i66 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL LIFE.* 



Br PHorEssoR T. II. HUXLEY. 



THE middle of the eighteenth century is illustrated by a host of 

 great names in science — English, French, German, and Italian — 

 especially in the fields of chemistry, geology, and biology ; but this 

 deepening and broadening of natural knowledge produced next to no 

 immediate practical benefits. Even if, at this time, Francis Bacon 

 could have returned to the scene of his greatness and of his littleness, 

 he must have regarded the philosophic world which praised and disre- 

 garded his precepts with great disfavor. If ghosts are consistent, he 

 would have said : " These people are all wasting their time, just as 

 Gilbert and Kepler and Galileo and my worthy physician Harvey 

 did in my day. "Where are the fruits of the restoration of science 

 which I promised ? This accumulation of bare knowledge is all very 

 well, but cui bono ? Not one of these people is doing what I told 

 him specially to do, and seeking that secret of the cause of forms 

 which will enable men to deal, at will, with matter, and superinduce 

 new natures upon the old foundations." 



But, a little later, that growth of knowledge beyond imaginable 

 utilitarian ends, which is the condition precedent of its practical 

 utility, began to produce some effect upon practical life ; and the 

 operation of that part of Nature we call human upon the rest began 

 to create, not "new natures," in Bacon's sense, but a new Nature, the 

 existence of which is dependent upon men's efforts, which is subserv- 

 ient to their wants, and w'hich would disappear if man's shaping and 

 guiding hand were withdrawn. Every mechanical artifice, every 

 chemically pure substance employed in manufacture, every abnor- 

 mally fertile race of plants, or rapidly growing and fattening breed 

 of animals, is a part of the new Nature created by science. AVithout 

 it, the most densely populated regions of modern Europe and Amer- 

 ica must retain their primitive, sparsely inhabited, agricultural or pas- 

 toral condition ; it is the foundation of our wealth and the condition 

 of our safety fi-om submergence by another flood of barbarous hordes ; 

 it is the bond which unites into a solid political whole, regions larger 

 than any empire of antiquity ; it secures us from the recurrence of the 

 pestilences and famines of former times ; it is the source of endless 

 comforts and conveniences, which are not mere luxuries, but conduce 

 to physical and moral -well-being. During the last fifty years, this 

 new birth of time, this new Nature begotten by science upon fact, has 

 pressed itself daily and hourly upon our attention, and has worked 

 miracles which have modified the whole fashion of our lives. 



* From " The Advance of Science in the Last Ilalf-Ccntury." Now York : D. Applcton 

 & Co. 1887. 



