Improving Natural Knowledge 37 



parison I can find for her is, to liken her to such a peasant 

 woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever upward, 

 heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her home; 

 but yet, without effort and without thought, knitting for 

 her children. Now stockings are good and comfortable 5 

 things, and the children will undoubtedly be much the 

 better for them; but surely it would be short-sighted, to 

 say the least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother as a 

 mere stocking-machine a mere provider of physical com- 

 forts ? 10 



However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not 

 a few of them, who take this view of natural knowledge, 

 and can see nothing in the bountiful mother of humanity 

 but a sort of comfort-grinding machine. According to 

 them, the improvement of natural knowledge always has 15 

 been, and always must be, synonymous with no more 

 than the improvement of the material resources and the 

 increase of the gratifications of men. 



Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of 

 mankind, bringing them up with kindness, and, if need 20 

 be, with sternness, in the way they should go, and instruct- 

 ing them in all things needful for their welfare; but a 

 sort of fairy godmother, ready to furnish her pets with 

 shoes of swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omnipotent 

 Aladdin's lamps, so that they may have telegraphs to 25 

 Saturn, and see the other side of the moon, and thank 

 God they are better than their benighted ancestors. 



If this talk were true, I, for one, should not greatly 

 care to toil in the service of natural knowledge. I think 

 I would just as soon be quietly chipping my own flint 30 

 ax, after the manner of my forefathers a few thousand 

 years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of 

 thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But 

 I venture to say that such views are contrary alike to 



