94 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



it is not the less true that in the case of wearing ap- 

 parel and this for reasons which I have given in 

 analysing the experiment of Franklin black dresses 

 are more potent than white ones as absorbers of solar 

 heat. 



Thus, in brief outline, have been brought before 

 you a few of the results of recent enquiry. If you ask 

 me what is the use of them, I can hardly answer you, 

 unless you define the term use. If you meant to ask 

 whether those dark rays which clear away the Alpine 

 snows, will ever be applied to the roasting of turkeys, 

 or the driving of steam-engines while affirming their 

 power to do both, I would frankly confess that they 

 are not at present capable of competing profitably with 

 coal in these particulars. Still they may have great 

 uses unknown to me; and when our coal-fields are ex- 

 hausted, it is possible that a more ethereal race than we 

 are may cook their victuals, and perform their work, 

 in this transcendental way. But is it necessary that 

 the student of science should have his labours tested 

 by their possible practical applications? What is the 

 practical value of Homer's Iliad? You smile, and pos- 

 sibly think that Homer's Iliad is good as a means of 

 culture. There's the rub. The people who demand 

 of science practical uses, forget, or do not know, that 

 it also is great as a means of culture that the knowl- 

 edge of this wonderful universe is a thing profitable in 

 itself, and requiring no practical application to justify 

 its pursuit. 



But while the student of Nature distinctly refuses 

 to have his labours judged by their practical issues, un- 

 less the term practical be made to include mental as 

 well as material good, he knows full well that the 

 greatest practical triumphs have been episodes in the 

 search after pure natural truth. The electric telegraph 



