66 + THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Government nor the people governed could go on in simple faith 

 on our practical aptitudes by relying on a blind and vain empiricism, 

 like a tree severed from its roots. 



The Earl of Derby. "My Lords and Gentlemen: You have 

 asked me to return thanks on behalf of the public services in connec- 

 tion with science, and Sir L. Playfair, in relation to that toast, has re- 

 ferred to the increased consumption of soap in this country. I have 

 attended a good many public dinners, and I must say that the expen- 

 diture of what is vulgarly called soft soap has been great this even- 

 ing. I am sincerely grateful to him for the quantity of that article 

 which it has pleased him to expend upon me. But really the toast is 

 one which hardly any man is competent to do justice to, and certainly 

 not one who, like myself, has no connection with science, except a 

 sincere admiration and respect for its professors, and whose con- 

 nection with the public service has only been that of a parliamentary 

 chief. Under our system the parliamentary head of a department is 

 mainly concerned to keep it in harmony with the House of Commons 

 and with the public. He has to warn the permanent officials that 

 something that is done, or something that is left undone, or proposed 

 to be left undone, is what public opinion will resent ; and, on the other 

 hand, he has to tell outsiders that the things they ask him and press 

 him to do are things unwise or impossible from an administrative 

 point of view. That is useful ; it is certainly laborious, and it is often 

 a difficult function ; but it does not involve much more scientific 

 knowledge than is implied in driving a cab through a crowded street. 

 It does require some knowledge of men, but that is a department of 

 study to which, as yet, no scientific formula has been found to apply. 

 Sir L. Playfair told us, and I was sorry to hear it, of the loose con- 

 nections which exist between science and the Government. I can only 

 say that I am entirely ignorant of any such immoral transactions. But 

 if the departments were better represented here, and if they could 

 speak for themselves, I am sure that they would not be backward in 

 acknowledging their obligations to science. The Treasury would tell 

 you that those useful though sometimes ungraceful coins in which our 

 dinner is paid for would not circulate through Europe as they do if 

 they had not been subjected to a careful and complicated process, re- 

 quiring scientific knowledge. The Excise might tell you, if they chose, 

 of the frauds that might be perpetrated upon the revenue and the pub- 

 lic if it were not for the careful and scientific examination of all tax- 

 able articles. The Post-Office would find no difficulty in acknowledg- 

 ing its obligations to TVatt and to Stephenson for where would postal 

 revenue be without railways ? and in later days to investigators whose 

 researches made the telegraph possible. But the fighting departments, 

 or the spending departments, which is their more common name in 

 Downing Street, would have the most to return thanks for. They 



