THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 243 



desired practically useful discoveries would not 

 be made if researches obnoxious to the fatal ques- 

 tion cui bono were to be uniformly avoided. . . . 

 Oersted would never have made his great dis- 

 covery of the action of galvanic currents on mag- 

 nets had he stopped in his researches to consider 

 in what manner they could possibly be turned to 

 practical account; and so we should not now 

 be able to boast of the wonders done by the elec- 

 tric telegraph. Indeed, no great law in Natural 

 Philosophy has ever been discovered for its 

 practical applications, but the instances are in- 

 numerable of investigations apparently quite 

 useless, in this narrow sense of the word, which 

 have led to the most valuable results." 



Dr. A. E. Shipley has recently called attention 

 to two diagrammatic illustrations of our theme. 

 "A few years ago no knowledge could seem more 

 useless to the practical man, no search more 

 futile than that which sought to distinguish be- 

 tween one species of gnat or tick and another; 

 yet that knowledge has rendered it possible to 

 open up Africa and to cut the Panama Canal. 

 This witness," Mr. F. A. Dixey remarks, "is 

 true; and it would be difficult to point to a more 

 complete demonstration of the fact that natural 

 knowledge, pursued for its own sake, without 

 any direct view to future utility, will often lead 

 to results of the most unexpected kind and of 



