THE ENDOWMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 355 



Tyndall has well said, " is as necessary and irresistible as the mo- 

 tion of the tides or the flowing of the Gulf Stream. It is a phase of 

 the energy of Nature, and, as such, is sui'e in due time to compel the 

 recognition of those who now decry its influence and discourage its 

 advance." 



That science is worthy of endowment will be admitted by every 

 one competent to form an opinion. Yet I would remark, at the outset, 

 that the reasons sometimes advanced by students of science in support 

 of this proposition are not of the worthiest, though they may be those 

 best calculated to secure the alliance of the unscientific. Even Tyn- 

 dall has spoken of science as though its chief value resided in its qual- 

 ity as " a source of individual and national might ; " and many have 

 dwelt on its value as a means of adding to material wealth. It would 

 be aflectation to contemn such considerations, but assuredly they do 

 not present the noblest qualities of science, the chief good which sci- 

 ence is competent to work. It is as a potent means of culture that 

 science is worthiest of recognition. The material gain derived from 

 scientific reseai'ch has no doubt been great ; but it has been incal- 

 culably surpassed in value by the change which science has worked 

 and is working in the minds of men. It is, indeed, precisely in this 

 respect that unscientific persons most comjiletely misaptj^rehend the 

 work which science is doing. They attach special value to those 

 things which science is silently but certainly displacing. They are 

 pained by the light which science is pouring on objects that had 

 seemed venerable so long as their defects had been veiled under the 

 gloom of ignorance. They are appalled when science would teach 

 them to displace all false loyalties by the noblest loyalty of all loy- 

 alty to the truth. But the student of science can deal with such errors 

 as he would deal with errors of observation or with untrustworthy ex- 

 periments. He is not concerned to war against them. To be angry 

 with them would be as unscientific as to be angry with gravitation. 

 The true teachings of science will be recognized in due time with 

 results easily foretold. It was predicted that the religion of mercy 

 would bring, not peace, but a sword ; the seemingly stern religion of 

 truth will bring, not a sword, but peace into the world. To recognize 

 the universal reign of law is to perceive the futility of lawlessness, no 

 matter under what high or even sacred names disguised. The culture 

 of man thi'ough the study of truth is the work of science in the future. 

 And scientific research derives incalculably greater value from the 

 fact that it afibrds material for scientific culture than because it may 

 add to national or individual power, or become a means of increasing 

 our store of material wealth. Even the benefits derived from those 

 depai'tments of science which tend most to ameliorate the condition 

 of the masses, great though these benefits unquestionably are, must 

 be esteemed small by compai'ison with those which will hereafter be 

 derived from science as a means of mental and moral culture. 



