GROWTH OF MODERN SCIENCE. 231 



he adds a word which I quote here for the encouragement of 

 the Board of Agriculture, in that career of usefulness, which 

 has thus far grown with its growth, and strengthened with its 

 strength, and which may not pause until its cheering influence 

 is felt throughout the entire domain of practical science. " The 

 Royal Institution," he says, " with other societies of a similar 

 nature, will have the merit of assisting in the dissemination of 

 knowledge, and in the cultivation of a taste for its pursuit; and 

 the advantages arising from the general introduction of phil- 

 osophical studies, and from the adoption of the practical 

 improvements depending on them, will amply repay the labors 

 of those who have been active in the establishment and support 

 of associations so truly laudable." Not, however, in the two 

 centuries preceding this declaration, nor in the half century 

 preceding, but in the short and eventful period which has fol- 

 lowed, have the great achievements been made. The brilliant 

 career of Buffon had just closed ; but Laplace and Cuvier and 

 Davy still lived and made promise of that wonderful march of 

 science, which rose before the mind of Dr. Young, who might 

 now be lost in admiration, before the imposing monument 

 erected upon the foundations laid by his distinguished cotem- 

 poraries. For now it would not be the labors of the great alone 

 which he would be called upon to admire, but that " deliberate 

 and concurring judgment of common minds," as Lord Bacon 

 calls it, which has made science familiar to us all, and has filled 

 the highways and by-ways of society with its life-giving fruits, 

 and the human mind with its invigorating modes of thought. 



And, now, surrounded as we are by all the blessings which 

 science can bestow, and by all the promises which its enthu- 

 siasm can make, we cannot and should not forget the severe and 

 desperate struggles it has been obliged to make in its upward 

 progress. The cruel agony and torture which have visited the 

 religious reformer ; the poverty and contempt and despair 

 which have made death welcome to so many of the sons of 

 genius, whose immortality is now man's great inheritance ; the 

 hard and unequal warfare maintained by those who have fought 

 for human freedom and equality and right, are familiar to us all. 

 But not one such trial alone, but all and more have fallen 

 upon, and harassed and persecuted those who have endeavored, 

 by scientific research, to ameliorate the condition of mankind, 



