for the Advanceme7it of Science. 105 



verified, connected by no known cause, are all that we can dis- 

 cern. Even in those sciences which are considered as having 

 been more successful, as Chemistry, every few years changes the 

 aspect under which the theory presents the facts to our minds, 

 while no theory, as yet, has advanced beyond the mere horn- 

 book of calculation. What is there here of which man can be 

 proud, or from which he can find reason to be presumptuous ? 

 And even if the Discoverers to whom -these sciences owe such 

 progress as they have made — the great men of the present and 

 the past — if they might be elate and confident in the exercise 

 of their intellectual powers, who are we, that we should ape their 

 mental attitudes ? — we, who can but with pain and effort 

 keep a firm hold of the views which they have disclosed ? But 

 it has not been so ; they, the really great in the world of intel- 

 lect, have never had their characters marked with admiration of 

 themselves and contempt of others. Their genuine nobility has 

 ever been superior to those ignoble and low-born tempers. Their 

 views of their own powers and achievements have been sober 

 and modest, because they have ever felt how near their prede- 

 cessors had advanced to what they had done, and what patience 

 and labour their own small progress had cost. Knowledge,l ke 

 wealth, is not likely to make us proud or vain, except when it 

 comes suddenly and unearnt ; and in such a case, it is little to 

 be hoped that we shall use well, or increase, our ill-understood 

 possession. 



Perhaps some of the appearance of over- weening estimation of 

 ourselves and our generation which has been charged against 

 science, has arisen from the natural exultation which men feel at 

 witnessing the successes of art. I need not here dwell upon the 

 distinction of science and art; — of knowledge, and the applica- 

 tion of knowledge to the uses of life ;— of theory and practice. 

 In the success of the mechanical arts there is much that we look 

 at with an admiration mingled with some feeling of triumph ; 

 and this feeling is here natural and blameless. For what is all 

 such art but a struggle ; — a perpetual conflict witli the inertness 

 of matter and its unfitness for our purposes ? And when, in 

 this cxjnflict, we gain some point, it is impossible we should not 

 feel some of the exultation of victory. In all stages of civiliza- 

 tion this temper prevails : from the naked inhabitant of the 



