244 ^^^ POPULAR SCIUNCE MONTHLY. 



steam has become the circulatory and electricity the nervous system. 

 The colonies, being young countries, value their raw materials as their 

 chief sources of wealth. When they become older they will discover 

 it is not on these, but on the culture of scientific intellect, that their 

 future prosperity depends. Older nations recognize this as the law of 

 progress more than we do ; or, as Jules Simon tersely puts it, " That 

 nation which most educates her people will become the greatest nation, 

 if not to-day, certainly to-morrow." Higher education is the condi- 

 tion of higher prosperity, and the nation which neglects to develop 

 the intellectual factor of production must degenerate, for it can not 

 stand still. If we felt compelled to adopt the test of science given by 

 Comte, that its value must be measured by fecundity, it might be pru- 

 dent to claim industrial inventions as the immediate fruit of the tree 

 of science, though only fruit which the prolific tree has shed. But 

 the test is untrue in the sense indicated, or rather the fruit, according 

 to the simile of Bacon, is like the golden apples which Aphrodite gave 

 to the suitor of Atalanta, who lagged in his course by stooping to pick 

 them up, and so lost the race. The true cultivators of the tree of sci- 

 ence must seek their own reward by seeing it flourish, and let others 

 devote their attention to the possible practical advantages which may 

 result from their labors. 



There is, however, one intimate connection between science and 

 industry which I hope will be more intimate as scientific education 

 becomes more prevalent in our schools and universities. Abstract 

 science depends upon the support of men of leisure, either themselves 

 possessing or having provided for them the means of living without 

 entering into the pursuits of active industry. The pursuit of science 

 requires a superfluity of wealth in a community beyond the needs of 

 ordinary life. Such superfluity is also necessary for art, though a pict- 

 ure or a statue is a salable commodity, while an abstract discovery in 

 science has no immediate or, as regards the discoverer, proximate 

 commercial value. In Greece, when philosophical and scientific specu- 

 lation was at its highest point, and when education was conducted in 

 its own vernacular and not through dead languages, science, industry, 

 and commerce were actively prosperous. Corinth carried on the manu- 

 factures of Birmingham and Sheffield, while Athens combined those 

 of Leeds, Staffordshire, and London, for it had woolen manufactures, 

 potteries, gold and silver work, as well as ship-building. Their phi- 

 losophers were the sons of burghers, and sometimes carried on the 

 trades of their fathers. Thales was a traveling oil-merchant, who 

 brought back science as well as oil from Egypt. Solon and his great 

 descendant, Plato, as well as Zeno, were men of commerce, Socrates 

 was a stone-mason ; Thucydides a gold-miner ; Aristotle kept a drug- 

 gist's shop until Alexander endowed him with the wealth of Asia. All 

 but Socrates had a superfluity of wealth, and he was supported by 

 that of others. Now, if our universities and schools created that love 



