24 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



life. And yet almost every one will admit that the great developments, 

 in the business world and in the medical world originate in such tech- 

 nical discoveries. The public must learn to appreciate that fact and to 

 accept the valuation of scientific results from the hands of the experts 

 and specialists who are in a position to make an intelligent judgment. 

 Take the case of electricity ; consider the extent to which it is used in the 

 commerce of the world at present, and the amount of capital invested 

 in it in one way or another, and then think of its small beginning and the 

 long period of development before it was ready for the world's use. It 

 was forty years from the initial observations made by Galvani upon the 

 cause of the mysterious twitching of frogs muscles brought into contact 

 with pieces of metal, before Faraday made his great discovery that a 

 magnet brought near a coil of wire will arouse in the latter an electrical 

 current, and forty years or more after Faraday's discovery before any 

 really important practical use was made of it. We know now that 

 Faraday's discovery was the beginning from which has sprung all of our 

 great electrical apparatus for generating power. Faraday knew and his 

 scientific contemporaries knew that he had made a great discovery, but 

 who could tell then how great its practical value would be. You remem- 

 ber the story told about him when demonstrating his result before a 

 public audience. One of the ladies in attendance said to him — This is 

 no doubt a very interesting experiment Mr. Faraday, but what use is it? 

 "Madam", said Faraday, "what use is a new-born baby"? The answer 

 was most appropriate. New discoveries in Science have potentialities 

 of usefulness in the practical affairs of life, but whether or not these 

 potentialities will be realized can not be fore-told. 



The duty of the Scientist is to discover any new truths that he may. 

 Every such truth is bound to have some importance and some of them 

 will be of the utmost value to the world. Only by this method can we 

 gain that more perfect knowledge and control of nature's laws which is 

 indispensable to the advancement and preservation of our civilization. 



