THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 571 



necessary light. In fact, though the statement may appear paradoxi- 

 cal, it is entirely because of its enormous actual temperature that the 

 electric light seems so cool. It is this temperature that renders the 

 proportion of luminous to non-luminous heat greater in the electric 

 light than in our brightest flames. The electric light, moreover, re- 

 quires no air to sustain it. It glows in the most perfect air-vacuum. 

 Its light and heat are therefore not purchased at the expense of the 

 vitalizing constituent of the atmosphere. It sheds its light without 

 vitiating the air. 



Two orders of minds have been implicated in the development of 

 this subject : first, the investigator and discoverer, whose object is 

 purely scientific, and who cares little for practical ends ; secondly, the 

 practical mechanician, whose object is mainly industrial. It would be 

 easy, and probably in many cases true, to say that the one wants to 

 gain knowledge, while the other wants to make money ; but I am per- 

 suaded that the mechanician not unfrequently merges the hope of 

 profit in the love of his work. Members of each of these classes are 

 sometimes scornful toward those of the other. There is, for example, 

 something superb in the disdain with which Cuvier hands over the dis- 

 coveries of pure science to those who apply them : " Your grand prac- 

 tical achievements are only the easy apjolication of truths not sought 

 with a practical intent — truths which their discoverers pursued for their 

 own sake, impelled solely by an ardor for knowledge. Those who 

 turned them into practice could not have discovered them, while those 

 who discovered them had neither the time nor the inclination to pursue 

 them to a practical result. Your rising workshops, your peopled colo- 

 nies, your vessels Avhich furrow the seas ; this abundance, this luxury, 

 this tumult" — "this commotion," he would have added, were he now 

 alive, " regarding the electric light " — " all come from discoverers in 

 science, though all remain strange to them. The day that a discovery 

 enters the market they abandon it ; it concerns them no more." 



In writing thus Cuvier probably did not sufficiently take into account 

 the reaction of the applications of science upon science itself. The im- 

 provement of an old instrument or the invention of a new one is often 

 tantamount to an enlargement and refinement of the senses of the sci- 

 entific investigator. Beyond this, the amelioration of the community 

 is also an object worthy of the best efforts of the human brain. Still, 

 assuredly it is well and wise for a nation to bear in mind that those 

 practical applications which strike the public eye, and excite public 

 admiration, are the outgrowth of long-antecedent labors begun, con- 

 tinued, and ended under the operation of a purely intellectual stimulus. 

 " Few," says Pasteur, " seem to comprehend the real origin of the mar- 

 vels of industry and the wealth of nations. I need no other proof of 

 this than the frequent employment in lectures, speeches, and official 

 language of the erroneous expression, ' applied science.' A statesman 



