SCIENCE AS A FACTOR IiV AGRICULTURE. 481 



attempted to do, ceases thereby to be a miracle. The essence of 

 religion is mystery; the sole aim of science is to clear up and 

 thus do away with mysteries — a goal which it is always tending 

 toward but will never reach, for the same reason that an asymp- 

 totic line never meets the curve which it is constantly approach- 

 ing. 



SCIENCE AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE.* 



By M. BEKTHELOT, 



OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 



aULLIVER relates that in the course of his travels he found 

 a curious country which was governed entirely by acad- 

 emies, according to the most exact rules of science and reason. 

 These bodies had attempted to reform the whole social organi- 

 zation. For the superannuated principles of the old and good 

 agriculture, especially, they had substituted ingenious inventions 

 based on modern discoveries. This was a hundred and fifty years 

 ago, when, instead of digging the ground by the old-fashioned 

 processes, machines had been introduced by the aid of which one 

 man could do the work of several. The cultivation of the soil was 

 carried on by new methods, and the history of English agriculture 

 in the eighteenth century shows that the author intended in the 

 romance to criticise by his fable the first attempts at chemical 

 cultivation. Fair weather and rain, according to the satire, did 

 not escape the innovators. The flying island of Laputa, held 

 suspended above any particular point, permitted it to be with- 

 drawn or submitted at will to the action of the sun. In short, the 

 people of this ideal country had everywhere suppressed or cor- 

 rected the action of Nature. The effects of this conduct, says 

 Swift, were not long in making themselves felt. The land was 

 miserably devastated. The people, in rags, lived in ruined huts 

 and were dying of hunger, while they were kept in obedience by 

 terror. 



Such is the view under which the writers of the day regarded 

 the first preludes of scientific agriculture ; and I do not know that 

 there is any need of going very far to find well-informed persons 

 still infected with similar prejudices. But the general opinion 

 has changed ; the benefits derived from science have been such, 

 and they have so transformed society in the nineteenth century, 

 that no enlightened mind would dare to-day to use the ironical 

 language of the author of Gulliver. 



In truth, I am not sure that our great-nephews may not suc- 



* Presidential address before the National Agricultural Society of France, July 6, 1892. 

 vol. xlii. — 32 



