THE SCIENTIFIC PIONEER 55 



will be plenty of covetous hands itching for its life 

 in the hope of immediate and instant gain. 



What passes for science with most people is 

 the application of new knowledge to useful purposes. 

 The instinct of self-preservation and of pecuniary 

 gain are powerful guarantees that these will not 

 be neglected. But before you can apply knowledge 

 you must discover it, and this primal discovery has 

 been and must be almost entirely the work of the 

 comparatively few, working without thought or 

 expectation of gain for the love of truth and un- 

 hampered by any pecuniary or practical con- 

 siderations. 



We arrive at this paradox, the truth of which is 

 established by the whole history of science, that 

 though you may foster in a general way the dis- 

 covery of new knowledge, as distinct from the 

 application of these discoveries to utilitarian ends, 

 you cannot command the discovery of any new 

 knowledge in particular. The attitude of the man 

 of science is not that of the technologist or engineer. 

 He sets forth into an unknown land not to 

 discover anything definite, anything of use to 

 anyone, but to discover what there is in the 

 unknown to be discovered, however apparently 

 commonplace and unimportant it may seem. The 

 grander the discovery, the more trivial and utterly 

 useless it often appears at first sight. The com- 

 monest and most ordinary phenomena, to which 

 the eyes of humanity have become so accustomed 

 as to be hardly consciously aware of, frequently 

 furnish the greatest amount of new knowledge. 



In a new country, before the rush of gold-seekers, 

 of lumbermen, or of farmers, must come the pioneer. 

 He cannot command gold or timber or arable land, 

 he finds simply what there is to be found. The 

 new countries of the world are rapidly filling, and 



