1 68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Far be it from me to depreciate the value of the gifts of science 

 to practical life, or to cast a doubt upon the j^ropriety of the course of 

 action of those Avho follow science in the hope of finding wealth along- 

 side truth, or even wealth alone. Such a profession is as respectable 

 as any other. And quite as little do I desire to ignore the fact that, 

 if industry owes a heavy debt to science, it has largely repaid the loan 

 by the important aid which it has, in its turn, rendered to the advance- 

 ment of science. In considering the causes which hindered the prog- 

 ress of physical knowledge in the schools of Athens and of Alexandria, 

 it has often struck me * that where the Greeks did wonders was in just 

 those branches of science, such as geometry, astronomy, and anatomy, 

 which are susceptible of very considerable development without any, 

 or any but the simplest, appliances. It is a curious speculation to 

 think what would have become of modern physical science if glass 

 and alcohol had not been easily obtainable ; and if the gradual per- 

 fection of mechanical skill for industrial ends had not enabled investi- 

 gators to obtain, at comparatively little cost, microscopes, telescopes, 

 and all the exquisitely delicate apparatus for determining weight and 

 measure, and for estimating the lapse of time with exactness, which 

 they now command. If science has rendered the colossal develop- 

 ment of modern industry possible, beyond a doubt industry has done 

 no less for modern physics and chemistry, and for a great deal of 

 modern biology. And as the captains of industry have, at last, be- 

 gun to be aware that the condition of success in that warfare, under 

 the forms of peace, which is known as industrial competition, lies in 

 the discipline of the troops and the use of arms of precision, just as 

 much as it does in the warfare which is called war, their demand for 

 that discipline, which is technical education, is reacting upon science 

 in a manner which will, assuredly, stimulate its future growth to an 

 incalculable extent. It has become obvious that the interests of sci- 

 ence and of industry are identical ; that science can not make a step 

 forward without, sooner or later, opening up new channels for indus- 

 try ; and, on the other hand, that every advance of industry facilitates 

 those experimental investigations upon which the growth of science 

 depends. We may hope that, at last, the weary misunderstanding 

 between the practical men who professed to despise science, and the 

 high-and-dry philosophers who professed to despise practical results, 

 is at an end. 



Nevertheless, that which is true of the infancy of physical science 

 in the Greek world, that which is true of its adolescence in the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries, remains true of its riper age in these 

 latter days of the nineteenth century. The great steps in its prog- 

 ress have been made, are made, and will be made, by men who seek 



* There are excellent remarks to the same effect in Zeller's " Philosophic der Griechen," 

 Thcil. II, Abth. ii, p. 107, and in Eucken's " Die Methode der Aristotelischen, Forschung," 

 pp. 138, et scq. 



