496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Man understands without any effort that a bird in the hand is worth 

 two in the bush, and that it is still more useful when leaving the spit. 

 It is needless to tell you that first the sportsman and then the cook 

 has added a surplus value to the bird. If I put before you a ton of 

 pig-iron, worth fifty francs, and then a ton of fine needles, worth nine- 

 ty thousand, you will instantly see the enormous supplement of utility 

 which the work of men has added to the metal. 



But there are other benefits of which the utility is not as directly 

 visible to our eyes, though it be at least as great. An impalpable, in- 

 visible, imponderable idea is often more useful than a mountain of 

 benefits clear to the naked eye. Man is a thinking body ; his hands 

 have done much to render the earth habitable, but his brain has done 

 a hundred times more. 



Suppose that a great manufacturer had converted a thousand million 

 pounds of iron into steel. "Would he have performed as much useful- 

 ness in his life as the discoverer of cementation, as he who has put it 

 within the reach of all men to convert iron into steel ? He who should 

 transport a mountain ten miles would produce less utility than the dis- 

 coverer of the lever. For, by teaching us a simple law of mechanics 

 we have been put in a position to transport a hundred mountains, if 

 we please, with less outlay and effort. An economy is thus rendered 

 possible which will profit all men who have been and may be born. 



If Pascal had said to the men of his day, " I am rich, I possess a 

 hundred miles of pasturage around Montevideo, and a thousand ves- 

 sels on the Atlantic ; I have caused half a million of horses to be trans- 

 ported hither, which I present to you, and which will work for you till 

 their deaths," Pascal would have been less useful to the human race 

 than on the day when, in his study, he invented the wheel-barrow. 



Studious men, by a series of discoveries, superinduced the one upon 

 the other, have given to us all the machines which abridge and facili- 

 tate labor. England alone possesses a hundred millions of horse-power 

 which work for the profit of thirty millions of men. 



The history of civilization may be summarized in nine words : the 

 more one knows, the more one can perform. 



In proportion as scienoe and reasoning simplify production, the 

 quantity of benefits produced tends to increase without augmentation 

 of expense ; work done helps the work to be done. The tools of the 

 human race are nothing else than a collection of ideas. All levers are 

 worn out in the long-run, and all wheel-barrows also ; steam-engines 

 are not everlasting, but the idea remains, and enables us indefinitely 

 to replace the material which perishes. It follows from this that the 

 first of useful things for man, is man himself. 



You are of the greater use to yourself the more you are instructed, 

 rendered better, and, so to speak, more perfect. The development of 

 your personal faculties also enables you to be more useful to others, 

 and to obtain from them greater services through reciprocity. 



