232 ON THE RELATION OF THE 



of industry, wealth, tlie comforts of life, and to tlie improvement of the 

 political organization and the moral development of her citizens. Of 

 course, we must not ask for immediate, apparent benefit, as the unedu- 

 cated are so apt to do. Everything that gives us information concern- 

 ing the forces of nature or the powers of the human mind is valuable, 

 and will ultimately prove useful, often when we least expect it. Who 

 could have thought when Galvani touched the thighs of frogs with dif- 

 ferent metals and saw them twitch, that eighty years later, Europe 

 would be traversed by wires, carrying news with the rapidity of light- 

 ning from Madrid to St. Petersburg by means of the same agency, 

 whose first indications that anatomist observed? Electric currents in 

 his and at first also in Volta's hands, were of the feeblest kind, and 

 could only be perceived by the most delicate instruments. If their in- 

 vestigation had then been abandoned because it was unpromising, the 

 most important and interesting connection between the natural forces 

 would to-day be wanting. When young Galileo, while a student at Pisa, 

 observed a swinging lamp in church, and found by counting his pulse 

 that the duration of the oscillations was independent ot the size of the 

 arc, who could have foreseen that by means of this discovery we would 

 obtain clocks measuring time with an accuracy then deemed impossible, 

 and which would enable the mariner, tossed by storms on the remotest 

 waters of the earth, to determine his longitude"? 



He who expects an immediate practical benefit in his study of science, 

 may be pretty sure that his pursuit will be in vain. Perfect knowledge 

 and understanding of the action of the powers of nature and mind are 

 all that science can attain. The individual investigator must find suffi- 

 cient reward in the pleasure of making new discoveries, victories of 

 thought over refractory matter ; in the aesthetical beauty afforded by 

 well-ordered knowledge, where a perfect (connection exists between all 

 its parts and the whole shows the controlling power of the mind; and 

 in the consciousness of having contributed to the ever-increasing stock 

 of knowledge on which the dominion of man over inimical force depends. 

 He cannot, indeed, expect always to find appreciation and reward ade- 

 quate to the value of his works. It is true that many a one to whose 

 memory a monument has been erected, would have been lia])py had he 

 received the tenth part of its cost in money during his lifetime. But we 

 must also remember that the value of scientific discovery is much more 

 readily and cheerfully appreciated by public opinion than formerly, and 

 that cases where authors of material scientific progress are allowed to 

 suffer want have become more and more rare ; that, on the contrai-y, the 

 governments and people of Europe have recognized the duty of com- 

 pensating prominent men of science by corresponding positions or na- 

 tional rewards pnnided especially for the jjurpose. 



The sciences have then a common cause: to make the mind rule the 

 world. While the mental sciences work directly to make intellectual 

 life richer and more interesting, to separate the,pure from the impure, 



