x.] SOLDIERS OF SCIENCE. 253 



bring to mankind ; while the great majority, unpaid 

 and unknown, toil on, and have to find in science her 

 own reward. Better, perhaps, that it should be so. 

 Better for science that she should be free, in holy 

 poverty, to go where she will and say what she knows, 

 than that she should be hired out at so much a year to 

 say things pleasing to the many, and to those who 

 guide the many. And so, I verily believe, the majority 

 of scientific men think. There are those among them 

 who have obeyed very faithfully St. Paul's precept : 

 " No man that warreth entangleth himself with the 

 affairs of this life." For they have discovered that 

 they are engaged in a war a veritable war against 

 the rulers of darkness, against ignorance and its twin 

 children, fear and cruelty. Of that war they see 

 neither the end nor even the plan. But they are 

 ready to go on; ready, with Socrates, " to follow reason 

 whithersoever it leads ; " and content, meanwhile, 

 like good soldiers in a campaign, if they can keep 

 tolerably in a line, and use their weapons, and see a few 

 yards ahead of them through the smoke and the woods. 

 They will come out somewhere at last ; they know not 

 where nor when : but they will come out at last, into 

 the daylight and the open field; and be told then 

 perhaps to their own astonishment as many a gallant 

 soldier has been told, that by simply walking straight 

 on, and doing the duty which lay nearest them, they 

 have helped to win a great battle, and slay great 

 giants, earning the thanks of their country and of 

 mankind. 



And, meanwhile, if they get their shilling a- day of 

 fighting-pay, they are content. I had almost said, they 

 ought to be content. For science is, I verily believe, 



