XLVI THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
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The conception of the harmony of nature is one to which science 
frequently appeals. In seeking the explanation of a phenomenon, we 
often look to the analogy of other phenomena, possibly not directly 
related to it, to suggest a reason. While the analogy is not sufficient 
alone, for the explanation suggested must be thoroughly tested other- 
wise, why should we expect an analogy to be useful in this way unless 
on account of the omnipresent harmony? 
Again, why do we always look for, and accept, the simplest explana- 
tion, that is, the explanation which seems to our minds to be the 
simplest? The argument for the cosmogony of Copernicus against 
Ptolemy’s was that it was simpler. Kepler’s ellipses superseded the 
cycles and epicycles because they were simpler. We make our minds 
the measure of nature when we refuse to accept the fact of attraction 
between distant bodies, without looking for some mechanical means 
by which the pull may be transmitted; we reject the notion of action 
at a distance because it is inconceivable to us. Our minds are developed 
and trained by experience through our senses, and by reasoning upon 
the matters which our senses present to us; yet we confidently apply 
our reason to things which are beyond our narrow bounds of sense. 
What is our justification in this unless we feel that the harmony of 
nature is due to the operation of reason, the manifestation of a Mind, 
of which our minds are in some sort the likeness? The appeal to reason 
as an explanation of phenomena is more than a mere working hypo- 
thesis: it is rather a postulate of science. 
The value of science is therefore not confined to material achieve- 
ments, but is also intellectual and ethical. As Bacon predicted, science 
has endowed mankind not only with “new inventions,” but also with 
“riches,” the riches of the understanding. These riches have been the 
first thought in all truescience. To him who seeks first for the under- 
standing heart, like Solomon, all other things are added. 
If these things are so, the progress of science is of high importance 
to all, and it is worth while to consider whether it may be aided, and 
how. 
Many divide science into two parts, abstract science and applied 
science, and argue that the former is useless, because all useful principles 
have already been discovered. They say that all that is needed is 
applications to the useful arts and the professions, and that provision 
for technical education to this end is the whole duty and the whole 
interest of the community in the matter. 
The distinction between abstract and applied science is not a very 
definite one. As has been shown in the foregoing the methods are the 
same, at least when an application of Science means anything more than 
the producing of an exact copy of a thing which some one has made 
