
are too often regarded by both friends and enemies as the be-all and
end-all of science? What wonder if some eulogise, and others revile,
the new philosophy for its utilitarian ends and its merely material
triumphs?
[Sidenote: for scientific research rarely directed to practical ends]
In truth, the new philosophy deserves neither the praise of its eulogists,
nor the blame of its slanderers. As I have pointed out, its disciples were
guided by no search after practical fruits, during the great period of its
growth, and it reached adolescence without being stimulated by any
rewards of that nature. The bare enumeration of the names of the men

who were the great lights of science in the latter part of the eighteenth
and the first decade of the nineteenth century, of Herschel, of Laplace,
of Young, of Fresnel, of Oersted, of Cavendish, of Lavoisier, of Davy,
of Lamarck, of Cuvier, of Jussieu, of Decandolle, of Werner and of
Hutton, suffices to indicate the strength of physical science in the age
immediately preceding that of which I have to treat. But of which of
these great men can it be said that their labors were directed to practical
ends? I do not call to mind even an invention of practical utility which
we owe to any of them, except the safety lamp of Davy. Werner
certainly paid attention to mining, and I have not forgotten James Watt.
But, though some of the most important of the improvements by which
Watt converted the steam-engine, invented long before his time, into
the obedient slave of man, were suggested and guided by his
acquaintance with scientific principles, his skill as a practical
mechanician, and the efficiency of Bolton's workmen had quite as
much to do with the realisation of his projects.
[Sidenote: but instigated by love of knowledge]
In fact, the history of physical science teaches (and we cannot too
carefully take the lesson to heart) that the practical advantages,
attainable through its agency, never have been, and never will be,
sufficiently attractive to men inspired by the inborn genius of the
interpreter of nature, to give them courage to undergo the toils and
make the sacrifices which that calling requires from its votaries. That
which stirs their pulses is the love of knowledge and the joy of the
discovery of the causes of things sung by the old poets--the supreme
delight of extending the realm of law and order ever farther towards the
unattainable goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely small,
between which our little race of life is run. In the course of this work,
the physical philosopher, sometimes intentionally, much more often
unintentionally, lights upon something which proves to be of practical
value. Great is the rejoicing of those who are benefited thereby; and,
for the moment, science is the Diana of all the craftsmen. But, even
while the cries of jubilation resound and this floatsam and jetsam of the
tide of investigation is being turned into the wages of workmen and the
wealth of capitalists, the crest of the wave of scientific investigation is

far away on its course over the illimitable ocean of the unknown.
[Sidenote: It is in its turn assisted by industrial improvements.]
Far be it from me to depreciate the value of the gifts of science to
practical life, or to cast a doubt upon the propriety of the course of
action of those who follow science in the hope of finding wealth
alongside truth, or even wealth alone. Such a profession is as
respectable as any other. And quite as little do I desire to ignore the fact
that, if industry owes a heavy debt to science, it has largely repaid the
loan by the important aid which it has, in its turn, rendered to the
advancement of science. In considering the causes which hindered the
progress of physical knowledge in the schools of Athens and of
Alexandria, it has often struck me[A] that where the Greeks did
wonders was in just those branches of science, such as geometry,
astronomy, and anatomy, which are susceptible of very considerable
development without any, or any but the simplest, appliances. It is a
curious speculation to think what would have become of modern
physical science if glass and alcohol had not been easily obtainable;
and if the gradual perfection of mechanical skill for industrial ends had
not enabled investigators to obtain, at comparatively little cost,
microscopes, telescopes, and all the exquisitely delicate apparatus for
determining weight and measure and for estimating the lapse of time
with exactness, which they now command. If science has rendered the
colossal development of modern industry possible, beyond a doubt
industry