^54 SCIENCE. [x. 



like virtue, its own exceeding great reward. I can 

 conceive few human states more enviable than that of 

 the man to whom, panting in the foul laboratory, or 

 watching for his life under the tropic forest, Isis shall 

 for a moment lift her sacred veil, and show him, once 

 and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of ; some law, 

 or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact ; but 

 explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them 

 all with each other and with the mighty whole, till 

 order and meaning shoots through some old Chaos of 

 scattered observations. 



Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give, 

 nor poverty take away ? What it may lead to, he 

 knows not. Of what use it may become, he knows not. 

 But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead; of 

 some use it will be. For it is a truth; and having 

 found a truth, he has exorcised one more of the ghosts 

 which haunt humanity. He has left one object less 

 for man to fear; one object more for man to use. 

 Yes, the scientific man may have this comfort, that 

 whatever he has done, he has done good ; that he is 

 following a mistress who has never yet conferred aught 

 but benefits on the human race. 



What physical science may do hereafter I know not; 

 but as yet she has done this : 



She has enormously increased the wealth of the 

 human race; and has therefore given employment, 

 food, existence, to millions who, without science, would 

 either have starved or have never been born. She 

 has shown that the dictum of the early political 

 economists, that population has a tendency to increase 

 faster than the means of subsistence, is no law of 

 humanity, but merely a tendency of the barbaric and 



