ARTIFICIAL OYSTER CULTURE. 1123 



There is a very general tendency among men whose 

 occupations are of a commercial character to undervalue 

 the work of scientific inquiry, not only in regard to such 

 matters as fisheries and fish-culture, but also in relation to 

 manufacturing industries, agriculture, mining, and even in 

 relation to medicine. To a large extent this arises from a 

 misconception as to the real nature and character of what 

 is called " science." Science is the knowledge of causes ; 

 its method and purpose when strictly pursued lead to the 

 accumulation and arrangement of thorough and accurate 

 knowledge of any given subject to which it may be applied, 

 with a certainty and an abundance which no other method 

 and no other purpose can give. Undoubtedly the latest 

 scientific knowledge of a subject is very usually not im- 

 mediately useful to those who are engaged in applying 

 commercial enterprise to the same subject. It is however 

 to be noted, over and over again, that the scientific disco- 

 very of one generation becomes the necessary foundation of 

 some valuable commercial enterprise in the next : what was 

 at one time a curiosity and of little interest, save to men of 

 science, becomes after fifty years the pivot of some great 

 industrial manufacture. 



Accordingly commercial men, and those who place the 

 material well-being of this country beyond all things as an 

 object to be continually striven for, should have patience 

 in the presence of what seem to be the useless accumulations 

 of knowledge ; they should have faith in the ultimate utility 

 of science, for already throughout the length and breadth of 

 the land this cause-reaching knowledge, which we call 

 " science," has proved its enormous power of aiding com- 

 merce, and has amply established its claim to not merely 



toleration but to eager and generous support from those 



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