394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



over us so insensibly that some degree of abstraction and keen observa- 

 tion is needed in order to detect it. This danger has already often 

 been pointed out with apprehension ; in fact, it is a very common thing 

 to speak of the state of affairs from which it results as being one of the 

 evils of our time ; but yet it is not always clearly perceived that we 

 have here to do with a necessary consequence of the progress of civiliza- 

 tion as set forth in the preceding considerations. 



When cultivated one-sidedly, natural science, like every other form 

 of activity under the same conditions, narrows the mental horizon. 

 Under such circumstances natural science confines our vision to what 

 lies nearest to us, what is palpable, what can be directly apprehend- 

 ed with apparent certitude by the senses. It turns the mind away 

 from more general and less positive considerations, and disaccustoms 

 it to act in the region of the quantitatively indeterminable. In a cer- 

 tain sense we hold this to be a priceless advantage for natural science ; 

 but, where this tendency dominates exclusive^, it is not to be denied 

 that the mind becomes poorer in ideas, the fancy in images, the heart 

 in sentiment, and the result is a narrowness, a dryness, and a hardness 

 of mental constitution, abandoned by the Muses and Graces. Again, 

 it is a peculiarity of natural science that on the one hand it has a part 

 in the highest aspirations of the human soul, while on the other by 

 insensible gradations it passes into handicraft, into activities whose 

 sole end is lucre. Under the ever-rising demands of every-day life, a 

 steady deviation in the latter direction is inevitable. That side of 

 scientific activity which has to do with the useful arts is ever, unnoticed, 

 coming more and more into the foreground ; generation after genera- 

 tion find themselves more and more bent on caring for material inter- 

 ests. Even the universal participation in the over-estimated benefits 

 of political life diminishes the respect for ideas. Amid the unrest 

 which has taken possession of the civilized world, men's minds live as 

 it were from hand to mouth. Who now has the time or the inclination 

 to go down into the deep well of truth, to plunge into the sea of the 

 Ever Fair? Education nowadays, too often an unorganized patch- 

 work, consists of individual facts plucked up by the roots, so to speak, 

 useful it is true, but dry and crude. Few now are concerned about the 

 mode in which the truth has been discovered, or about the relations be- 

 tween things perceivable only in reascending to their origin to say 

 nothing of the charm of perfect form. Art and literature prostitute 

 themselves to the gross and variable taste of the multitude, swayed 

 hither and thither by the daily newspaper. Where fame lasts only for 

 a day, one of the noblest incitements of human nature the thought 

 of being famous after death ceases to have any effect. Hence the 

 decay of intellectual production, which brings forth imperishable mas- 

 terpieces only when the mind gives itself to its work with whole- 

 hearted devotion and with patient fidelity. And if, as Fontenelle has 

 said, industry is indebted for its quickening impulse mostly to pure 



