PURE AND APPLIED SCIENCE in 



whereby it may be rendered of greater service both 

 to the State and to the human race. 



Inasmuch as, according to the conservative 

 estimate of Locke, half the quarrels of mankind 

 are quarrels about words, it is necessary to define 

 the terms which our several tasks compel us to 

 employ. In the present case it is the more neces- 

 sary in that the title of this essay "The Science of 

 Botany and the Art of Intensive Cultivation," seems 

 to suggest a sharp antithesis between what are 

 known as pure and applied science. There is no 

 such antithesis. Pure and applied science differ 

 not in method but in aim. Pure science pursues 

 knowledge in order to minister to the general 

 and ultimate wants of mankind; applied science 

 pursues it in order to minister to the special and 

 immediate wants of mankind. They both observe 

 the same rules of the chase; both hunt the same 

 forest. The only difference between them is that 

 whereas pure science seeks ever to pursue its 

 hunting in regions wherein no trapper has set 

 foot, applied science awaits with gun and snare 

 the quarry driven by pure science. 



But if the beaters are few or inexpert and 

 fail to rouse all the game of the forest the guns 

 must do their own beating. Then will the bag be 

 leaner. Although it is the function of pure science 

 to pursue knowledge without regard to the in- 

 dustrial or social uses to which the knowledge it 

 seeks may be put, it is under no prohibition to 



