Till' nco[i)ini)igs of A)iicricaii Sciciicc. 435 



were never to expect to %o beyond them in real science. This was the real t^round 

 t)f all the attacks on yon; those who live by mystery and charlalanerit' fearinj.^ yon 

 would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sub- 

 lime and benevolent but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored 

 to crush your well-earned and well-deserved fame.' 



XIII. 



With the close of the fir.st decade ended tlie first third of a century 

 since the Declaration of Independence. We have now passed in review 

 a con.siderable number of illustrious names and have noted the inception 

 of many worth>- undertakings. 



"Still, however," in the words of vSilliman, " although individtials were 

 enlightened, no serious impression was produced on the public mind; a 

 few lights were indeed held out but they were lights twinkling in an 

 almost imperviotis gloom." 



This was a state of affairs not peculiar to America. A gloom no less 

 oppressive had long obscured the intellectual atmosphere of the Old 

 World. There were a goodly number of men of science, and many impor- 

 tant discoveries were being made, but no bonds had yet been formed to 

 connect the interests of the men of .science and the men of affairs. 



Speculative .science, in the nature of things, can only interest and 

 attract .scholarly men, and though its results, concisely and attractively 

 stated, may have a passing interest to a certain portion of every commu- 

 nity, it is only by its practical applications that it secures the hearty 

 support of the community at large. 



Huxley, in his recent discourse upon The Advance of Science in the 

 la.st Half Century,^ has touched upon this subject in a most suggestive 

 and instructive manner, and has shown that Bacon, with all his wisdom, 

 exerted little direct beneficial influence upon the advancement of natural 

 knowledge, which has after all been chiefly forwarded by men like Galileo 

 and Harvey, Boyle and Newton, " who would have done their w^ork quite 

 as well if neither Bacon nor Descartes had ever propounded their views 

 respecting the manner in which scientific investigation should be 

 pursued." 



I think we should look upon Bacon as the prophet of modern scientific 

 thought, rather than its founder. It is no doubt true, as Huxley has 

 said, that his ' ' scientific insight ' ' was not sufficient to enable him to shape 

 the future cour.se of scientific philosophy, but it is scarcely true that he 

 attached any undue value to the practical advantages which the world 

 as a whole and incidentally .science itself were to reap from the applica- 

 tions of scientific methods to the investigation of nature. 



'JeflFerson's Works (edited by T. J. Randolph), 1830, III, p. 461. 

 . = American Journal of vScience, I, 1819, 37. 



3T. H. Wood, The Reign of Victoria; a survey of Fifty Years of Progress. 

 London, 1887. 



