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 and 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 benefit, 

 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. 

 A a 3 



