288 PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



plans of a methodical and organised combination of 

 society for this purpose i has never been even attempted 

 to realise. If the nations of the earth were to employ, 

 for the promotion of human knowledge, a small fraction 

 only of the means, the wealth, the ingenuity, the energy, 

 the combination which they have employed in every age 

 for the destruction of human life and of human means of 

 enjoyment, we might soon find that what we hitherto 

 knew is little compared with what man has the power of - 

 knowing. If we were to conceive a universal and perpetual 

 peace to be established among the nations of the earth ; 

 further, that those nations should employ all their powers 

 and means in fully unfolding the intellectual and moral 

 capacities of their members by early education, constant 

 teaching, and ready help in all ways ; we might then, 

 perhaps, look forward to a state of the earth in which it 

 should be inhabited, not indeed by a being exalted above 

 man, but by man exalted above himself as he now is.' l 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



MOTIVES FOR PURSUING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



Let us intelligently draw near unto God, 



Is the sentiment really involved 



In the pursuit, discovery, and practice of Truth. 



WHY do men make scientific researches and discoveries ? 

 The motives of a pursuit are determined by the kind of 

 good result or reward it is expected to yield ; there can be 



1 Whewell, The Plurality of Worlds, pp. 276, 277. 



