SPECIAL CLAIMS OF NATURAL HISTORY. 357 
were developed, is too notorious to be disputed: 
for the discovery and the application of a new 
principle requires very different powers of mind. 
He who achieved the first, may die in poverty and 
obscurity ; while the other may gain enormous 
wealth aud popular applause. Nevertheless, it is 
quite obvious that, comparatively to many others, 
mineralogy is more independent of national patron- 
age for its successful prosecution than either botany 
or zoology. Not, indeed, that it requires less ab- 
straction of thought, or a less devoted prosecution, 
but simply on the ground that its knowledge may 
be turned to practical and pecuniary account. But 
with botany and zoology the case is for different. 
Omitting the occasional discovery of a vegetable 
(like the Peruvian bark), or an animal (like the 
cochineal), whose qualities prove of universal benetit, 
a knowledge of these departments can be but rarely 
and indirectly applied to the ordinary wants of the 
community; and it is a maxim of the vulgar to 
esteem every acquirement of this sort, in propor- 
tion to the direct benefit it confers on their own 
interests. Yet because horticulture, which has no 
other object than animal sense, is thought to be a 
part of botanical science, the study of plants is 
more honoured than that of animals, and professor- 
ships are instituted for its advancement. Were 
these more numerous, or were they not strictly con- 
fined to members of those universities where they 
exist, they would, indeed, offer to our veteran 
botanists the same chance of reward which en- 
courages an adventurer in the lottery, where there 
is one “ capital prize” to about a thousand blanks. 
AA 3 
